Many of us were fooled into thinking that Young Eleven on Stranger Things season 4 was CGI. After all, the resemblance was uncanny. It was impossible to attain such accuracy without some CGI but well the Duffer brothers did. They cast a young girl, Martie Blair. And what could stop them from doing that again? It was unwise of us to think that they used CGI for the monster when they mentioned time and again how they loved practical effects and prosthetics. And now it’s revealed that the terrifying humanoid, Vecna isn’t made using CGI at all. It was all Jamir Campbell Bower who portrayed Vecna as well as his human form! 

How did they create Vecna? 

The Duffer brothers loved the work of Barrie Gower for Game of Thrones. He is the mastermind behind the Night King and so they enlisted him. But creating Vecna was more challenging than Night King.

“We’ve been running our company for about 10 years now and we’ve done some quite extensive makeup, but I think that Vecna is definitely the most extensive sized prosthetic makeup we’ve ever done before,” said Bower.

They had to create a full-body cast of Bower and submerge it into a pool, to separate the prosthetics into different parts. Since Bower was going to move around in that suit they didn’t cover the armpits. That offered him more freedom to move around. They added an undercarriage, left his left hand free, and kept his facial prosthetics thin to allow movement. The entire getup would take Bower around 7 hours a day! 

Did the Duffer Brothers not use any CGI at all for Vecna in Stranger Things? 

They used very minimal CGI. Most of it was practical effects much like how they used to do it in the past. Except for the movements of the vines – it was CGI. Interestingly, even Vecna’s terrifying voice was all Bower himself. Additionally, the Hellscapes where Vecna takes his victims was a mix of both practical effects and CGI. 

Stranger Things Volume 2 drops on July 1.