Creature Suit Analysis Part 10 - Flab

[Guest JohnWS]

I've been trying to think of a diplomatic way to say this without trying appear to 'score point's. I'm completely confident that you are mistaken in this instance.

[Bill]

JohnWS:

"I've been trying to think of a diplomatic way to say this without trying appear to 'score point's. I'm completely confident that you are mistaken in this instance."

I did not work on the projects with Rick, so if he did the work in another way other than what I described as normal industry process at the time, I welcome your posting information about how he did it.

I'm not mistaken about anything I described with the NFT company and their product. I worked with them on making many custom blend fur materials for about 12 years, and even advised them on prospects of marketing furs to the taxidermy market. SO I know what they do. I'm very familiar with hand tied hair work, having done it myself, and well as commissioned custion pieces from Josephine Turner, and used stock pieces as well, extensively. The only common stretch spandex medium hair was hand tied into was spandex wig caps, which was a spandex lace, with large open holes in the land about 1/8th inch diameter.

But if you feel one part of my comment was incorrect, i welcome your offering what you think is correct.

Bill

added:

John: Any chance you may be confusing the greystoke suits with the Sidney gorilla suit for Incredible Shrinking Woman. That suit was all reportedly hand tied by Josephine Turner as a custon fabrication? Just a thought.

Bill

Edited May 1, 2010 by Bill

[Bill]

John:

I gave some more thought to your remark, and wanted to add a few more thoughts to the discussion.

The early 80's (when the Greystoke movie was done) were a time when every major makeup effects artist was experimenting with new and novel techniques. Rick, **** Smith, Stan Winston, Tom Burman, Rob Bottin, many others, and I as well, experimented with unorthodox techniques for specific jobs. A few of these techniques evolved into insudtry standards, while many were done once and found to be sufficiently problematic that they were never tried again.

So it could be that some of the work Rick did then was of an experimental type.

The issue of hand tying hair into any fabric medium is that you need a needle like a miniature chochett hook, a wigmaker's ventilating needle, and for it to be inserted into a fabric, snag some hairs (which are doubled over), pull those hairs through the woven material twice (once into it and then again once out of it, so the hair is now around some woven strand of the fabric weave), there must be enough of an opening in the weave to allow the small hook end of the needle to pass through and not hook on the weave. That's why lace materials (called Tule, in the fabric industry) are so successful and became an industry standard. They have open spaces between the woven strands to the needle hook doesn't catch on the base weave.

Now the contridiction to your remark is that (in general) if a material is easy and condusive to the hand tying process, it has very little substance and a lot of holes in it, so it allows the color of what's underneath to show through those holes. That's why a fine lace front toupee for a man looks natural, because the lace edge becomes near transparent when glued down and allows the man's forhead skin tone to show through, so the hairs tied to the lace weave seem to be rising out of the man's skin.

If the fabric weave is dense enough that it looks like skin itself, and thus would be died to be blotchy, that same density which is condusive to the skin tone effect is not condusive to hand tying with a ventilating needle, because it is so dense that the needle hook snags on it during the tying process.

Now as I said, the era was one of a great deal of experimentation of new processes, and many things were tried for one specific job which never were practical enough to catch on as common practive. It is possible Rick was doing some type of odd experimental technique in this instance.

What became standardized as successful and effective was the NFT material used as a hood going up the neck to the back half of the head, and i believe rRck is generally acknowledged as the developer of this technique.

But I welcome your posting any indormation you have that describes any other variation on the technique or process, because, as i said, it was an era of a lot of innovative experimentation.

Bill

[Guest JohnWS]

Well now you just threw me. I was ready to post and you added more......

[Bill]

John:

Sorry about that.

I just wanted to be thorough and factual about common practices. Rick may indeed have used some unconventional process, and if so, I'd be very interested to hear about it.

Bill

[southernyahoo]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patterson-Gimlin_film

Robert B. Stein, an expert on hoaxes in general and trick photography in particular, argues that the Patterson-Gimlin creature's apparent size is due to a photographic trick called forced perspective. This is an elaborate set of special effects used to make film characters look larger or smaller than usual, compared to their surroundings. It has been used to good effect in many recent fantasy movies, including The Lord of the Rings and the Harry Potter series.

He notes that at no point in the Patterson-Gimlin film is any recognizable human form in the frame for size reference. He also asserts that the apparent "muscle movement" in the film was probably the result of a tight-fitting costume that enclosed the feet. Stein comments on Patterson's incredible good luck. "Roger Patterson set out to make a Bigfoot documentary," he says. "He immediately stumbled upon a Bigfoot. Not only that, he stumbled upon a Bigfoot that was out in the open in bright, clear sunshine, perfect weather for filming. He didn't just beat the odds. He gave the odds a royal whipping."

