[LethargicBoy]

here are the images




Hello, I just drew up a quick profile sketch of Giger's alien and I wanted to practice coloring it in photoshop, I started to paintbrush it with my mouse and I dislke the direction it was going. I need to learn about how to sketch things with more volume. Maybe some tips on lighting direction, highlights, perspective issues ( i know Fred's good at that )possible background?
please post!!!

[X-pLaGue]

Erm. Giger's alien's head doesn't look like that. It's not supposed to be mountainous.

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-worse than bubonic, filthier than AIDS-

[LethargicBoy]

so i took a few royalties, sue me

[X-pLaGue]

Too bad. I'm not Giger.

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-worse than bubonic, filthier than AIDS-

[waylon]

Well, if I remember correctly, the aliens were quite shiny. Add some highlights which get to almost pure white, and I think it'll look a bit better.

I also remember them being a bit more blue than brown, but for practicing technique, I don't know how much that would matter.

As far as creating volume... well, let's look at the uncolored sketch. Each individual component looks pretty good, but nothing's really casting shadows on anything else. Conceptualize a light source (say, the top right of the image.) What would be shadowed? Take the ridged.. tube thingy, for instance. If you want it to stand out more, make the highlights toward the top right of each band, make the shadows creep up a bit higher, and have it cast some shadows over the section under it.

There's a lot more to it, but that should help. The sketch looks really nice, otherwise. (And I don't think taking liberties hurts at all.

[Sc00p]

Well since I am not Fred or Spooge that means I have no intelligent advice to add, wish I did tho'! Uh Hyuck! Gawrsh!

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Rene Antunes
www.nytro.org
[email protected]

[spooge demon]

Well, I'm not Fred, but I had a go. The combination of biomechanics in Giger's work always felt too organic to a gearhead like me. I just did not see the gag. So here is something that I think skirts the line between living and made more at the 50% percent line. Well, it may not be that precise, but you get the idea.

BTW, Giger was trained as an Industrial Designer. But I think I would inquire after his therapist and dealer before training. I like the work a lot.

He spent so much time on the cool head that he ran out of it. Time to shoot, there was no body. That is the explanation for cool head/guy in cheesy rubber suit body. Giger had tons of real bones delivered. Complete human skeletons as well. He sculpted with tubes and bones and plaster. The dude in the chair was so nice.

I never have tried to paint one of these dudes, huh...

[X-pLaGue]

HwOwZ!!! ugly mutha f*cka!!!!!!

*aims flamethrower at the freaky elongated head*

KAAABOOOOOOOMMMMMMMM

*acid flew and ate every surface it landed on...*



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-worse than bubonic, filthier than AIDS-

[This message has been edited by X-pLaGue (edited August 26, 2000).]

[Binke]

Word on that scoop.


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http://binke.gamesquad.net

[Sumaleth]

Spooge;

Great pic but I don't know where you got that story from.

The alien design from the movie is based around an old painting by Giger in the book, Necronomicon. It was designed literally years before the film was even thought about and in no way was the body 'humanoid' because of time or any other such constraints.

The original screenplay was actually influenced by Giger's artwork, however. Then much later, after it had gone through development hell, and Ridley Scott was onboard did someone dig out the old Giger book and show it to Scott. Apparently Scott saw the picture and said, thats the alien.

As far as the 'man-in-suit' body goes, I remember when I first saw exactly what the whole alien looked like (which was some time after seeing the first two movies), I was really disappointed that it was a man-in-suit. The films had created such wild imagery in my mind that I had been imagining something quite different - something more alien.

But in retrospect, it's clearly explained by the Alien life cycle. ie. the Aliens look a lot like whatever life form they are incubated in. This is why it looked humanoid in Alien, Aliens and Resurrection, but looked more like a dog in Alien3.

Sorry to bore you all with another long pointless post. Please continue.

Sumaleth

[Rinaldo]

The one in the first film was more like the designs I saw in the book (I assume I'm talking about the same book as you Sumaleth because I had the same feeling about it) The one's in the second film were more scary and alien. Like when they ambush the marines and start coming out of the walls. That shot of an alien unfolding from what looked like the wall was freaky. I think that maybe Giger did the design. But he didn't do the animation, or motion design. I'm sure that the designs were pretty much the same in both films but the way that the Aliens were characterised went far beyond the initial design. The design pics in the Alien book looked pretty boring and not very "scary". but the way that they were brought to life was very skilful.

[ScoobyDoo]

Actually, the aliens in the second film were a revision done by James Cameron, who replaced the smooth surface of the head with a more bumpy look and tried to add an insect flavor to the original design. He still credited H.R. Giger with the design though.

