How To Make An Alien (Act 1)

A hypothetical example

Let's just suppose we were asked to do an alien corpse for an autopsy scene in somebody's movie. Let's also suppose our client doesn't want to do the "ultimate" autopsy scene - they just want something that will be acceptable. (Actually this example is hardly hypothetical so far. It's more like a description of our entire careers.)

According to the script, the scene will include the following:

This is a period piece intended to look like a 40's-era documentary
The body is supposed to resemble the commonly-accepted "alien" description
The body will be cut open and handled by the actors
We want to show non-human internal organs

None of these requirements are especially difficult. We take the job.

How do we proceed?

Once the check clears, we have some important choices to make. There are two basic techniques we could use to create the original form of our corpse - sculpt the whole thing in clay, or do a body-cast. Since we're doing a humanoid character, we might recommend a body cast for this job. Once we have our body cast, we can adjust it in various ways to make it more "alien." Even with our adjustments, we'll still be stuck with a mostly human-looking corpse - but the body-cast method is both easier and faster than sculpting the entire alien from scratch.

The body-cast process is essentially this - we get a real live human of the approximate size we need and cover them with alginate - an organic product which goes on like a paste but quickly solidifies into a rubbery semi-solid. (You may be familiar with the stuff already - dentists use it to take tooth casts.) We reinforce the alginate with layers of plaster bandage.

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An example of an actor being body-cast. Looks fun, doesn't it?

When we remove the hardened bandages and alginate in two big sections (front and back), we've got a "negative" of our human's entire body. This will be the starting point for creating our alien corpse. (Many FX companies store body-casts from past projects - if we happened to have an existing body-cast which fit our requirements we could skip this entire step. Now that's economical!)

Now what?

Now, if we were really in a hurry we might make our final alien from the body cast as is - but that could lead to cosmetic problems later. The better technique is to heat up a big batch of oil clay until it becomes liquid, pour the clay into our mold and let it cool. (Pressing cold clay directly into the mold is another option, too.) When we open the mold, we have an instant "sculpture", which we can re-sculpt until our body is exactly the way we want it.

This method does require us to make another mold of the finished sculpture to create our final mold - our budget goes up a little bit, but the improved results will make it worth our while.

The resulting sculpture will have nice muscle definition and all the subtle curves and shapes of a real body. Something like this...

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However, we made one mistake. (Actually we try not to make this mistake - but this is hypothetical, remember?) We cast our human standing up, because it was easier to get our plaster bandages around them that way. We forgot our corpse would eventually be seen on its back. Like this...

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Unfortunately, our finished body won't have real muscles under real skin - so it won't shift and react to gravity like a real body would. This is a chubby little alien we're making - if it were real the underside of the body would lie flatter against the table. Someone looking very closely might also notice the way the flesh appears to hang sideways, toward the toes, rather than downward.

And because our body-cast subject was alive, the leg muscles are visibly tensed rather than slack as a dead person's would be.

Oh well, it's good enough. Let's move on.

Next Step: Creepy Alien Bits!

The Truly Dangerous Company

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