Stan Winston going through some of our early concept designs for the Gorgonites.
A simple 5 minute sketch that caught Stan's eye and became the inspiration for Slamfist.
Early in the process, Stan had me pop my "Slammy" head onto the body of designer Ian Stevenson's character sketch which is on the screen.
My sketch on top of Ian's character. Here Stan talks about possible changes to the body.
My final concept drawing of Slamfist drawn the old fashioned way... pencil on paper.
Creating Slamfist's posable armature for the sculpt.
Checking how far the head ball joint must sit in relation to the shoulders.
Slamfist's armature with my newly started sculpture.
Beginning to "flesh out" Slamfist's features.
I slowly added more musculature to Slamfist's arms and legs until he had the bulk I wanted.
Using the drawing as reference, here is a rough sculpt of Slamfist
Beginning to detail Slamfist's skin texture.
I made the armature so that each part of the body could be removed, which made the sculpting much easier.
Stan Winston checks out my progress.
Stan making his rounds to critique the SS characters. Behind us, Scott Stoddard is working on Link Static.
Pulling Slamfist off the stand so Stan can get a feel for the character.
Detailing the "fur" body.
The trick for all of us was to give even the clothing a "toy" look.
I would continually unassemble the parts to sculpt and reassemble them to see the full character.
Checking to see the rotation clearance as the shoulder area sculpt had to be able to move in every direction without interference.
Stan speaks with the visiting producers and director of Small Soldiers as they see the characters coming together.
Small Soldiers Director Joe Dante get's his first look at the Slamfist sculpture in person. He seems to like it.
Each character had a main expression head but also had a few extra expression heads in case a scene called for a facial change. Here I am sculpting a "smile" face.
Sculpting the "surprise" Slamfist expression head.
Back in the day, I did many tasks at work... here I am laying up a mold for Slamfist's main expression head.
The final sculpt of Slamfist.
The final sculpt of Slamfist.
The final sculpt of Slamfist.
The final sculpt of Slamfist.
Using digital photos of the final Slamfist sculpt, I created a bunch of different color concepts for his paint scheme in Photoshop.
Joe Dante looking at all our color designs and narrowing down his selections.
Stan discussing with Joe which color designs would be the best fit for Slamfist.
All of the character sculpts in various color concept painted versions on display for Joe to pick his favorites.
The final chosen Photoshop color concept for Slamfist.
Stan talking with Art Department supervisor John Rosengrant about Slamfist.
The color "master" of Slamfist was painted on a solid plastic casting. This was used as reference to duplicate all future parts in the production.
The color "master" of Slamfist was painted on a solid plastic casting. This was used as reference to duplicate all future parts in the production.
Mechanical designer Bob Mano was assigned to help bring Slamfist to "life". All of the characters had to be carefully cast as hollow shells so the mechanics could begin to fit their interior creations inside.
Painting the actual hollow puppet parts to be assembled on top of the mechanical interiors.
Each part was cast in tinted plastic as a base for the colors that would be painted over them.
Laying down the base colors.
Slamfist's paint scheme was a complex process using a combination of many painting techniques, including airbrush, wet paint and dry brush.
Painting one of the leg parts while referencing the master painted sculpture to make sure they match.
ainting all the little brown scales of Slamfist's skin. What a CRAZY job it was matching multiple copies. Who's idea was it to make him such a complicated character to paint?!!! Oh right, it was my idea. 🙂
Slamfist's paint scheme called for tight detail applied both with an airbrush and painted by hand with a tiny paintbrush.
Artist Charles Ratteray was my assistant on this job. Here he paints background versions of Slamfist matching to the same original master I created at the start of this process.
The final touches on the paint scheme had to be applied after the shells were assembled onto the actual animatronic puppet. Mostly to paint the joint screws to match the arms and legs.
Mechanical designer Bob Mano tweaks the servo rack connections as I paint the puppet.
Simultaneous to our making the puppets, puppeteering rehearsals began so we could get our performances down prior to filming. Here, Mechanical Dept supervisor Alan Scott is attached to the "Walking" puppet legs while Keith Marbury and I control Slamfist's arms.
As we practice we watch a monitor showing a live video feed of our performances to help us critique ourselves.
Bob Mano and I messing around with one of the Slamfist puppets for the camera.
Slamfist's right arm puppet rods had a small squeeze lever to allow his wrist to bend, giving the character additional mobility and hand animation while on set.
Bob Mano and I messing around with one of the Slamfist puppets for the camera.
Rehearsals getting more intense. Unfortunately this particular puppet type, the walking Slamfist, was never used in the film.
While the three of us were directly manipulating the puppet, a fourth puppeteer was off to the side moving the head and body with a radio controller.
Unfortunately the walking puppet didn't get used in the film, but the other two puppets did.
I'm on the radio controller this time, making Slamfist's head look around while he walks. John Rosengrant oversees me, Christopher Swift on right arm, Keith Marbury on the left and Al Sousa and the walking rig. On film, I was the one who controlled the head, face and body on all of the Slamfist puppets.
The final "hero" Slamfist cable puppet in his more natural crouching position.
The final "hero" Slamfist cable puppet... standing tall.
Slamfist and all of his Gorgonite pals posing for publicity shots.
Stan Winston with all the Commando and Gorgonite characters we made for Small Soldiers.
