Chris Foss' "organic" space ship

leading from


(image take from Fantastic Films magazine)



Dan O'Bannon

Alien: Chris Foss' Art


Chriss Foss's official site can be found at
Chrissfossart.com


Chris Foss
(photo scanned from the magazine 
Skeleton Crew,August 1990
(original photo courtesy 
of Grafton House))

Concept art for Jodorowsky's Dune

1.  See: Guild cargo ship

http://alienexplorations.blogspot.co.uk/2017/11/guild-cargo-ship-for-alejandro.html


2. See: Guild Tug

https://alienexplorations.blogspot.com/2019/05/guild-tug-for-jodorowskys-dune-1975-by_12.html




https://alienexplorations.blogspot.com/2019/11/spice-container-for-dune-1975-by-chris.html 


 



Concept art for Alien




Involvement with Alien
 
http://alienexplorations.blogspot.co.uk/1979/08/the-art-rooms-of-la.html

Derelict entrance

leading from
Alien: The Derelict
 
derelict entrance set
a) Brian Muir joins the Alien sculpting team
Towards the end of April, Brian Muir had been telephoned to be asked to join the production team of Alien at Shepperton Studios.

He was well known for having sculpted Darth Vader's mask a few years earlier and he would assist Peter Voysey who would be responsible for building Giger's Space Jockey and the derelict ship and it's entrance.

By the time he arrived, Peter Voysey was already working on the film and had completed various models of sets.


blueprint for the derelict entrance

b)  Top shelf magazines for reference
While Brian Muir and Peter Voysey are working on the entrances to the space craft derelict, Giger appeared on the stage offering them reference to work from.

They were both quite surprised to see that he had some explicit photos of the private parts of the female form from a pornographic magazine.

After Giger had left the stage, Peter and Brian had an amusing five minutes discussing how they would set about the job.

They decided that the best approach would be to make the entrances as stylised as possible without losing the overally look that Giger wanted..


entrance model and entrance construction
c) Comparison to Claes Oldenberg
Giger visited Stage H on perhaps the 8th or 9th June, the work on the entrance passage involved Peter Voysey cutting vast oval entrances.

He saw the work is taking shape and thought how the result lookeds like a pair of gigantic sun-glasses by the Ameran pop artist Claes Oldenberg who created giant sculptures of everday objects.

a giant safety pin by Claes Oldenberg
d) Wooden Structure is finished
By the 15th July. Giger visits to the H stage.

When the wooden structure is finished, the styrofoam ovals are hauled up and fastened on the wooden frames with jute impregnated with plaster of Paris.

In the plasterer's room, Peter Voysey is modelling the outside by covering elements. For these surfaces he uses clay instead of plasticine.

A rubber mould is prepared from it, which is filled and emptied enough time to make sufficient to cover the whole outer surface of the derelict except for the entrances.

To give the observer the impression of wind, storms, and rotting away cork chips of a sort are mixed with the plaster, making the normally flat surface of a plaster cast look corroded.

However, in the landscape, the custom-made ribbed tubes in Styrofoam look disastrous because the ribs are much too big.

Giger personally had to climb over the bone mountain trying to insert the tubes into the landscape as organically as possible.

What he had done was give strict instructions to tear holes into the tubes to get as about as close as possible to the character of his biomechanoid landscape.

The structure of the bone mountain would look more realistic with Styrofoam or plaster running down it.

blueprint for the derelict entrance

e)  Reaching a finishing point
By 21st July, the rocks and the derelict are soon painted.

Giger is most astonished to see what a difference paint can make, gradually this artificial landscape begins to look real.

Sand is spread between the rocks, and the film crew decided to take some test shots, ones which don't satisfy Ridley Scott. 

However Giger objects to the fact that the the tubes are more integrated into the rock.

He is not too happy about having decisions made behind his back and he wonders if it is because Ridley Scott isn't too happy about what Giger thought of the space suits

f)  The finish
Soon by the 28th July, the landscape and entrance, Giger's first three dimensional sculpture on a really large scale are finally filmed

