Creature Suit Analysis Part 10 - Flab

[Bill]

Well Drew,

if it's a real body, those areas I highlighted aren't skeleton, not muscles as i know them to form, aren't organs, aren't just wrinkles on the skin, and aren't just hair patterns. Doesn't leave much aside from soft non-muscular tissue.

And as i said, the folding behavior does not match fur cloth as i know it, or any costume padding influence on furcloth I have ever seen.

I welcome your suggestions of what else it may be.

Bill

[Guest SoundMan]

Well Drew,

if it's a real body, those areas I highlighted aren't skeleton, not muscles as i know them to form, aren't organs, aren't just wrinkles on the skin, and aren't just hair patterns. Doesn't leave much aside from soft non-muscular tissue.

And as i said, the folding behavior does not match fur cloth as i know it, or any costume padding influence on furcloth I have ever seen.

I welcome your suggestions of what else it may be.

Bill

Touché! (for those of you unfamiliar with fencing that it is a term used to acknowledge a "hit")

Soundman

[Drew]

Well Drew,

if it's a real body, those areas I highlighted aren't skeleton, not muscles as i know them to form, aren't organs, aren't just wrinkles on the skin, and aren't just hair patterns. Doesn't leave much aside from soft non-muscular tissue.

And as i said, the folding behavior does not match fur cloth as i know it, or any costume padding influence on furcloth I have ever seen.

I welcome your suggestions of what else it may be.

Bill

OK I'm cool, I just didn't see the part in the opening post where you said "If it's a real body", because that makes a pretty big difference in how I read that first post now.

[Guest Remember November]

1. Sure, plenty of overfed zoo animals get fat, and there might be some habituated (and fed) monkeys with some extra LBs hanging around temples in Asia, but a legitimately fat and flabby wild ape? That stretches my imagination a little. But....

lets not forget the reason Patterson went to Bluff Creek in the first place. There were 3 different sets of tracks reported. One of the sets was smaller than the others indicating they were left by an infant. The large breasts probably mean Patty was lactating. If she is lactating, would she not have left over fat deposits?

[Guest Apeman]

lets not forget the reason Patterson went to Bluff Creek in the first place. There were 3 different sets of tracks reported. One of the sets was smaller than the others indicating they were left by an infant. The large breasts probably mean Patty was lactating. If she is lactating, would she not have left over fat deposits?

Well, we could debate the notion of what might be an infant in this case (my recollection is that the smallest tracks weren't that small, and I can't remember if these are the same as the famous Onion Mtn tracks which I think were fake).... But I've been up close and personal with plenty of wild apes, in every imagineable stage of estrus, pregnancy, and infant care, and I've yet to see one with anything resembling visible rolls of fat. Usually an adult female animal will be relatively thin around weaning because they've used up those stores to raise their offspring. But regardless, even if she was at her naturally fattest stage, I still have a hard time imagining flabby love handles as Bill has proposed. Even if she was raiding campgrounds or something like that.

If there really are flabby lovehandles there (which I don't think is the case), and it's not just a costume fold, then I think we need to go back and think about a fat actor in a leotard-type suit. One of the big name skeptics I know has always said his first guess is a something like a long-underwear suit, but then we need to explain the apparent hair.... which is one reason I brought my (still unanswered) question about how we can even show there is really longish hair on the figure?

-A

[Hairy Man]

Todd Partain made an excellent bigfoot "outfit" for his documentary "Eyes in the Dark" using just black long johns and hair extensions. If you haven't seen the outfit, it's pretty darn good...especially since I think he only paid like $250 for it (at the end of the documentary there is a whole discussion on how he made the suit).

And just for the record, love handles are cute!

[Bill]

Apeman:

I know you've seen more live apes than I (and I've seen a lot more than most people), so I certainly won't disagree with your observations and experience in the matter. But we do need to step back a bit and ask, is Patty an ape or a hominid? And if a hominid, than the physiology of humans may be more comparative. I don't have an answer to this, just a point of consideration to bring up.

On the "apparent hair" as you stated, yes, the film resolution (especialy the degredation due to the copying repeatedly) makes it hard to actually see hair clearly enough to determine length and density conclusively. Ideally, filming a variety of mammals with similar film, camera, distance, and viewed through similar copy generations would give us a much needed research reference to how varying natural hair types and densities do in fact render out in such photographic circumstances. I'm working up a research proposal (obviously pending funding) which would include such photo studies to try and nail down the specifics of the hair in a rigorous, impartial way. If it could be done, it would certainly help us one and all in deciding the specifics of the surface character of the figure in the film.