Bill,

At the above link and in bold in the quote, it is stated that there is no recognizable human form for size reference. I threw this quick photo comparison together to illustrate the musculature of the patterson film subjects leg versus that of a body builder and Heironomus. I think it illustrates that the film subjects leg proportions in reference to the quadracep maximum profile versus distance to center knee cap is more congruent with that of a body builder than that of an average mans leg in terms of proportions.

I also agree with Robert that the suit is form fitted (If it is one) and I dont see any flab there.

[Bill]

southernyahoo:

Definitely no flab on the legs. And the calf muscle area has a very nice definition.

The flab in on the back views of the torso midsection, best seen in the early part of the film. It should be diagrammed in the opening part of this thread.

Bill

[bipedalist]

Definitely no pencil-legged human form for sure!

[Guest JohnWS]

John:

Sorry about that.

No worries - it was quite funny (if a little frustrating). I was planning to hit post then finish for the night - but it was not to be.

First off - apologies - my 'mistaken' comment was purely about Baker's 'custom made' fur, not your knowledge of NFT's products.

I'm not getting muddled up over Sidney. Rather that the Greystoke work was a refinement of that done for 'Incredible Shrinking Woman'.

The Greystoke suits were dual spandex layered affairs. One layer encasing the muscles and the other specially died and individually hand tied with hairs. This is documented in a number of places and 'hand tied' is clearly the method rather than machine woven.

[Bill]

John:

Guess I'll have to go looking through my old Cinefex archives for their issue on the film, and see what they say. They were usuallly pretty good about getting the descriptions right.

Bill

[Guest JohnWS]

I carried on HERE - in the Fur thread.

[Incorrigible1]

The rank speculation seems equally split between the believers and skeptics. Kit, when examining stories and hearsay, you're as equally skewed to your ultimate belief as any believer. Of course you're entitled to your opinion, and you express it fairly eloquently, but you're jaded just the same. Just sayin'.

[Guest Crowlogic]

The flab issue is one of the overlooked aspects of the PGF. On Bill's site there is an excellent photo demonstrating how Patty's apparent body flab as viewed from the back bears a striking resemblance to that of a human's. This detail seen in Patty IMO takes the issue of suit details and raises it to an almost unreal sense of detail that ANY suit maker then and or now would seek to incorporate into a suit. The question begs to be asked of how Roger Patterson would have had the nearly super human eye for detail and knowledge to incorporate it into his suit. The question just a rightly begs to be asked if anyone can furnish examples of similar costumes that show this flab effect. Maybe something from the period will surface but I wouldn't bet the farm that anything from then or even now will.

[Guest JohnWS]

The question just a rightly begs to be asked if anyone can furnish examples of similar costumes that show this flab effect. Maybe something from the period will surface but I wouldn't bet the farm that anything from then or even now will.

I'm admittedly playing my cards close to my chest here - but the body prostheses (bare down to the waist) I have pictures of dates to 1939. I sit here looking at it and I'm not sure where the actor ends and the prosthesis begins. So the belly flab may be the actor's own! Though I'm inclined to think it isn't for a couple of reasons.

The thing is - that in the 'old days' there really wasn't that much of this type of work going due to the nature of the industry at that time - some of the greatest innovators probably had far more ideas than work.

Who knows (I certainly don't) what may have been suggested if someone, who wished to be parted from some money, had been shopping around for a 'realistic' bigfoot costume almost thirty years later.

I'm not suggesting I even see flab and can therefore explain it away as above - my personal opinion (and that's all it is) is that the PGF 'suit' doesn't need such complications given what I can see - but rather suggesting you shouldn't automatically rule out certain possibilities given the state of the industry decades ago.

[Guest Crowlogic]

I'm admittedly playing my cards close to my chest here - but the body prostheses (bare down to the waist) I have pictures of dates to 1939. I sit here looking at it and I'm not sure where the actor ends and the prosthesis begins. So the belly flab may be the actor's own! Though I'm inclined to think it isn't for a couple of reasons.

The thing is - that in the 'old days' there really wasn't that much of this type of work going due to the nature of the industry at that time - some of the greatest innovators probably had far more ideas than work.

Who knows (I certainly don't) what may have been suggested if someone, who wished to be parted from some money, had been shopping around for a 'realistic' bigfoot costume almost thirty years later.

I'm not suggesting I even see flab and can therefore explain it away as above - my personal opinion (and that's all it is) is that the PGF 'suit' doesn't need such complications given what I can see - but rather suggesting you shouldn't automatically rule out certain possibilities given the state of the industry decades ago.

A photo of a "full figured" human is in Bill's report. He goes int a fair amount of detail about this compared to the rear view of Patty. The lay of the flab in his comparison photos is very telling. Sorry I don't have a photo to post of it but go to Bills report page and its there. I think it's in the 3rd release.

Edited May 18, 2010 by Crowlogic
fixed the quote tag