Alien Warrior

What

A full size model of an “Aliens” alien with various moving parts.

IDEA

WASTED TIME

REVIVAL CHANCE

Why

For a long time, Aliens was my favourite film and I obsessed over the beautiful scary aliens.

When

1994 / 1995

The model I based my Alien on and how it was meant to look.

Development & Progress

If I were to retire tomorrow, I might reconsider a clay sculpt idea for this. I did finish a mural though. Not as impressive by any means.

Papier mache-ing is tediously slow, and chicken wire causes countless piercings. To finish it, I needed to complete the tail and balance it out. I made various attempts at attaching latex condoms to the jaws, like they did for the original, but they quickly disintegrated. A paint job would have been difficult, but probably quite forgiving, given the detail of the model.

I’d estimate that it was physically about 75 -85% complete.

Adding some forms to the basic frame. The shoulders had one axis of rotation.

Torso detail. That’s a tail stump by the way.

The orange ribbed section was from some roadworks in Barnsley.

The alien head resided on my TV when it wasn’t being worked on.

The wrists could rotate but barely got beyond this stage of completion.

I had to attack the alien and amputate a leg. For reasons.

There were countless hours and days in situations like this.

For the way it was made, it’s surprising there weren’t more breakages.

New gnashers made from sanded dowelling.

Adjusting the swivelling head joint, and a date from 1994.

Reason for Abandonment

College took over and it was quite difficult to find time to work on it and it was also a difficult project. I was also aware that it wasn’t going to live up to expectations so had reduce enthusiasm for seeing it through to the end.

Chances of Revival

1%. I eventually destroyed almost all of the parts I made after hanging on to them for years. I did consider re-beginning the project but using clay to sculp the creature and cast with resin and latex etc. It was going to be too difficult, time consuming and costly, but would have been much better and lighter and reproducible. If I were to retire tomorrow, I might reconsider the clay sculpt idea again. I did finish a mural though. Not as impressive by any means.

Legacy

After throwing so much effort at this, it was hard to let go of it all, but gradually, it all went. Body first. Then almost everything else. I didn’t even know I still had some of it left until the head also went in 2022.

In 2020 I did try some digital modelling with a view to 3D printing parts if they were anywhere near good enough. I’ve never been good with 3D. It was a terrible idea which was also abandoned.