Makeup Effects Archive

Tumblr outpost of makeupeffectsarchive.blogspot.com IG: makeupeffectsarchive

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Been a while since I last updated I know - sometimes I forget people still use tumblr at times!

Here's something I'm very pleased with; an interview I got to conduct with John Cormican, a sculptor and former makeup artist who worked on Hellraiser & Hellbound: Hellraiser 2, Nightbreed, Dust Devil and several projects for the Jim Henson Creature Shop!

I would like to thank Cormican for being so gracious to conduct this interview, as well as to be so generous and give out all these photos! There's a lot more not in in the interview, that are being saved for the future articles on Nightbreed and the Hellraiser films!

John Cormican Interview!

This is a transcription of an interview I did a few weeks ago with John Cormican, a sculptor and makeup artist whose career spans several fi

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Please help out Gabe Bartalos and his family, who have lost their house in the LA wildfires. Bartalos is an FX world legend whose career spans Basket Case, Frankenhooker, Leprechaun and Underworld, and its so sad to hear this, among all the other tragedies unfolding in the LA chaos. Please support Bartalos and his family here (I really hope Tumblr doesnt play funny cos of this!): https://www.gofundme.com/f/support-mia-gabe-and-nova-after-eaton-fire

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The creature effects for the surreal scifi/horror flick Xtro (1982) were handled by Francis Coates and Richard Gregory. Thei work included the crab-walking creature (Tim Dry - one half of the mime musician duo Tik & Tok - in a rubber suit), the skeletal final creature (a puppet) and several prosthetic makeups for the transformations. Coates had been to this point a sculptor for both the BBC and the White Horse Toy Company - his earlier monster-making duties had been helping make monsters for Doctor Who, and the R2-D2 suits for The Empire Strikes Back. Richard Gregory ran the freelance firm Imagineering - that also worked plenty on Doctor Who - and later provided animatronic masks for Gerry Anderson's Space Precinct. Coates confided to me in an interview that his monster work on Xtro - partly based on sketches by production designer Christopher Hobb - was his 'rebellion against constant Doctor Who monsters that were just men in silly hats'!

You can actually read the interview here (providing Tumblr doesnt shadowban me for it) where Coates work on several films - ranging from The Neverending Story to The Mission - is highlighted!

Francis Coates Interview!

A few weeks ago I did a phone interview with Francis Coates , a British sculptor who has been working in the industry for decades, and whose

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The gargoyle suit for the 'Lover's Vow' segment of Tales from the Darkside: The Movie was fabricated by KNB EFX Group

Mike Deak wore the suit, with the wings attached to a harness. The mechanics inside the suit were engineered by Mark Rappaport and Mecki Heussen. The gargoyle suit's paintjob was designed and applied by Bob and Ed Yang.

KNB also had to fabricate two 'baby' gargoyle puppets, with animatronics installed to allow their faces to emote.

The stopmotion sequence of the gargoyle flying off was instead handled by Michael Burnett Productions . Burnett himself casted the foam latex puppet and sculpted the wings, as well as the paintjob. The armature was made by Ted Rae, with Ernest Farino doing the animating.

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Rae Dawn Chong's transformation into a gargoyle in the 'Lover's Vow' segment of Tales from the Darkside: The Movie was achieves as an elaborate series of makeups by KNB EFX Group, with involvement from Howard Berger, Greg Nicotero and Robert Kurtzman

Early stages required puppet arms with fake 'human hand' appliance that could fall apart, as well as Chong wearing a facial appliance that could also be torn off.

The midway stage, where Chong's gargoyle is in its midway form, took three hours to apply and consisting of a facial applience and rubber suit, both of which were fitted with air bladders around the head and chest. Perhaps the use of air bladders was why the legendary Dick Smith was makeup effects consultant on the film.