Quote sources
  1. HR Giger: The work on the entrance passage is getting on well.  Voysey cuts the oval entrances bulges out of the styrofoam. The result looks like a pair of gigantic sun-glasses and might have come from the American pop artist Oldenburg. (Giger's Alien, 8th June(?) 1978, p30)
  2. HR Giger: In the morning, I inspected the H stage. The bone mountains were coloured black without smoothing the rought surface. I tell the cine artist how I'd like to have it done every single time. Would he please finally make a colour sample of a boulder, and I explain for the 100th time that he should use ivory white and sepia for it. The sample he shows me is grey just like most of the mountains on this planet. (Giger's Alien diary, Friday, July 7th, 1978, p243)
  3. HR Giger: Shepperton Studios. The wooden structure is finished . The styrofoam ovals are hauled up and fastened on the wooden frames with jute impregnated with plaster of Paris. In the plasterers' workshop Voysey is modelling the outside covering elements. For these surfaces he uses clay instead of plasticene. A rubber mould is prepared from it, which is filled and emptied enough times to make sufficient to cover the whole outer surface of the derelict except for the entrances. To give the observer the impression of wind, storms and rotting way, cork chips of a sort are mixed with the plaster, making the normally flat surface of a plaster cast look corroded. (Giger's Alien, 15th July 1978, p30)
  4. HR Giger: My first visit was to the H stage. The custom-made ribbed tubes in Styrofoam look disastrous because the ribs are much too big. I climbed over the bone mountain, trying to insert the tubes into the landscape as organically as possible. I gave strictest instructions to tear holes into the tubes to get as about as close as possible to the character of my biomechanoid landscape. The structure of the bone mountain should look more realistic with Styrofoam or plaster running down it. (Giger's Alien diaries, Friday, July 15th, 1978, p251)
  5. HR Giger: The rocks and the derelict are painted. Even I am astonished to see what a difference paint can make. Gradually this artificial landscape begins to look real. Sand is spread between the rocks, and the film crew decide to take some test shots - test shots which don't satisfy Scott, however , as, with some justification, I am not told.  (Giger's Alien, Shepperton studios. 21st July 1978,p30)
  6. HR Giger : Visit the H stage. A few things have changed. The tubes are more integrated into the rock which i don't like. They're making decisions again without me. Probably at the instigation of R. Scott because of what I think about the space jockey suits (Giger's Alien diaries, Friday, July 21st, 1978, p259)
  7. HR Giger: My first three-dimensional sculpture on a really large scale - the landscape and the entrance to the derelict are filmed. (Giger's Alien, 28th July 1978, p30) 
  8. Brian Muir: Together we did the alien... the entrances to the alien spacecraft, erm, I did mention the material we worked from.
    Interviewer
    :Yes, erm
    Brian Muir: Which I wont go into (followthenerdcom interview)
  9. Brian Muir:: One afternoon, while Peter and I were working on the entrances to the space craft, Giger appeared on the stage offering us reference to work from. We were both quite surprised to see that they were explicit photos of the private parts of the female form from a 'top shelf' magazine. After Giger had left the stage, Peter and I had an amusing five minutes discussing how we would set about the job, We decided the best approach would be to make the entrances as stylised as possible without losing the overall look that Giger wanted( 'In the Shadows of Vader' by Brian Muir, p36)
  10. Charles Lippincott: Yes, they're like vaginas. Giger was very sexual in his work, darkly sexual. No question. That's part of why he endured. He tapped into our subconscious with his drawings. 
    Lindsey Muir: Giger gave Brian and Peter Voysey ( quite a straight laced guy) very explicit top shelf magazines for reference to sculpt the entrances. When Giger left, Brian and Peter looked at each other and smiled and jointly decided they couldn't do that and would stylise the entrances 
    Charlie Lippincott: Lindsay Muir Did Giger's instructions mention vaginas?
    Lindsay Muir Brian doesn't remember if Giger actually said the word but the pictures were close ups of vaginas from pornographic magazines so words were probably surplus to requirement (Facebook.com / 23rd December 2014)

Alien : Chris Foss' "waldo-like" repair machines


Leading from
 
 
a) At one point, the script described extensive damage to the interior of the ship. 
 
Foss designed a robot device to make the repairs on board the ship in the engine room.
 
 
 


 
 
 
b) Another repair vehicle for the Nostromo in the script that was not mentioned in the script but that Foss created for possible emergency conditions. 
 
This mechanical manipulator, The Picador, was controlled by human guidance.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
c) Leviathan Engine from within showing 'Picador' at work. Chris Foss 77. from Charles Lippincott's Facebook page  
 

 
 




d) Cobb commented "These Foss repair machines are "waldo-like"vehicle concepts developed by Robert Heinlein." (Book of Alien)
 
See: Alien: "Waldo-like" repair machine (1977) by Chris Foss for an exploration of this illustration with the yellow background



 
 
 
 
e) In the story "Waldo", Waldo Farthingwaite-Jones was born a weakling, unable even to lift his head up to drink or to hold a spoon. 
 
