Special Effects – Visual Effects – Cinema
SFX
The world of Daniel French
Mar 4th
Today, we’re going to discover a very talented artist who choose to work on miniatures. I discovered his work on twitter, and I decided to share it with you. He just finished to work on an really nice miniatures, and he took some time to answer few questions.
First a time laps about the build of the miniature:
Hi, can you describe briefly how you started to work with miniatures and why ?
Through the years, I’ve been lucky enough to work with both set design and CGI. At the same time I’ve always been fascinated by miniature work. Late last year I wrote and directed a short film and we decided to try out some miniature effects. Together with Production Designer Silas Puls we created a miniature set extension. The film is currently in post production and will be online in a couple of months. Recently a new project came up, and we made this test to show the producers.
Randy Cook explains Dynamation
Mar 1st
I showed you few pictures yesterday about Randall William Cook working with his pipe on the Terror Dog for Ghosbusters. Today, he’s back with a small clip of the documentary about Ray Harryhausen “ Special Effects Titan” that I introduced few days ago.
In this clip, you’ll learn what Dynamation is, and how it works. I really hope we’ll be able to see the full documentary someday.
If you have some question, feel free to ask ! Maybe we’ll find a way to get the answers !
Ray Harryhausen – Movement into Life
Mar 1st
Discover this incredible video shared by Wlashbros where the Master Ray Harryhausen talks about his work and shows us how he managed to work on Clash of the Titans.
You will see him animating the original puppett about the Kraken from Clash. It’s really impressive, and so inspiring !
More Matte Painting from Star Wars
Feb 28th
I wanted to stay a bit longer around Star Wars and keep sharing with you this incredible painting.
Look how the work is beautifull on these traditionnal matte painting. It’s really impressive. So many details, but you feel the brush. If you just look at your screen from a small distance, you won’t feel the painting anymore and will start to look at something more realistic.
We have a lot to learn from this technique.
Terror dog – Ghostbusters
Feb 28th
Let’s have a quick look at the really cool Terror Dog from Ghostbusters.
I think this is Randall William Cook that we can see on this photos. This creature was animated in StopMotion, and I remember it scared me a lot first time I saw it ! It was so cool. After the matte painting from last week, here are some nice photo on this incredible SFX work.
Stand by me – Matte Painting
Feb 28th
Here is a very nice matte painting created for the movie “Stand by me”, an adaptation of Stephen King novel. You could see Keifer Sutherland in this film, long time before he plays Jack Bauer. I recommend this movie !
Original Matte Painting from Star Wars
Feb 26th
Here are a bunch of incredible Hi Rez Matte Painting from Star Wars – Return of the Jedi. You can look at a close up of this really nice piece of work. That’s crazy to see how you can stay away from the details of a photo in the painting, but still have a very realistic effect at the end when you watch the movie. That’s so cool 