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Such Good Beasties: Top Tier Monster Effects

This is one of my Top favorite werewolf practical effect costumes and it's a crying, whimpering shame it wasn't And hasn't been used More. It is by KNB EFX Group and they have crafted quite a pack of werewolves for film, TV including Ginger Snaps 2 and Cursed (2005) staring Christina Ricci (Love HER 🥴💖) among their diverse library of creature creations.

I Still to this day Can't believe a practical suit of This quality was used in a direct to video Nickelodeon KIDS Movie (The Boy Who Cried Werewolf 2010).. ??! 😕😦

The snout is Wide and powerful with just the right amount of "wolf" but also something "other", unnatural.

That's a Huge head.. that's what she said😏 (grade A comedy here 😅)

The ears got the right amount of perk from the head and body. Gives it a nice "devil horned" silhouette

Love also the eyes have a dark/black sclera which highlights how large the eyes are and the yellow, pupil-less iris. (Nooo who Hurt him??? 🥺)

Such a GOOD Beastie props to KNB EFX Group 👏😌

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A wonderful werewolf suit, but I have to point out that it was not made for The Boy Who Cried Werewolf; KNB had originally created it in 2008 for the TV series Fear Itself, specifically the episode 'Something With Bite'. It was also reused in the 2013 short film Blood Moon.

KNB already had its hands full with the Jordan Sands makeup and werewolf suit in Boy Who Cried Werewolf so no wonder they'd resort to reusing suits. The Jordan suit is still really good imo:

Also! The Fear Itself (reused in Boy Who Cried Werewolf) suit was designed by Norman Cabrera. Who also designed the werewolf suits in Blade Trinity and Cabin in the Woods:

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The mummy in the 'Lot 249' segment of Tales from the Darkside: The Movie was realized by KNB EFX Group, with Howard Berger, Greg Nicotero and Robert Kurtzman all being hands-on.

KNB did not want the mummy to look feeble like early on-screen mummies did, opting for a Bernie Wrightson-influenced design. Wearing the suit was Mike Deak, who also wore the gargoyle suit in the 'Lovers Vow' segment of the film

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The most effects-heavy aspect of Joe Dante's 'It's a Good Life' segment of the Twilight Zone movie was the scene where Anthony makes a gremlin-like cartoon come to life from his TV.

This required several puppets; the first one was a mostly static dummy with hula hoops coated in Scotchlite, and pulled under the set on a cart. This gave the effect that the dummy was spinning around like Looney Tunes' Tasmanian Devil.

The second, third and fourth puppets were all varying levels of articulated; the second had a CO2 jet installed around the head; the third was accompanied by a performer wearing prosthetic gloves, to give the appearance its hands were moving.

The fifth puppet, where the gremlin evokes a spider-like appearance, never appeared in the final film, due to appearing too frightening and at odds with the puppet's other forms. There was also not enough time to know that it worked properly on-camera.

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The special makeup effects of Joe Dante's 'It's a Good Life' segment of Twilight Zone: The Movie had its makeup effects handled by Rob Bottin (having previously worked with Dante on The Howling).

Bottin devised a mouthless makeup appliance to be worn by Cherie Currie as one of Anthony's victims, as the first of the makeup effects.

The monstrous rabbit that comes out the hat was devised first as an inflatable puppet (for the shot where it pops out) and an articulated puppet where it menaces Kevin McCarthy. Bottin based the design of the segment's evil cartoons on Ed 'Big Daddy' Roth's cartoons.

(A funny note; apparently one of the inflatable rabbit puppets flew out of the set and was never found again! Maybe some lucky kid found it and has it to this day…)

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The makeup effects for John Landis' prologue segment and George Miller's 'Nightmare at 20'000 Feet' segment of Twilight Zone: The Movie were handled by Craig Reardon.

For the prologue, Reardon applied a makeup on Dan Aykroyd, inspired both by his unused head prop on 'Poltergeist', as well as Lon Chaney's makeups in London After Midnight and Phantom of the Opera.