On the fat guy in a longjohn suit with hair on it, it would have to be a complete hand tied (ventilated) suit, with a higher density than the 2001 ape suits, and higher hair density means higher cost (more knots to tie), and I believe the 2001 ape suits were about as good as it gets back then for this type of suit fur method, and those apes don't even come close to the anatomical definition seen in the PG Film. First ventilated suit I've seen that even comes close to Patty is Rick Baker's "Sidney" gorilla suit, made in 1981 (there abouts) and Josephine Turner did his ventilating (hair tying). I also heard that suit cost $250,000. (came with a few spare parts and backups, plus the animated head)

Bill

Hairy Man:

Sounds like the hair you're referring to is wefted hair (the hair sewn into rows, and commonly used for wigs and some hair extensions on people). Usually sells for about $10-$15 per quarter pound (1980-1990 prices) and a 6-8" length (the shortest length usually sold) has about 15-20 running feet of weft per 1/4 pound.

Figure if you sew it on to longjohns spacing the wefts about an inch apart, you need 12' to cover a square foot. So you're looking at about $10 a square foot of coverage.

I used this method once to make a wooly mammoth for a museum client (but used much longer hair, and a lot more of it).

It works fine for a longer hair look, but once you cut it short, the wefted structure becomes very apparent. Leaving it long will tend to obscure the anatomical details of contour shown in the PG film.

:coverlaugh:

Bill

[Guest Skeptical Greg]

.....it may well be an even stronger argument for reality if you consider that the fatty tissue bulges and contours seen late in the film, the "Flab" is even harder to replicate, with 1967 technology and particularly under a furcloth outer suit material.

It's hard to argue with gravity. I've tried. I lost. So would any suit technology of 1967.

How about suit technology from the 40's ?

This suit has features very similar to the features you highlighted.

[Guest Remember November]

[Bill]

Greg:

I'm taking a guess here to say maybe that's one of Charlie Gamora's gorilla suits, and maybe the one I've heard he put a huge pouch of water in the belly to make a more fluid appearance of anatomy.

But without seeing this suit from the back, and especailly under some kind of similar lighting, comparing contours can become more argumentative, because you haven't accounted for all the variables.

The trick is not so much in making a shape as in how the shape changes when the human inside moves around. So when you see a smooth contour change to a lumpy, folded or flabby contour, you are more likely seeing something real flesh and blood, than a costume fabrication.

Bill

[Guest Skeptical Greg]

Where in the film are you seeing the features you diagrammed above, in motion, for more than a second or two ?

[Guest longtabber PE]

here are a few more observations for the mix

going back to the other thread- theres no way from a visual observation of the film to make an accurate determination of the hair, length or any way to distinguish it from furcloth or any other commercially available product. It cannot even be determined that its "hair" in the first place.

Thats just reality.

As far as the muscles- theres no definition of movement that couldnt be explained as shifting padding or any number of alternatives- just because it doesnt have an obvious clue doesnt mean its not.

Always remember this- there are only 2 possible outcomes

1) this is a genuine BF

2) this is a suit

Seriously- theres not a 3rd option- it is literally true or false ( and that simple, cut and dried)

With that said- the only way to "prove" anything regarding suit V BF is in proving BF exists ( or make a logical case to the pro) because if that fails- the suit wins be default ( as its the only other alternative- regardless of any arguments to the contrary)

So the root question is- what is the probability BF actually exists ( or still exists)? Thats important because each improbability in that case defaults to the pro suit side and bolsters that argument. ( simply because thats the only alternative)

Regardless of any opinions ( pro or con) on the question of suit V BF- it will NOT be settled with the PGF because the PGF is not capable of settling the issue. ( after 40 years- if it could be- it would have been by now)

So we are now back to a preponderance of the whole body of evidence V suit argument.

At that point- the suit theory is way ahead simply because if theres a low probability of a species such as BF existing- the probability of the film subject being a suit is RAISED in equal proportion.

So, the correct way to assess this is:

suit-50%

BF-50%

Now let the total body of all available evidence, suit technology, known history regarding theories/probabilities of the possible existance of BF, lack of all other supporting evidence ( and everything else) be put in the mix.

When thats done- the probability of a suit is well over 90% because by default is theres a weak scientific case for the existance of BF in the first place- the probability of suit is equally strengthened.

[Bill]

Greg:

I'm basing my analysis on the frames I showed in the original post.

Bill

[Bill]

Longtabber:

Clearly you feel that no amount of study or analysis of the film will yield any conclusion, and I certainly respect your right to that opinion, even though I emphatically disagree.

I see many potential areas where I feel the inconclusiveness of the issue rests more in the lack of proper studies and scientific experiments, and so I believe a properly done scientific study can, in fact, yield far more conclusive determinations than have been made thus far, and may potentially yield a fully reliable conclusion. But the only way I can advance my hypothesis is with a funded research program, and that is being explored now.

So for now, you see it your way, and I see it mine. And I plan to keep looking for answers, instead of just writing the whole thing off as unanswerable.

:coverlaugh:

Bill

[Guest Crowlogic]

Some interesting folds and fur seams on this one