Sunday, 3 June 2012

The King Kong "Spider Pit" Missing Creature

Hi again.

This time I decided to finish a creature that i'd started around 2 years ago .... The OCTOPUS CREATURE, from the infamous Kong '33, missing "spider pit."
What's great about creating this monster, is... No one (alive) has ever seen more than the odd tentacle in a production drawing, so you can let your imagination run wild!


spider+pit+stop+motion+mouth+3.JPG

Here's the wire armature that I built a few years back.














spider pit stop motion octopus insect
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A few weeks back, I found the armature in a box, and decided to do something with it. Here is how it looked (with the remains of the work I originally started still attached):





spider pit stop motion octopus insect
I decided to leave the original work attached to the armature and just work around/over it, and set to
work by wrapping each tentacle in wool:




spider pit stop motion octopus insect
Then I made a simple skin texture mold by pressing the "grip bumps" on some plier handles, into an oil based clay (simple, yet effective).




spider pit stop motion octopus insect
I then smeared three thin coats of latex over the texture mold (letting each layer dry before applying the next):
I also sculpted a few simple veins into the clay and they turned out ok.

NOTE: Always dust (with corn starch, talc or baking flour) the skin pieces before pulling them from the mold, becuse once latex touches latex it sticks and will ruin your casting.






spider pit stop motion octopus insect
Next, I dabbed latex onto the cotton tentacle and the underside of the latex skin, then stretched the molded skin around the tentacle until it held.






spider pit stop motion octopus insect
Starting to look like something now!





spider pit stop motion octopus insect

Now it was time to add the striking mouth at the rear; The claws are made from friendly plastic.





spider pit stop motion octopus insect

I started to form the mouth-claws with wool again (this method works quite well, it is very long winded, but worth it in the end!





spider pit stop motion octopus insect
Now it was time to add the webbing that will form the outer part of the mouth, so, again, it was a clay mold that was created.





spider pit stop motion octopus insect
I made the webbing a little thicker than the skin. I repeated this four times, but it would be a one shot deal if you made one big mold (I ran out of clay).



More soon!


3 comments:

  1. Lee it is always a pleasure seeing one of these build up puppets coming to life. Too bad you live on the other side of the ocean or I'd invite your tentacle creature over to play in my pit set up ; )

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  2. Thanks, Brian!

    Yeah, it is a shame, but thank god for the internet! :)

    Your pit set up is the business!! I may have to resort to a partial miniature set up and do the rest in After Effects.

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  3. Monster Hand the name was supposed to be tentacle bug what is this monster name

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