"If we could build a fourteen-foot-tall alien queen, we’d be able to build a twenty-foot-tall T-rex"
December 21, 2012 7:53 AM   Subscribe

 
That thing is beautiful! It belongs in a museum.

What actually did become of it?
posted by Chocolate Pickle at 8:45 AM on December 21, 2012 [1 favorite]


That is incredible.

People frequently posit that this sort of thing will be completely replaced by CG effects, but I don't think it ever could be. Or maybe I just hope it never is.


I know people who do this on a smaller scale, and their artistry, skill, and ingenuity never fails to floor me.
posted by louche mustachio at 9:00 AM on December 21, 2012 [1 favorite]


I like the guy tracing the numbers on the projection. Now that's attention to detail.

Wait...they animated the *clay* version? Wouldn't it crack, even if not dried? I thought they were going to make a latex casting or something.
posted by DU at 9:03 AM on December 21, 2012


Yeah, they say at some point that however many weeks they're talking about, it was for JUST the clay mold. They'd still have to cast it and make the real prop.
posted by cthuljew at 9:11 AM on December 21, 2012


I thought I heard that but then they went from talking about clay to talking about skeletons and I was like what.
posted by DU at 9:30 AM on December 21, 2012


that is amazing!!
posted by supermedusa at 10:01 AM on December 21, 2012


Roma clay is oil based, supposedly it won't dry out. You could probably use it to do clay-mation,
posted by Katjusa Roquette at 3:29 PM on December 21, 2012 [1 favorite]


I felt cheated when I realized they weren't going to show the rest of the process, because this much was so great. They still have to make the molds, cast the skin, build the animatronic armature and get the motion control working to get to the creature that snuffles Sam Niell's hat off.

The other thing that always occurs to me is how long ago this was (almost 20 years) and how seamless the transitions from practical to CG dinosaurs are, or as one lady so aptly put it, "You can't tell where the fake dinosaurs end and the real ones begin."
posted by Enron Hubbard at 7:49 AM on December 22, 2012


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