Alien Explorations

Aliens: Jim Cameron's Alien Queen side view concept drawing references Piranesi's Carceri series plate no. xiv?


 
 
a) What this might amount to are the upper slanting beams becoming the head crest, an arch to the left becoming the bend in the tail, stairways at the bottom becoming the feet, arches and slanting beams in the centre becoming the queens main torso.




b)What the dungeon illustration does for the drawing is help to abstract an idea that he had already slightly and I suppose the artist wasn't really really trying to stick to the dungeon drawing, but it gave him a general idea about what he could do.


Piranesis's Carceri series plate no. xiv


 
 
c) The two images side by side with the Alien Queen drawing flipped horizontally
 
 
 
 
 
d Stairs become legs and rope above becomes the tail




e) Stairs and leg on right


f) Central part of the dungeon structure and Alien Queen torso



g) Upper beams and alien queen head



h) One might look at how Hergé seemed to transform the pully into a jelly fish in his Unicorn shipwreck illustration from The Adventures of Tintin and Red Rackham's Treasure which amongst other images I imagine referenced the same Piranesis illustration and I think that the Alien Queen side view drawing references the the Unicorn shipwreck illustration and so I think that the pully in Henu Barque terms represented the three rudders, and there are these three shapes near to the front of the head shell that would have been based on the shapes on the jelly fish's body which in terms of the placement of the winch in the area of the beams that I think became the head, which are enough in the right place. (The jelly fish image as been reversed) 

See also: Unicorn shipwreck from "The Adventures of Tintin and the Red Rackham's Treasure" references Piranesi's Carceri series plate no.XIV?


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  1. "Aliens: Jim Cameron's Alien Queen side view concept drawing references Piranesi's Carceri series plate no. xiv?" was posted on Monday 24th June 2019

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