GALLERY OF STAN WINSTON's CREATURES

Here are some stills of Stan WINSTON's creations to follow the tribute to this great makeup artist of the 17^th june 2008 ( translation on this blog of the 1^st august below ).

The first monster made by Stan WINSTON is the voracious critter of Charles BAND's PARASITE, with Demi MOORE for her first role, and Robert GLAUDINI as a scientist running away after to have infected himself with the parasite created by him, in order to avoid than a totalitary government could use it. Stan was not particularly proud of his creation for this rather good B-movie, although it was absolutely not the most unconvincing monster of the movie history ( we can notice than the parasite is so mysterious than Mona LISA, because the number of its eyes seems to be never the same from a shot to another, depending of the light, but it carnivorous smile has nothing ambiguous ).

Among the various incarnations of the alien of John CARPENTER's THE THING, there is this rather inform hairless dog, made by Stan WINSTON, who was hired by Rob BOTTIN, overworked. The animation by hand of the puppeeter gives a very organic movement to this creature described in the scenario like dog-like but that isn't really a dog.

MANIMAL was a crime drama serie with Simon MacCORKINDALE ( also seen in JAWS 3 ) as a hero able to change by metempsychosis into different animals, to spy gansters. Stan WINSTON did nice metamorphosis into Panther, Falcon and Snake, limited mainly to the head because financial reason, but this was very impressive ( years later, he made also the frightening hybrids men-beasts of John FRANKENHEIMER' THE ISLAND OF DOCTOR MOREAU ).

On the famousTERMINATOR by James CAMERON, Stan WINSTON made makeup for the Android losing his human appearance, and created the full-scale bionic semi-skeleton of the climatic struggle, and do the terrific scenes of the future for the sequels.

For the remake of INVADERS FROM MARS of Tobe Hopper, he brought to life, from the designs of the conceptual artist William STOUT, the awesome Supreme intelligence and its – deliberate – grotesque drones, put to life thanks to his ingeniosity, as explained in the first part of the Stan WINSTON tribute.

The man hunter alien of PREDATOR, with its insectoid head, is another well-known creation by Stan WINSTON. In the orginal movie, its face is seen briefly, but its's a strong moment, and it is very more terrific in the film than on simple photo.

Stan WINSTON directed himself a vengeful demon in PUMPINKHEAD.

He didn't work on ALIEN, but on the sequel ALIENS, full of terrific creatures.

Stan Winston studios created LEVIATHAN's trangenic monster, a big amount of work even if it is rather poorly seen in the final cut.

The RELIC monster, a mix of Vertebrate and Arachnid, bears some likeness with the Predator.

For the comedy GALAXY QUEST, Stan WINSTON did some little less frightened beings, like this bipedial one seemed very hungry character in regard to its huge wide mouth, that recalls some bizzare Wayne BARLOWE's paintings.

To give tribute to some B-movies of the fifthies, and avoid the obliged CGI effects demanded by major producers, Stan WINSTON made a film like DAY OF THE WORLD ENDED, starring Natassia KINSKI and Randy QUAID. Because he would drive attention to the psychological level, Stan almost hided his extraterrestrial, that, with its tentacular hair – excepted it has a single eye whereas three ones – could have been rather near of the alien of THE THING FROM ANOTHER WORLD faithfully inspired by the one of John CAMPBELL's WHO GOES THERE ? novella that would be put to screen, if the RKO producers, judging it too horrible, had not decide to destroy the the costume made and to cast at its place James ARNESS with a light touch of makeup - and so the first non humanoid movie monster vanished to ever.

Even if Stan WINSTON has also to his credit some other famous makeups, like EDWARD SCISSORHANDS and INTERVIEW WITH THE VAMPIRE's ones, it's impossible to forget his Dinosaurs, huge mechanicals very far of the classic makeup he did at his beginning on TV. He was preceded by some people like the english Roger DICKEN ou the Italian Carlo RAMBALDI, but he obtained very subtile movements, even if the sophistication don't prevent some difficulties at crucial instant while all was fine during repetitions. Media spoke only of JURASSIC PARK's CGI Dinosaurs although the more impressive are the beasts ftom Stan Winston studios, like the sick Triceratops, the Velociraptors and the Tyrannosaurus ( in lot of shots ) of the first film, the crying baby Tyrannosaurus of the sequel THE LOST WORLD, and the colossal Spinosaurus of JURASSIC PARK 3.

So, even if his name was not particularly known by public outside the USA ( excepted for the fantastic lovers ), Stan WINSTON is a reference in his professional area, and the man behind a number of fabulous creatures seen in theaters.