He animated the Imperial Walkers in The Empire Strikes Back. He supervised the dinosaurs of Jurassic Park. He brutally maimed one hell of a lot of Starship Troopers in, uh, Starship Troopers.
He’s legendary animator Phil Tippett, and he’s about to descend once more into the bowels of the unconscious, as he gears up to make the second part of his gloriously gruesome stop-motion odyssey Mad God.
The Kickstarter campaign for Mad God 2 has just launched. You can become a backer for as little as $1. The more you pony up, the more rewards you get, including a digital download of the film, Blu-ray and DVD copies and a highly desirable selection of signed memorabilia – including original props and models from the film!
It looks like Mad God 2 will see the introduction of a new set of characters called the Shitmen. Here’s what Phil had to say about the creation of these foul folk when I interviewed him for the Cinefex blog back in January this year:
The Shitmen are built in different scales, because I’m doing some forced perspective stuff. I’ve got lead heroes with really good ball and socket joints, and then probably sixty others that are much more simplified, with wire armatures, that are foam-cast. The outer surfaces of the Shitmen puppets are taken from my vacuum cleaner at home – a lot of dust and cat hair. I found that when I glued all of that on to these foam rubber things, it looked really great. It’s generally the kind of thing you stay away from when doing stop motion work, because the surface is very unstable. Every time you touch the thing, the surface shifts and changes … read the rest of my interview with Phil Tippett about Mad God here.
If you want to see the Shitmen come alive on screen, back Phil’s Kickstarter now. If you’ve yet to watch Mad God Part 1, now’s the time to catch up and see what you’ve been missing.
All images copyright © Tippett Studio 2014
Graham Edwards 