Odyssey Studio | Case Study

Odyssey Studios

Odyssey Studios is a prop making and fabrication studio based in Limerick, Ireland. Founded by Mark Maher, who has over 20 years of experience in the film industry. The studio specialises in bespoke props for film, TV, and public art — with credits spanning The Hobbit series, Alice in Wonderland, Penny Dreadful, and Apple TV's Foundation. Their work is predominantly large-scale, one-off and highly detailed.

"Sometimes we do some large, one-off pieces and it could take artists sculpting them quite a long time," says Mark. The leap into automation came from a simple realisation: the creative industries don't require the same tolerances as engineering. Where a 5-axis CNC machine would have been prohibitively expensive to justify, an industrial robot driven by CAD/CAM software made the economics work — and opened up a capability that traditional methods couldn't match. "When you're making one-offs, it's usually a very complex, highly detailed part, which would often take weeks to sculpt using traditional tools and methods. The leap from the industrial environment into the creative world came from driving robots with CAD/CAM software."

Odyssey invested in a KUKA KR 210 R2700 robotic milling system built by CNC Robotics, programmed through Autodesk PowerMill. The workflow is direct: scan in a director-approved model, scale it to the required size, and machine it — in polystyrene for studio work, or as a plaster mould for public art castings. "In the studio, what we are making could be the interior of a Gothic palace or the interior of a spaceship." The robot gives Odyssey both repeatable output when multiples are needed and the flexibility to produce unique, highly detailed surface work on individual pieces.

Since installation, the system has barely stopped. "Since we got the robot, we haven't stopped using it, except for COVID-19 interruptions," says Mark. It has allowed Odyssey to take on work that would previously have been impractical to quote, compress timelines on productions where changes come late, and build a competitive position that is difficult to replicate.