EvanCampbell wrote: ↑Sat Feb 13, 2021 8:52 am votd test 1.jpgGreat stuff Evan, thanks as ever for sharing your experiences and artistry. Stunning work here.
votd test 3.jpg
I will always look back at Village of the Damned as a missed opportunity. When working on that project I was tasked to sculpt the final alien transformation sequence. It was broken down that I would sculpt three different stage busts of the lead girl Mara into the alien. The first stage (bust above on the left) the forehead starts to change. There is a second stage bust that I can't seem to locate photos of. The above right photo is the final stage alien wich Carpenter really liked. Also I found a test strip from ILM of some early composite shots. The problem is we always thought the alien would be revealed as a stand alone entity. In the end it was only just a composite shot over the actresses real face. So for me it was kind of a disappointment that they never showed the finished puppet. It was mechanized extremely well. These types of situations happen often and I was already used to it. The recent soundtrack release has kind of rekindled that early excitement about the film and it is cool to see people spinning it. Can't wait to get a copy.
Slightly irritatingly for you, the choice of full-face image on the ost rear sleeve will only continue to remind you of your disappointment I'm afraid :(
This change-o sequence reminds me of the Stan Winston (I believe?) gag from Starman - have you ever visited the Museum of Moving Image in Astoria/Queens? It blew my mind, they had a ton of original fx there (Blade Runner/Tyrell Corp model, Dick Smith's Exorcist '180 head-turn' puppet!) and the series of around ten different Starman heads which were used in the boy-to-adult transformation sequence. Fuck, I was in that place for the best part of a whole day haha!
Here's the pics anyway - I recall this sequence was complex and involved more than one artist actually now I think about it, but pretty sure Winston was involved

