ATOMIC IS PRETTY MUCH WRAPPED UP

I have finished the rough draft to Atomic.

I have refined it, and had a bit of peer review. It still needs criticism, but currently, I'm satisfied with most of it. The animation is good, my friend is a good actor, and the green screen effects hold up, for the most part. Im am particularly happy with Kellaway, my gilasaur whose face is so well sculpted and realistic, I put him up there as one of my best models.

Remember: when building a monster head, you must try your hardest to get the eyes right(unless it doesn't have eyes, then go for the mouth). The eyes show the creature is alive, has personality, conveys it feelings. For example, Kellaway's eyes are small and the skin around them is pale, suggesting old age. The lack of expression indicates he is a reptile. Eyes are not an afterthought.

Atomic will be shown at the IYSFF, an awesome competition where young moviemakers show three minute long silent films. Though I have entered before, I have never done a film with stop motion creatures. Atomic is the result of five years of making stop motion monsters, and is my first chance to show the audience my monster making skills.

On other news, Ararankha has been fully reviewed by one of my peers, an avid techno-thriller fan, and  gave it a rave review. Though ultimately satisfied with it, the novel is riddled with spelling errors, so don't expect to see it any time soon.

Im not sure what I'll do after that. Certainly have a lot on my mind, when it comes to screenwriting and making movies. But now, Im currently focused on getting everything done.

Thanks for all the support. I really appreciate it.

Kelston Hubler

A SAMPLE OF ARARANKHA'S BESTIARY

Finally, my early draft is complete. From what my family has read of it, it has received rave reviews. I have developed some quite good digital art work for the story, and I hope one of my family members will read it soon enough.

The novel is basically a lost world story; explorers go to an uncharted area of the map to find animals long extinct. And, like all good paleofiction, the animsalds try their hardest to kill and eat the explorers.

While it is a fairly used concept, Ararankha is a fun exercise in world building. I love world building, it my opinion, it only builds to the credibility of the story to add a ton of detail and research to your creatures. I also love field guides, full of gorgeous artwork on strange creatures. One of my books in my collection is World of Kong, a WETA art book on the concept art of creatures in the 2005 movie, presented as a field guide. With absolutely beautiful artwork and some excellent world building, it is one of my personal favorite books.

So, my own book comes with an illustrated field guide to the lifeforms present in Ararankha, not all of them in the story. I have decided to show a couple creatures to you, some creatures present in the field guide.

Ararankha comes out basically whenever Im satisfied with it. Please comment.

Thanks for reading!

Kelston Hubler

ARARANKHA'S FIRST DRAFT IS FINISHED

Boy, that was fast.

Indeed, the first draft of my story, Ararankha, is complete. I'm going to have peer reviews and refine it further, but I really enjoyed writing it. It's roughly 136 pages long, so not really a novel, but it's written on a big page size, so it would likely be longer in a different format.

The story is about Marika Jackson, a traveller in South America who, after a really bad accident, finds herself in a Peruvian village, and joins an expedition into the Andes in search of a prehistoric animal. While they do, indeed, find prehistoric animals, I wouldn't exactly say they have a good time finding them, considering most of them want to stuff the explorers in their mouthes.

Ararankha is my tribute to dinosaur literature new and old, a combination of the old adventure stories of lost world and new ideas on dinosaur evolution and speculative boiology. It will indeed be a very fun read. I've even included a bestiary at the end, complete with illustrations, hopefully.

What I set out to do in Ararankha is not only create good monsters but good characters. I personally believe a good character in a monster story is one that can keep you entertained through the bits the creature isn't there, so I try my hardest to do that.

Ararankha is founded on a mountain of lost world stories, from Journey to the center of the earth to Jurassic Park. It my tribute to techno thrillers and dinosaur fiction.

So, if you like interesting characters, conspiracies, and flying velociraptors, Ararankha is definitely a story you'll enjoy (once it's done, of course, editing takes forever.)

Thankfully, now I'll finally have time to get back to work on Atomic.

Happy New Year, and enjoy the Super Bowl tomorrow!

Kekston Hubler

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

It's 2015! OH YEAH!

(blows on that little thing that shoots out a role of paper like a chameleon tongue.)

Boy, pop culture has a big year ahead, with Jurassic World and the New Star Wars! So many cool new movies to check out.

Speaking of movies, once Atomic is wrapped up I'm going to work a cool fantasy epic called MU. I won't give away details yet, but it's basically set in fantasy world that progressed to the modern age. I won't give away any details, but the script is complete, and I'm manufacturing a couple puppets. More on them later.

Anywho, Im taking a crack at writing a novel, ARARANKHA. I also will refuse to disclose any information on the project, other than it's technothriller in the vein of Chrichton, and will have plenty of strange, freaky dinosaurs. It's inspired by my love of paleoart, and I have done a ton of research to make my creatures as accurate as possible.

I probably won't post again soon, production is rather slow on moviemaking. But to all those who love dinosaurs, monster movies, and science fiction:

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

Kelston Hubler

ANIMATION HAS WRAPPED UP FOR ATOMIC!

Here's the cast, posing together:

Live action filming should start next july.

Here are some puppets and veichles I did for unknown species. The project is on indefinite hiatus, considering it would take forever to finish, so this is the last you'll most likely see of it. Still, the puppetts are so good, I'll reuse them eventually.

 

Here's some extra photos of the monsters. They were the most challenging puppets to animate, condsidering they had highly experimental body plans and were prone to breaking or falling over. Still, Im really glad the animation turned out great.

Merry Christmas!

Kelston Hubler

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!

UNKOWN SPECIES: THE HONEY ISLAND SWAMP MONSTER

Hello, once again!

Even though the scripts aren't finished and in development, I might as well make the puppets for future episodes. So, I created a cryptid near and dear to me: the Honey Island Swamp Monster.

The Honey Island Swamp monster is a beast from a swamp in Louisiana, an ape-like beast with mysterious origins. However, unlike any other bigfoot, it has webbed feet and four fingers. I'm going for something a little more original than a bigfoot, but I'll leave that to the future.

UNKNOWN SPECIES evolved from an earlier Cryptid Project, involving O'bie as the Burrunjor and Harold as the Honey Island Swamp Monster. He was widely considered my best puppet at the time, and wanted to honor him by really upping my game for this puppet.

I sculpted the monster's face in the same cast as the Tatzelwurm, and attached it to his face. I then sculpted the webbed claws, adding holes for the baked claws to fit in. After casting, I fit the casted latex around his hands and feet.

I carved the arms to look like a realistic animal, with strong anatomy. Then, i painted his face, hands, and feet, his only latex parts.

The paint job is awesome. I love his hands, which remind me of the reptile god Mbwun from the sci-fi thriller Relic. His feet, the most realistic part of a creature I've ever built, remind me of a penguin. At last I covered the whole thing in fake fur and added tons a moss and fake vegetation to the back sand seams, to show his swamp origins.

He looks AWESOME. You won't see much of him until the first episode is finished and I can finally get to the next episode, but I will give you hint about his role:

He'll square off with oatmeal, the Burrunjor from episode 1. It will be awesome.

Thank you for reading. Please Comment.

Kelston Hubler