Wednesday, November 26, 2014

HAPPY THANKSGIVING! ON JURASSIC WORLD AND ATOMIC CREATURES

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone!

I try my best to make a post at least once a month, so happy Thanksgiving.

So far, its been a good year. Finished my first film, Antediluvian, created cool monsters, watched the new Godzilla, and make more indie monster films!

I do have some cool stuff to discuss, but first, I must talk about something very dear to me: Jurassic Park.

I remember when I was eight. Sick of Jurassic Park 4 not appearing in theaters, I made my own version, where Malcolm and Grant are horrified to find out Biosyn has mass captured the Dinosaurs on Sorna and Nublar to create a new park on the mainland. However, safety is not exactly a big concern, and dinosaurs are leaking out into the cities. It was just me, my brother, and my plastic dinosaur collection. Sadly most of the film m is lost, but from what I remember, it was pretty hilarious, from hiding from velociraptors in a garden patch, a spinosaurus destroying a lighthouse, to fending off a carnotaurus with a machine gun. It would even end with the T-rex and Spinosaur teaming up to kill a giant, mutant sauropod-thingy created from the Barbasol can. So many memories....

They recently released the trailer for Jurassic World, the fourth Jurassic Park movie. Being a Michael Crichton fan, I have waited TWELVE YEARS for any news on Jurassic Park four. Twelve. Years. Now its here. I'm having a fan attack: a fully functional park on Isla Nublar, hybrid Dinosaurs, Mosasaur feeding shows, and trained velociraptors. Not sure if this film will get it right, my only complaint is that can't wait several more months for another trip to the park.


Anywho, I got a new camera for my birthday, and it's far better than anything I've had previously. Heres some photos of my Unknown Species critters:

























See earlier posts on their creation. However, UNKNOWN SPECIES is a long term project, so I can spend some time on smaller projects. This current one, ATOMIC, is an entry for the local film festival. It is to be black and white, and take place after a nuclear war, and mutant creatures rule the planet. Here's a couple puppets:
















This is Randy, my mutant living brain. All my monsters are a spin on common 50's era creatures, this one in particular a living brain. Randy is named after a character in a short story from the anthology MONSTERS: 20 TALES OF CREATURE TERROR, who's brain runs amok eating other peoples brains. Its really creepy, I highly recommend it. My brain and the broken bit of skull on the front were casted in monster clay to create a latex brain. The jawbone is sculpey, and the tentacles are wire covered in hot glue. I created a "tongue", which can come out through a hole in his mouth, its wire wrapped in string, two broken tooth picks glued to the end,m and painted. It sort of looks like a spinal cord.

















This is Kellaway, my mutant Gilasaurus. He's named after Cecil Kellaway, my favorite actor from the Ray Harryhausen epic THE BEAST FROM 20,000 FATHOMS, and probably on the top ten list of most hilarious monster kills. His head is based off an Albertasaurus, casted in Monster Clay. His hands reused the Honey Island Swamp Monster's hand cast, used a couple times to create creepy, leathery claws. His eyes are taxidermist plastic eyes, the first I've ev er used. His jaw is also erector set pieces. He looks awesome, my only complaint I can't get him to stand up properly. Need to fix that.

















This is Bert, my giant Antmantis. Named after Bert I. Gordon, distributer of most of the 50s Big Bug films and perfect MST3K parody. BERT is an experiment, only his face is casted latex skin. His entire body is foam and cotton, coated in latex and painted. For the most part, he isn't up to par as some of my creations, and his color scheme is wonky, but the whole film is black and white, and he's still a darn cool model.

Thank you for reading, and Happy Thanksgiving!