Friday, February 14, 2014

THE RISE OF HIBERNIA

My scriptwriter has a fantastic imagination, so he gave the name for a new l,ovation in my movie: Hibernia, where dinosaurs hibernate. It's a big cavern, with a prehistoric wall, like King Kong, around it. Thanks to Green screen, there's no need to make the full set. I just take pictures of the wall:

















Then post them behind the gate, where Ray eerily crawls out:
















The gate and Walls were made with project bricks, something I luckily found searching for Hot glue in Joann's. They're tiny bricks you can use to create the illusion of large stone bricks, like on the pyramids. I even used them on Mammut, for my Pop-sickle stick fort:















I also used the green screen to make Edgar look like he's flying:















I hope you enjoyed it. Please comment.



FINISHED CREATURES

Hello, everybody! Here are my finished creatures:


















This is my Mothman, based off a cryptid from point Pleasant, West Virginia. He's not for the project, I just already finished my Flatwoods Monster, and decided to finish my mothman, too. I may add the membrane to his wings later.


















This is my Proto-Dragon, Fafnir. I'm seriously glad with how he turned out. He will shoot fire later on, but that's another story. He will attack a human village in my story for reasons undisclosed...


















He was made through a Tubers and Zots coated in wire and latex, with the head strapped on. He will help reveal a serious menace in the film.



















Here's Hemmingway! The rabbit fur worked well, as my saber-toothed tiger is finally complete and ready for filming! Her whiskers were actually rabbit whiskers. Her legs aren't very good, but she will only have a small role in the film, and her head's fantastic, so I'm happy with her.




















This is Mokele, my Brontosaurus. I'm not exactly happy with the way she turned out (my fault, I rushed), but again, she only has a small role, and her animation is okay.


















Ironically, the one I expected to be the worst turned out looking the best. My titanavis, Tweety, looks incredible, and the paint job hides the faulty manufacturing of his crude armature. I'm happy he turned out so well, too bad his role is to essentially be Ray's appetizer.



















Here's my Mylodon, finished and ready for painting. I'm not sure about him, he was sort of rushed and he looks crude, but his armature works well, and he should be a good new addition to the team.

Well, that's all my current creatures. See ya!

Monday, February 10, 2014

My tribute to Ray Harryhausen

I know it's a tad late, but here's my tribute to Ray Harryhausen, who passed away last year at 92. He was very influential on my career, so here's my tribute.

While I was a huge fan of dinosaurs, I never really knew who Ray was. Frankly, I wasn't sure there really were too many dinosaur films out there. I recently came into a fascination with Greek Myth, so mom rented Clash of the Titans and Jason and the Argonauts on Netflix. Coming from an era of CGI, I was a tad jaded, but, frankly, his creatures Medusa and Talos were some of the few monsters to ever scare me. They didn't even need to explode out of a doorway, screaming at the top of their lungs, the sheer mood and movement of the creatures genuinely creeped me out. This is coming from a kid who forced his Grandma to play Jurassic Park 3 every Friday, a film where Velociraptors pin down mercenaries and split open their skulls with their claws. A few years later, after a bit of research on the subject, I came across Sinbad and the Eye of the Tiger on television. The death of Trog and the Saber-Toothed Tiger affected me more than any monsters death, even more than the original Godzilla.

Well, I didn't hear much about him until my old teacher put on a video on about him. I think that's when I was certain I wanted to make stop motion dinosaurs and animate them. I already had a stop motion program I got years before, but that video made me certain about what I wanted
 to do. I went through many trials and tribulations, from baked sculpey creatures, to pipe cleaner plesiosaurs, to plasticine Godzillas, to Patchy, to Malcolm, to O'bie, to Ray (get it?) . I eventually was able to buy the Beast from 20,000 fathoms, a beautiful movie with a fantastic monster, a combination of Ray Bradbury's short story and Ray Harryhausen's concepts. I also was able to record a strain of Harryhausen movies, and git to watch 20 million miles to Earth, First Men in the moon, and Earth vs the Flying Saucers. It was awesome.

When one of my teachers who also loved his work broke the news, it was terribly sad. But I'm happy to know that people still care about his craft and continue it to this day. Richard Svensson's working on his Lovecraft Projects, Phil Tippet's making MAD GOD,  ML Tharme is working on Wildlife on Mars, Peter Jackson recreated the Spider Pit sequence from the original KING KONG, and I'm working on MUCH TO FEAR ABOUT SUMMER.

His work inspired all of us. Thank you, Ray Harryhausen.







Tuesday, February 4, 2014

SCRIPT NEARLY COMPLETE!

A friend of mine is working on the script, and it's nearly complete! Once done, I can start filming!