Translate

Thursday, October 27, 2011

Alien Tripod







Here are some images of Pegasus Hobbies 1/144 scale Alien Tripod from the 2005 movie "War of the Worlds" Based off the HG Wells novel.
This kit gives you the option of building this model in the laser arms configuration or the collecting cages and tentacles option (pictured).
The one thing one should be aware of is that this kit is made of ABS plastic so your standard model glue won't be as strong. I would recommend CA glue.
However this is one beautiful and cool model kit.

From Wikipedia"

War of the Worlds is a 2005 American science fiction film adaptation of H. G. Wells' novel of the same name, directed by Steven Spielberg and written by Josh Friedman and David Koepp. It is one of three film adaptations of War of the Worlds released that year, alongside The Asylum's version and Pendragon Pictures' version. It stars Tom Cruise as Ray Ferrier, a divorced dock worker estranged from his children and living separately from them. As his ex-wife drops their children off for him to look after for a few days, Earth is invaded by aliens (loosely based on H. G. Wells' Martians) driving Tripods and the earth's armies are defeated, and Ray tries to protect his children and flee to Boston to rejoin his ex-wife.

War of the Worlds marks Spielberg and Cruise's second collaboration, after the 2002 film Minority Report. The film was shot in 73 days, using five different sound stages as well as locations at Connecticut, Staten Island, California, Virginia, and New Jersey. The film was surrounded by a secrecy campaign so few details would be leaked before its release. Tie-in promotions were made with several companies, including Hitachi. The film was released in United States on 29 June and in United Kingdom on 1 July. The film generally received positive reviews, and attained a 73 percent "fresh" rating on the film review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes, based on 240 reviews. War of the Worlds was also a box office success, and was 2005's fourth most successful film both domestically, with $234 million in North America, and worldwide, with $591 million overall.

Industrial Light & Magic was the main special effects company for the movie. While Spielberg had used computers to help visualize sequences in pre-production before, Spielberg said, "This is the first film I really tackled using the computer to animate all the storyboards." He decided to employ the technique extensively after a visit to his friend George Lucas. In order to keep the realism, the usage of computer-generated imagery shots and bluescreen was limited, with most of the digital effects being blended with miniature and live-action footage. The design of the Tripods was described by Spielberg as "graceful," with artist Doug Chiang replicating aquatic lifeforms. The visual effects crew tried to blend organic and mechanical elements in the Tripods depiction, and made extensive studies for the movements of the vehicle to be believable, considering the "contradiction" of having a large tank-like head being carried by thin and flexible legs. Visual effects supervisor Pablo Helman considered depicting the scale of the Tripod as challenging, considering "Steven wanted to make sure that these creatures were 150 feet tall". The aliens themselves had designs based on jellyfish, with movements inspired by red-eyed tree frogs. Spielberg did not want any blood or gore during the Heat-Ray deaths; in the words of Helma, "this was going to be a horror movie for kids". So the effects crew came up with the vaporization of the bodies, and considering it could not be fully digital due to both the complexity of the effect and the schedule, live-action dust was used alongside the CGI ray assimilation and particles.

12 comments:

Pat Tillett said...

Really cool. Here's a coincidence for you. I just started reading the novel a couple of days ago.

-Warren Zoell said...

Well there go Pat. I hope you like the novel.

kriz said...

Now this I really like, I spent a little more time than normal studying the pix....great work as always my friend.

-Warren Zoell said...

Thanks Kriz - It's a great kit.

Unknown said...

Nice!!!

-Warren Zoell said...

Thanks

Manchu said...

WHAOOOO!! Cool :)
Beau kit et superbe realisation !!
Ces images me donnent envie d'acheter le kit :)

-Warren Zoell said...

Merci Manchu - Vous devez acheter le kit. Il s'agit d'un kit de bonne

Belgium Diorama World said...

Very nice work, my compliments for this ..

-Warren Zoell said...

Thanks - It was a fun build.

William said...

Nice work, as always! Are the legs just plastic or are they reinforced with brass rod or something? The legs are graceful and cool-looking, but I worry that over time it will slowly sag and keel over.

-Warren Zoell said...

They're made of ABS plastic so they are a bit stronger then if they were made out of your standard styrene. The model is surprisingly quite light so I don't think there's too much to worry about. Knock on Formica.