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!

Saturday, January 25, 2014

DRAGONS, MYLODONS, AND MOTHMEN

Here is my new updates on my creatures. Here is the dried skin:




















Since the skin is finished, I will use it almost immediatley. Every time a new skin is peeled, at least several creatures get skin off it. Here's my Brontosaurus, Mokele, with her skin on:














I'm not happy with the way the skin turned out. The texture is fine, but I didn't apply it right. One part of her leg was constricting the foam and peeling the foot upwards, forcing me to cut the skin open. I will simply paint the cut and malformed foot as a wound from an attacking dinosaur.



















This is my Proto-Dragon, now adorned with skin. I wrapped him up, ready to be painted. I will soon add wing membrane for his arms and wrap skin around his head.















Here's his head. It's designed so he can dislodge his jaw and shoot fire.















This is my Mylodon, a prehistoric ground sloth. He will be based on the old designs for ground sloths, such as a rudimentary trunk and tripod, godzilla-like stance. He is based off an old illustration in the Edgar Rice Burroughs novel At the Earth's Core (I don't know who drew it, it was black and white, and looked vaugely like Frank Frazzetta's work. Do you know who drew it?) It shows the heroes of the novel being chased by a prehistoric ground sloth. It will take on the Proto-Dragon later in the movie.















At last, here's my creatures, Mokele, the Proto-Dragon, my Titanavis, and my Mothman, waiting to be painted. My Mothman is not part of the project, he was just sitting up on my shelf, unfinished. So, I'm painting him.

I hoped you enjoyed my post! Please comment.

Tuesday, January 21, 2014

MAMMUT UPDATE

Mammut's construction is in full swing. I'm really happy how the neanderthal's city is turning out, Here's some details:















These are some wooden planks supporting the city. They are simply blunt toothpicks glued together.















Next up is the moss drooping off the city. It is simply vegetation mixed with lichen my grandma picks off trees.



















Next up is creating the wooden planks that cover the top platform. These are simply toothpicks. I'm glad it worked out.















This is a dummy created as a stand-in tio be eaten by a t-rex in the film. His head and hands were clay, while his clothes were fabric and cotton. His armature is a simple wooden figure that artists use to pose for drawing.

I hoped you enjoyed it!

FUR, FEATHERS, AND SCALES

Hello, Everybody!

I have been working further on my project, and Have currently worked on some models. Here's what I got:















This is Hemmingway, my smilodon. She has finally got fur on herself. Fortunately, my dad, who's a hunter, had some animal skins in the attic he got from some other hunters.


















I used some leather from a rabbit hide, and some fur of an unknown animal (I believe it was a fox). Poor animals.















This is my Titanavis, now complete and ready to be painted. I had a packet of fake feathers in an old storage box, so I used them to create my monster's feathers.















At last, here's my brontosaurus, Mokele. She's ready to have skin glued on. I create the leathered hides of my dinosaurs with liquid latex. My dad spreads out a tinfoil sheet, then crumples it, then unfolds it and crumples the edges (this is a trick I learned on the internet. Thank you whoever told me.) Then, my dad spreads vaseline over the sheet, then pours liquid latex over it. It dries over a few days, and it turns tan.















The latex dries, but doesn't fuse into the tinfoil due to the vaseline. Then, I peel it off and dry it.















Then, I glue it on my dinosaurs and paint it. (WARNING! Liquid latex contains ammonia, so you can't tough it or sniff it until it is dry).

I hoped you liked it.