Frankenstein – 1995

This was an amazing project that I guess has been permanently shelved. The idea was to bring back the original Universal monsters, the Wolfman and Frankenstein’s monster, in a digital feature. The artwork for this movie is some of the most beautiful of any project I’ve ever worked on. I was really lucky to get the opportunity to work in the Art Department on this project, in the same room with amazing artists like Erik Tiemens, Ryan Church, and Iain McCaig, who designed many, if not all, of the main characters. For many years I could not show this work in my portfolio because the movie was shelved, but then ILM put the maquettes on public display, so I am assuming that it’s ok to finally show my work here.
These character maquette busts were used both as a stage in the concept art, and as visual aids for the sculpting and painting of the final digital characters. I did not sculpt these busts but I did do the paint jobs. The sculptors were some of the top in the biz. Most of them were sculpted by the amazing Mike Murnane. If you’re reading this and you know who sculpted the others, please let me know!
The approach to these busts was unique in that we used oil paint rather than acrylic, and took weeks to paint each one. This gave them a real glow and depth that you just can’t get with water-based paints. The maquettes painted by Melanie Walas were amazing, but I don’t have pictures of them. Check the gallery to see some of the ones I painted.