Tag Archives: Diorama

CHICKEN FOR DINNER (Cowboys and Dinosaurs)

Posted on by Mister Farrell
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In the Old West, two desperadoes took refuge in a hidden California valley. One shot a “funny-lookin’ chicken” and roasted it for their dinner.

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His compatriot was sick with a bad cold and had no appetite for the weird meat.

Little did the bad men know some very hungry chickens were already hunting them…

 

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Inspired by Ray Harryhausen’s VALLEY OF GWANGI (which I’ve still never seen all the way through), my own take on two great icons of the American West, Cowboys and Dinosaurs.

This diorama is 2 1/2′ X 2 1/2′ across. The cowboys, dog, horses and dinosaurs were all made from Super Sculpey over an aluminum armatures. Lots of research went into cowboy gear, animal anatomy, paleontology (particularly the work of Gregory S. Paul), and the Navajo blanket worn by the sick cowboy, only to ignore all of it where it’d make for better drama.

This is an older piece I never photographed before. It was built to be viewed in person, in the dark, and I hope it translates into photos. Thanks to Sean Downey for his assistance in preparing this piece to shoot.

Lonely Monster

Posted on by Mister Farrell
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FvZ Hallway Comp Test 04

Very glad to share more work-in-progress pictures of my ongoing project with Sean Downey. This was photographed by Tony Martins. This will be part of an illustrated book which we hope to show people sometime next year.

It’s amazing working in collaboration, particularly with a photographer. You really see what ideas hold up and which don’t.

More to come!

UPDATE:

Here are some behind-the-scenes pictures from this photo shoot at Hub Comics in Somerville, Massachusetts.

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Green gels were used over the backlighting.

(Note also Sean’s tiger-stripe arm hair.)

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Since it wasn’t supposed to appear in the shot, the “roof” was just cardboard draped over the walls to block light.

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Here’s Sean. He’s holding the monster, I think.

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You can see how the room was built using forced perspective: it gets bigger as it gets closer toward the camera.

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Back at my house, this was how one of the walls looked when we started.

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FURTHER UPDATE:

Sean added on 11/13/13:

In the making of this I made a brush by cutting a thin sponge into the shape of a hand roughly to scale with the set.  It was then dipped in a red/brown paint and lazily dragged across the wall. Thinking about it now, I can hear The Stroll by The Diamonds as i look at the smeared blood trail.  When I painted this, the sponge/brush fingers touched the doorknob with a foggy memory of how to open a doorknob.  It was a chilling.

The brushes’ name is Richard.