A tribute to the glorious 1980s, the Golden Age of creatures and early MTV! A host of big makeup FX names discuss the creature effects revolution and their 80s industry memories, plus there’s a fun 80s-style advice column. Back in the present, there’s a double dose of aliens courtesy of the Marvel Universe/Walt Disney Studios and Ridley Scott!
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COVER: Nick Maley’s Beast from Krull built in 1982, film released in 1983. An incredibly complex animatronic construction for its time, this suit featured three separate moving facial components: eyes/eyelids, mouth and snout; moving 12-fingered hands; and moving ribs, plus a moving heart and lungs with visible, dispersing fluids
Page 8. THE ALIEN FACTOR: Legacy Effects’ Lindsay MacGowan, Shane Mahan and their key team members discuss their work on Guardians of the Galaxy: Vol. 2 creating Gamora (Zoe Saldana), Drax (Dave Bautista), Nebula (Karen Gillan), Mantis (Pam Klementieff), Yondu (Michael Rooker), numerous Ravagers, and photo-realistic physical Groot doubles
Page 30. CREATING ‘COVENANT’: London-based Creatures Inc. and Sydney’s Odd Studio talk through their combined work to create the aliens, artefacts, and effects for Ridley Scott’s Alien: Covenant, including the Neomorph, Xenomorph, alien eggs and embryos
Page 53. DEAR NEILL: Humorous 1980s style no-nonsense advice on your prosthetics problems by one of the industry’s straightest talkers, Neill Gorton
Page 56. FROM THE THING TO THRILLER – REMEMBERING THE EIGHTIES CREATURE EFFECTS REVOLUTION: Revisiting the magnificent monsters of the 1980s with a nod to the revolutionary Mos Eisley cantina creatures from Star Wars: Episode IV – A New Hope that paved the way for them in 1977, including Stuart Freeborn’s Yoda, Rick Baker’s change-o-head for An American Werewolf in London plus the Michael Jackson werewolf and zombies for Thriller, Nick Maley’s Beast from Krull, Stuart Freeborn’s Tauntaun puppets for The Empire Strikes Back, the creatures from Clive Barker’s Nightbreed, Pinhead from Hellraiser, Harry from Harry and The Hendersons, the Predator suit, and the Gill-man suit from Monster Squad; the latter two both painted in ground-breaking style by Steve Wang
Page 82. THE 80s ANTHOLOGY: Sights, sounds, and personal snapshots of a monumental era; some of the industry’s enduring leaders share memories of making their first forays into a new industry. Contributions from Adrien Morot, Mark Coulier, Josh Turi, Paul Jones, Steve Wang, Geoff Portass, Todd Masters, Colin Ware, Doug Drexler, Michael Burnett, and Neill Gorton
Page 94. THE B-SIDES: Film and TV prosthetics that didn’t make the screen with Joe Nazzaro. This issue’s subject: Vincent Guastini’s work for infamous genre film The Thing, a prequel to the 1982 John Carpenter horror classic, featuring concepts by Guastini and Jacob Hair, and sculture by Don Lanning
Page 6. WORDS OF WISDOM: Gino Acevedo, industry veteran and Weta Workshop’s Creative Art Director sets the scene for this issue
Page 20. BRUSHING UP ON MOULD MAKING: Millennium FX mould maker extraordinaire Anthony Davies takes us through making a silicone brush-up negative master mould of a full head cast, a time efficient alternative to matrix moulds
Page 39. LATEX APPLIANCES – Part 1: In the first of a multi-part tutorial, Stuart Bray and Todd Debreceni bring us their knowledge from both sides of the Atlantic about working with liquid or ‘pre-vulcanised’ latex
Page 47. PRODUCT SPOTLIGHT: Airbrush experts Lisa Munro and Tim Gore analyse the leading lights in the airbrush market, with Iwata and Paasche models under review, including the Paasche H; near legendary in the special effects business
Page 79. HOW TO SET UP YOUR OWN WORKSHOP: Netherlands-based makeup FX artist and teacher Lawrence Kelatow (Kill Zombie!, The Broken Circle Breakdown, Help! I’ve Shrunk the Family!) on the essential requirements for setting up your own work space
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