Did any of you know that James Cameron is a trained artist/illustrator as well, and that in the scene in his film Titanic, where the character Jack is sketching Rose, that it was James Cameron doing the sketching?

BTW: Spooge? That pic seems a little too high contrast for me,and all the work you did on the gearing is just LOST to shadow, and not seemingly obscured by it. Did you use a path or a mask to create the smooth edge of the head?

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Scoobydoobydooooooo!

[LethargicBoy]

Waylon: Thanks for the advice, I'll certainly cook something up with the shadows.

Scoop: hehehe no problem, thnx fer posting

Spooge Demon: WOW! i got a bite! i wonder what kind of bait i used, thnx a LOT!

I'm going to save all this info off for
future reference guys! As for alen design I was kind of trying to mix the "smooth headed" design with the "insect-like" design from aliens, with strange results. I've also been watching the alien movies and sketching down details from sets and vehicles they used, too bad I don't have access to a scanner at home or I'd post em.

[Francis]

Me too. I got nothin useful to say, just this image that I sort of pooped out on halfway through.



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Francis Tsai
TeamGT Studios

[LethargicBoy]

Nevertheless, it helps!
thanks Francis!

maybe I should hop on the "I need a wacom" bandwagon"

[Nex]

whow, really scary picture francis. caputures the alien-theme very well.

[WacoMonkey]

James Cameron is indeed a brilliant conceptual designer (as well as a matte painter..). You can credit to him the final drop ship, alien soldier, alien queen, loader, APC, marine armor, pulse rifle, 'steady-cam' gun and alien landscape designs from Aliens. Syd Mead was responsible for the Sulaco inside and out, while Ron Cobb did the terraforming station and colony, as well as the tractor seen in the edited footage from the director's cut. Syd had done designs for the drop ship, APC and loader, but ultimately Cameron was unsatisfied with them and designed them himself. The sketches are quite beautiful, if you haven't seen the LD or DVD supplement - worth the price. He even (somehow) had time to do build a scale model of the drop ship himself...what a maniac!

[LethargicBoy]

Wow, I never knew that about the aliens series. Interesting.

[Fred Flick Stone]

Well, I'm not Spooge, and I wish now that I were, can you say puke, that is what I am going to do. That alien "kicks rocks and makes the little martian move, if you know what I mean..." A little cowboy bebop quote sorry...this is nice...I can't say anymore than what is already said. Francis, you ever sleep? Waco-where is your alien drawling, hmmmm?

[Muzman]

-><i>James Cameron is indeed a brilliant conceptual designer (as well as a matte painter..)</i>

Now if only he could direct (Oh my! stand back everybody! this could get ugly )

I always wondered how Cameron's hive soldiers could see. They're heads were so solid. The original had a translucent head and I seem to remember that that was how it saw (360x180 degree vision; nasty) If I've been wrong all these years feel free to slap me about

[chumps]

I remember ordering Necromonican (sp) from a magazine, because I was a huge fan of alien.

I was oh.. 10 at the time?

Needless to say, I was shocked when I finally recieved it . Small penii, large penii, all sorts of penii in all sorts of shapes and stuff.

The alien head is a giant penis, really. Well, maybe half of one, like the top half looks like half of the glans.

I hope I didn't offend anyone! I think giger makes some cool stuff, though they do not invoke any emotion from me, they seem too sterile or something, as hard as that is to believe.

regards.

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Stroke my ego.

[LethargicBoy]

there is this one picture by him called "landscape 15" which is a plane filled with penises of all shapes and sizes, rather strange if you ask me, skillfully done though.

[X-pLaGue]

You people make it sound like Giger got all his inspiration from penis... hmm.

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-worse than bubonic, filthier than AIDS-

[Isric]

He did. All he did all day was sketch his wang. Once that was finished, it was off to the studio to airbrush his wang. He's creepy, his images are well done but I wonder where any human being would get that kind of inspiration. it makes you wonder. Mabye he lives in wang town.

[X-pLaGue]

*off to study my wang too...*


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-worse than bubonic, filthier than AIDS-

[JayBee]

Now this is rather strange, as I was thinking of getting back into drawing aliens and stuff, might be the inspiration I need...

LethargicBoy: nice alien you've got there. I think, having read LOTS of alien comics over the years, that the way you're going with the head is quite cool. A lot of licence gets taken with these creatures, so variations on head design seems to be "allowed". What I would point out, though, is the mouth. The lips seem a bit too fat - you want to make them look more like thin skin that gets drawn back across the teeth.