Far from destroying him, this channeled his intellect, and his family's money, into the development of the device patented as "Waldo F. Jones' Synchronous Reduplicating Pantograph". 
 
Wearing a glove and harness, Waldo could control a much more powerful mechanical hand simply by moving his hand and fingers. 
 
This and other technologies he develops make him a rich man, rich enough to build a home in space. In the story, these devices became popularly known as "waldoes". 
 
In reference to this story, the real-life remote manipulators that were later developed also came to be called waldoes. (http://en.wikipedia.org/)


 Astounding, 1942 original publication magazine cover

Alien: Giger's Alien spore, a homage to
Lovecraft's The Elder Things ?

leading from 
Alien: The Spores
and 

 
sketch of Elder Thing from The Mountains of Madness 
(image taken from the notes with surrounding writing removed)
See also HP Lovecraft's illustrations
depiction of the elder things/ old ones by Wayne 
Barlowe based on the description from HP Lovecraft's 
"At The Mountains of Madness" from  
BARLOWE’S GUIDE TO EXTRATERRESTRIALS

a) Change from vaginal opening to cross opening
Originally Giger was to create his alien spores with a single vagina like opening and they would have been placed on a floor and that appeared to be slimy and full of worms. Soon the egg's opening had a cross shaped vagina slit to make it easier for the film viewers in Catholic countries to tolerate and when seen from above, Giger noted that the opening of the egg looked like a starfish. When it opened up, it opened like a flower and the petals when fully opened had a general starshape. He turned the carpet of worms into a numerous tentacles stemming from the base of the egg as if they were octopus tentacles which he was later able to acknowledge were for keeping the spore upright

b) Comparison to Lovecraft aliens
This was made at a period in time when Giger had an interest in Lovecraft's work and he shared this interest with Dan O'Bannon who wrote the script for Alien. Although he made no mention of Lovecraft in relation to the spore design and the only comparison he made was to an octopus which is fairly reasonable, however if one thought about the starfish shaped heads of the Old Ones with their pod shaped bodies and their lower tier of tentacles containing the pseudofeet, stemming from the base of the pod often depicted as tentacles I would ask if Giger had a general impression of Lovecraft's Old Ones in mind once he saw where the design was going?



source quotes
  1. HR Giger: In the original film, the floor where the eggs stand was meant to give the impression of being slimy and full of worms. Working in day, I model a sort of a carpet with streaks and snaky folds in the shape of a half segment of a circle. The plaster form is spread with a thing coat of latex and then frothed up. Even before it's painted, one begins to get the feeling that this long shape could become life like." (Giger's Alien, Sunday, September 3rd , 2013)
  2. HR Giger: I did a kind of like, for the eggs, like an area around, very organic like tentacles , you know (Alien Legacy Documentary )
  3. HRGiger: I built an area around the Egg to balance it upright in a very organic way, like the tentacles of an octopus. (FX , 07, 1999, (spanish magazine) pdf copy of article at hrgiger.com) 




Chris Foss' pincer stardrive ship

Leading from

Foss designed the rear of this large craft with a unique form of propulsion. The strange pincers had a ray shooting between them. The movement of the pincers somehow operated the stardrive (Book of Alien)


7 & 8 The Riverboat design, 1977


leading from
 
 
 
 
Copy of image from a transparency in Charles Lippincott's collection
 
 
 
 
'Foss was influenced by nautical craft.
This sketch shows the rear view of the "riverboat" design' (Book of Alien, 1979)
 
 
 
 
The front of the riverboat design features braking engines, barrel shaped
vertical lift engines and cargo modulars in the rear.
(thanks to Charles Lippincott on Facebook, 2014)
 
 


Same as image further above but published in Book of Alien, 1979

Alien : Chris Foss' early Nostromo concepts

leading from
Pre-production
and
Chris Foss' art

Chris Foss' work on the Nostromo ship earlier named the Leviathan.
Click onto each to access further pages 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
http://alienexplorations.blogspot.co.uk/2015/02/chris-foss-leviathan-sketch-no2.html
Leviathan No. 2
(source of above image: Charles Lippincott on Facebook)
 
 
 
 
 
http://alienexplorations.blogspot.co.uk/1979/10/chris-foss-leviathan-sketch-no3.html
Leviathan No. 3
(source of above image: Charles Lippincott on Facebook)
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Leviathan No. 5 
(source of above image: Charles Lippincott on Facebook)
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Barrel wheeled undercarriage
(source of above image: Charles Lippincott on Facebook)
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

"Waldo-like" repair machines