For 'Nightmare', to realize the gremlin suit Reardon worked with Michael McCracken, with some assistance from Michael Shawn McCracken @michaelshawnmccracken and Reardon's own parents (his mother applied the quills on the gremlin suit)

Larry Cedar wore the gremlin suit, suspended by a harness. There was cable controlled mechanisms inside the gremlin's head, which was modeled after a red-faced monkey at George Miller's suggestion.

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Bob Keen's Image Animation returned to supply the makeup effects for Hickox's sequel, Waxwork II: Lost in Time. Among the team were returning members like Paul Jones (who would later do the FX for Ginger Snaps and the What We Do in the Shadows series) and Mark Coulier (who would do several Harry Potter and X-Men movies, as well as The Mummy Returns) as well as relative newcomers such as Stephen Norrington (who later directed Death Machine and Blade!)

Among Waxwork's makeup effects was the panther woman (an animatronic head), the Frankenstein's Monster (prosthetic facial appliance) and the xenomorph parody realized as a full rubber suit.

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The makeup effects of Anthony Hickox's Waxwork (1988) were handled by Bob Keen's Image Animation. Bob Keen had just worked on Hellraiser, and for Waxwork many future talents were among his team, such as Dave Elsey (who did Farscape, Revenge of the Sith and the Wolfman remake), Paul Jones (who did Ginger Snaps and the What We Do in the Shadows series), Mark Coulier (who did Poor Things, various Harry Potter movies and The Mummy Returns) and Neill Gorton (who did 2005 iteration of Doctor Who, and From Hell) Many of the Waxwork creatures were homages to classic horror and realized as either prosthetic makeups, masks or animatronic heads. The snakeman was an animatronic head with body prosthetics. The werewolf was inspired by The Howling's werewolves by Hickox's admission, and was a suit and animatronic head.

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werewolf dancer inspired by olga from the howling 3!

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One of the more iconic monsters of The X-Files was the Flukeman of 'The Host', and was the work of Toby Lindala's FX team, who handled all the Vancouver-filmed episodes of the show.

When designing Flukeman, Lindala 'kept to really pale colours, like the underbelly of a fish, but with some human features in the face, (and) used urethane to give a translucent and fleshy look to the creature'.

The Flukeman bodysuit was uncomfortable for actor Darin Morgan to wear and led to an embarrassing incident; he couldnt go to the toilet in it, so he actually wet himself during the water action sequence! The water scenes also allowed Morgan to actually cool down, as the suit was very hot to wear.

The water filming scenes added to further complications, as being soaked in water destroyed the suit each time, meaning Lindala and his team would have to rebuild it from scratch every time.

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A selection of possibly never before seen behind the scenes images kindly provided to me by Bob McCarron of his work on Philippe Mora's Howling III: The Marsupials (1987)!

Included here are behind the scenes imagines of Imogen Annesley as the werewolf (or...was it werethylacine? Whatever) Jerboa, as well as Deby Wightman as the unnamed 'wolf woman'

According to McCarron's correspondence with me, none of the werewolves were actually full bodysuits, but actually the actors/actresses real bodies with fur and makeup applied, with some prosthetics for the clawed hands (the claws were made of resin, and thus actually able to rip your face off!)

Again I would love to thank McCarron for kindly sending me these images, as well as the information about how Howling 3's werewolves were realized!

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A selection of possibly never before seen behind the scenes images kindly provided to me by Bob McCarron of his work on Philippe Mora's Howling III: The Marsupials (1987)!

Here are photos of Max Fairchild in the prosthetics and mask as Thylo, the were-thylacine, as well as photos of the mask being sculpted and a shot showing how the closeup headshots were done; via puppets!

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A selection of possibly never before seen behind the scenes images kindly provided to me by Bob McCarron of his work on Philippe Mora's Howling III: The Marsupials (1987)! Here are some behing the scenes photos McCarron sent me of Dagmar Blahova as the werewolf woman Olga, with photos of the mask being sculpted as well.