I've always been a fan of early science fiction, H G Wells's work especially and, in particular, his masterpiece, The War of the Worlds. Everything about the novel fascinates me, from the evocative period setting (or near-future to Wells) to the setpiece battles, from the musings on imperialism and evolutionary development to the Martians themselves and their extraordinary machines.
And what great monsters the Martians are! The end product of an evolutionary process that has taken them from humanoids not unlike ourselves to being the quintessential Big Brained Bug Eyed Monsters! They were science fiction's first Brain In A Box (effectively), and were more or less cyborgs, almost completely dependent on their various vehicles as they were. Not least, they were the ancestors of British television's favourite sci-fi villains, the Daleks.
And so below you can see my attempt at sculpting a Martian (sans tentacles) from plasticine. From this, a plaster mould was made, and later I shall be making latex skins from the mould to cover the armature (as yet un-built). In a future entry, I shall go into more detail about the mouldmaking process, which will also explain the white patches on the sculpture (bits of plaster, remnants from the somewhat traumatic effort to remove it from the mould).
Hopefully, the finished beastie will look a bit more menacing than the sculpture...
What will he do?
Well, I intend to film the landing of the first Martian cylinder (which will be another chance to make something go bang!) and the emergence of the first Martian from it.
1 comment:
Hi, Roger!
Well, I know you can blow inanimate things to kingdom come very well, and it'll be interesting to see how you breathe life into inanimate objects as well.
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