Spooge: nice pic, as always, but you really haven't drawn an alien before, have you? Now, I would never, EVER dream of questioning your techniques - you can sketch better pics in five mins than I could pull out of a canvas after a year's work, but as for your alien - well, he looks like he's swallowed a whole batch of Weightgain 2000 !

I agree with ScoobyDoo here - how DID you get the head contour so smooth? I mean, the head looks really moist and sticky too. yuck!

ANYWAY, the main reason I'm posting this is to add to the answer of why the Alien design looks like it does.

The only Alien design that was done by Giger was the first one, in Alien. During Aliens, Cameron wanted Giger on board, but Giger was already under contract on Poltergeist II. He couldn't get out of it, so Cameron went ahead and did the redesign himself.

For Alien^3, Giger came back as a "consultant", and gave help and advice to the design crews on the alien desgin, but he wasn't involved as much as in the first movie.

Then we get to Alien - Resurrection, which is explained best here

http://www.hrgiger.com/alien4b-dec.htm

you should also check out

http://www.hrgiger.com/

for more Giger-type stuff.

Anyway, this has been waaaay too long a post, so I'll shut up and stop being geeky now.


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. . : : j a y b e e

[jason_watkins]

Sumaleth: spooge is right, you should go read gigers own commentary on the alien project. It's true that ridley scott chose giger because of one of his biomechanics series, however, the alien was not a pre-existing design. Giger did most of the work because he was very unhappy with the work of the highered monster makers... he won an oscar for it, so good for him.

[Sumaleth]

jason;

I read The Making Of Alien about a month ago so it was all fresh in my mind, but I guess those official 'Making Of' books do tend to gloss over the gritty details.

But the Alien was definitely designed well before the film. If you look at the images 'Necronomicon IV' and 'Necronomicon V' in the Necronomicon book, images painted in 1996, they are basically the same creature seen in the film.

The conceptual images that Giger did for Alien are also based 99% on this design and I've never seen any of his designs that had anything other than a humanoid body.

But who knows .

Sumaleth.

[spooge demon]

I had a bunch of books about the movie, and only two remain in my collection. I remember the prod designer notes from something that outlined what I recounted. But I read that 20 years ago and I was pretty young.

Someone is screwed up, I don't have the slightest idea who. I guess you could look at the dates of the particular paintings.

Yes, the top of the skull was done with a path. A nice hard edge to contrast with the more complex ones below. I kind of like this image, I may continue with it.

Weight gain 2000 LOL. I took some liberties as well, I guess. I like the head to look very powerful, like he could bite though a steel pipe without blinking. The way the creature moved in the film was like he was powered by hydraulics. Very nice. The hydraulic ram load the truck spring: very slow and smooth, then blammo.


I agree with Muzman, I have not seen much from Cameron that I really liked. The first 15 minutes of T2 was pretty sweet. I cried bitter tears at aliens, just not anywhere near the original. Wacomonkey, I was unaware that he had done some matte work. Is it anywhere I can see?

My Cameron Story:

I was scheduled to meet with someone at Digital Domain, who was late. I took a seat outside his office and picked up a magazine. This is when Titanic was in theatres. I thumbed to one of my favorite columnists, Lilian gelmanwaxner in Premier magazine. Her column that month was criticizing Titanic very effectively. I was chortling and guwaffing away when I heard someone walk up behind me. This person noticed I was enjoying myself and asked what I was reading. I responded �this lady is really ripping Titanic a new one. Really funny!� 30 seconds later I finished the article and looked around to see the fellow was Mr. Cameron. He had not responded. He looked at me and I looked at him. A moment for the ages. I still walk among the living. And this was when he was in a nasty war of words with the LA times critic who hated Titanic. How was I not impaled with an Oscar through my chest?

[Sumaleth]

Spooge; how about showing us what a Spoogilated full-body Alien (tm) would look like? No need to pay any attention to the original, show us how -you- would do it!

Cameron's films have been getting better and better special effects but worse and worse stories to go with them. I'm a huge fan of the original Terminator and Aliens, but after that things have been going downhill.

To be fair i did enjoy both T2 and Titanic as "ride movies", but I cringe at every second line of dialogue in T2 and Titanic seems keen to have a go at every cliche in the book.

My Cameron story (not as good as Spooge's..);

I used to work with a girl who's friend's dad is/was sueing James Cameron for ripping off his Terminator script. True story.

To the question of his matte work; he was a matte artist on Escape From New York and he did some minature work for Battle Beyond The Stars. I also seem to remember that he did miniature work on Dark Star but I might be wrong about that.

And some quick maths; 7 times 7 is 49.

Sumaleth