Prehistoric Beasts!!


The above artworks were made for "Valley Of The Gwangi" a film that can be summed up with the description, Cowboys VS Dinosaurs. More concept art for the film can be found here.




The above 2 sketches were rough ideas for what the creature in "The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms" would eventually look like. As a fan of Ray Harryhausen and Ray Bradbury I found it amusing that this film's script originally ripped off a short story by Bradbury concerning a dinosaur that seeks out a light tower for companionship. The story was later purchased before filming began and the title of the movie took on that of the short story it was inspired by. You can read more about the incident here.



The above couple of drawings were made for the Hammer produced film "One Million Years B.C." Nevermind humans weren't around during the age of dinosaurs, this was just another excuse to let Harryhausen animate lunatic beasts tormenting mankind. More artwork for the film can be seen here and here.




These three sketches were created for Mysterious Island. Considering most the creatures in this film were giant versions of modern day animals like bees and crabs, it felt like some weird prequel to Food of the Gods, a movie Harryhausen was originally going to have worked on but didn't. Other Dinosaur related projects from Harryhausen involve one of his earliest projects, the never completed "Evolution" a story about the beginnings of life on Earth. And then there is "Animal World" an impossible to find film with many stop motion animated Dinosaurs. Some examples from this can be seen here.
Below is a pic of Ray holding a dinosaur model from One Million Years B.C.

Creatures From Outer Space!!
















































The above sketches are for a creature called a "Ymir" a lifeform from the planet Venus used in the black and white monster on a rampage movie "20 MILLION MILES TO EARTH." Additional artwork of the alien can be found here.
You can see the creature kicking ass in a barn here.




The above 2 sketches were made for the classic science fiction film "Earth Vs The Flying Saucers." And although these drawings show the potential of some very bizarre stop motion creature scenes, all attention in the animation department was put towards the alien saucers. This resulted in some of the most incredible scenes of science fiction cinema.





In the film "First Men In The Moon" Ray brought to life giant caterpillars also known as the "Moon Cows" and the smaller insect like creatures that dwelled under the moon's surface. Although a few of the alien characters from this bug like race were animated, most of them were made up of children in alien costumes.































































Last we have what could have been Harryhausen's best foray into creatures from space, "War Of The Worlds." Unfortunately this never worked out and we are only left with these sketches and this test animation of an alien exiting a ship.

Mighty Joe Young






This was Ray Harryhausen's first feature film, he worked on it alongside Willis (King Kong) O'Brien and several other animators. However it is claimed that Harryhausen did 80 percent of the animation for Mighty Joe and that he was responsible for the personality of the giant ape on the screen.

"In spite of the similarities between this film and KING KONG, Mighty Joe Young is a fantasy film of it's own right. Ernest Schoedsack and Merian Cooper worked together on this picture as they had on KONG and Willis O'Brien was brought in to supervise the special effects for the film. There was a very long, two-year period of production for MIGHTY JOE YOUNG, during which time a young Ray Harryhausen got to see O'Bie at work through the pre-production period and design stages all the way through the animation photography. Ray and O'Bie worked together designing the first armature of JOE basing it on the actual skeleton of a real gorilla. Marcel Delgado was then brought in to build up the armature with foam rubber, dental dam and cotton. Finally George Lofgren, a taxidermist, fashioned the fur for JOE devising a new process to rubberize the fur thereby avoiding the problems they had experienced with KING KONG which cause Kong fur to continually move every time an animator touched it." - quote source.



This page has a great selection of images related to the production of Mighty Joe Young, including pics of the stop motion armature for the ape.
There is an excellent page with poster, screenshots, trailer and additional info on the film at The Seventh Voyage.com

The Early Stuff






Starting this week I'll be posting a large selection of artwork from creature maker extraordinaire, Ray Harryhausen. Above you'll find watercolor paintings that although I don't have an exact date on, are some of Ray's earlier work. Below are further examples of scenes and drawings taken from the days before Medusa serpents and giant octopus with grudges againt bridges.

The Codex Seraphinianus Torrent












































































































Above are examples from the fully scanned copy of the book found in this torrent.

Torrent hosted at the tracker of the Grey Lodge

Philippe Druillet





















Here is an unusual creature from the imagination of Druillet. The image was found at this gallery of Druillet paintings. I'll be posting other artworks found on this site for the next few days.

Beasts and Witches




















































I've had the lower 3 paintings sitting around for the past year and hadn't been able to figure out who painted them. Many thanks to Paul Rumsey for helping me identify these works. Now the crab one is still a mystery.

Ray Harryhausen Week
Monster Brains presents Ray Harryhausen Week starting next Sunday.

The Monster Of Lake LaMetrie






























"I did not fairly see the terrible creature until I had swung my machete round."






















"He turned and sped through the pass at all speed."






















"I ordered the howitzers to be trained upon the murderous creature."

The above illustrations by Stanley Wood from 1899 were made for a short story written by Wardon Allan Curtis involving a monster imagined near Lake Lametrie, Wyoming. Read the full story here.