Born: Los Angeles, 1948
Education: Hollywood High, Los Angeles Valley College (film studies)

 

Los Angeles Valley College -  Film and Theater Arts studies, extensive 16mm (and some 35mm film experience) with cameras, editing, sound, and equipment.

 

Makeup Artist studies with Mike Westmore, and began career as makeup artist at Universal Studios, 1969, doing the Makeup Show for the studio tour.

 

Freelance Prosthetic Makeup work creating prosthetics for the Blackenstein monster in the movie “Blackenstein”  1970

 

Makeup Artist ABC TV  Little Abner, Dating Game, Newlywed Game, News

 

Timber Tramp (feature, filmed in Alaska)

 

Started teaching makeup in 1971 and promoted to director and supervising instructor of Elegance International, the first professional makeup artist school. Director from 1973 to 1979. Taught salon, theater, film makeup, prosthetics, and high fashion.

 

1980 returned to private practice as makeup/prosthetics artist.         Film credits in the 80’s include:

 

Savage Harvest
The Boogins (a minor horror cult classic)
Dead and Buried
Doc R&D
Swamp Thing (first one)
Witch
Dance of the Dwarfs
Beastmaster (first one)
New Kids
Quest for Fire
Better Off Dead
What Waits Below
Brainstorm (Chimp prosthetics for lab animal look)
Return of the Living Dead
Hugga Bunch
Where the Boys are 1984 (custom “love doll” called inflatable Dave)
Baby
No Man’s Land (Charlie Sheen prosthetics)
Blind Date (Mechanically animated erotic sculptures for art gallery scene)
Micki & Maude (custom props)
The Man who Loved Women (dog stunt double)

Gorillas in the Mist (prototype work only, on making real chimpanzees look like gorillas. My work isn’t in the actual film, but it’s impressive experience none the less)

 

Cougar, spider monkey, small fabrication jobs.

 

ABC TV show  Probe  Orang Suit

 

1985 - Alchemy 2, working with Ken Forsee, inventor of the Teddy Ruxpin doll, for the ABC TV special on Teddy that Ken’s company produced. I was a foam latex suit specialist among the costume fabrication crew.

 

1987 - The Munsters Today - prosthetic designer and key makeup/wig designer on the pilot episode and first show of the series.

 

Learning Tree started courses on makeup and prosthetics 1987 to 1993

 

Commercials:

 

AST Computers - parody of 2001 Dawn of man sequence, with me designing five ape suits and servo motor animation of heads for facial expressions.

 

Kraft Macaroni & Cheese “Alice in Wonderland” parody (I did the prosthetics for the Mad Hatter character, faithful to the Tenniel illustrations).

 

Goolab Toys aliens,  Chevy Metamorphous ,  Gold Elephant,  Quest for Burger,  Three Breasted Chicken,  Hostess Twinkie Bear,  Cat Food metamorphous

 

Foam Latex Puppet Fabricator - working for puppeteer Tony Urbano, molding and casting foam latex puppet heads for numerous jobs for him over 15 years.

 

Media References - Fangoria (two part profile), Cinefantastique (8 page Swamp Thing  story),

 

Transition to Other Media - Having grown weary of doing zombies and swamp monsters, desiring to prove my skills were up to the challenge of excellence and realism, I started creating superbly realistic wildlife sculptures of full scale animal figures and museum quality prehistoric human ancestor models.

 

Displayed at Game Coin wildlife art show 1987

 

Displayed at LA Zoo wildlife art show, 1988

 

In 1988, I took the “Best in World Recreation” award at the world taxidermy championships (and won again in 1992).

 

Media References - Breakthrough Magazine, numerous articles, Southwest Art magazine

 

1988 Started working at Creative Presentations, Inc, Valencia CA, hired to help them develop a capability to enter the museum market and compete with Dinamation and Kokoro with dinosaur shows.

While there, I designed, sculpted and figure finished a Gigantopithecus figure as a museum showcase figure (and photos of me beside it now populate many Bigfoot websites), was project manager on the LA County Natural History Museum Bird exhibit, was designing sculptor and project manager on the T Rex for Knotts Kingdom of the Dinosaurs upgrade. I was designer of a realistic bald eagle figure for an Indian Heritage Visitor Center in Vancouver, worked on an ET stroller costume for Universal (that later got replaced with an animatronic figure), and oversaw the refitting of the Gigantopithecus figure into a “Bigfoot” figure for the IAAPA trade show in 1989. Elephant bird for Paris museum.

 

Promoted to VP (one of four) in 1989, when John March moved up to President and Gene Bullard moved up to Chairman.

 

Left CPI in August 1990 to resume my career as independent artist.

 

1991 Commissioned by the French National Museum of Natural History to create two animatronic models of Archaeopteryx, for their renovation of the Grand Gallerie of Zoology.

 

1992 - returned to CPI as freelance artist for the Fuji/San Rio dinosaur show, sculpting the 23’ Tarchia dinosaur.

 

1992 - returned to World Taxidermy Competitions to take home my second “Best In World Recreation” award.

 

During this year I also teamed up with the San Diego Museum of Man to create a joint venture exhibit “Faces on Fossils” , that showed both the evolution of humans and how the appearance of these ancestral forms is created. It debuted in San Diego successfully, and then went on a five year exhibit rental tour across America. The figures I created are now part of a permanent installation at that museum.

 

Giant panda figure commission for private collection (Bob Howard), and Multiple Dodo figures for private collections.

 

Displayed dinosaur sculptures at the artist room, Society of Vertebrate Paleontology, annual meeting 1991

 

1993 - Started working at AVG as contract sculptor and figure finisher, doing numerous tigers for a theme park job of theirs, and then helping them get the bid for the 1993 Fuji/San Rio dinosaur show. I was AVG project manager as well as figure designer, lead sculptor and figure finishing lead on that dinosaur show. Panda, water buffalo, and dog also done for AVG.

 

While there, I also helped sculpt and design the 65’ dragon for the Excallibur Hotel in Las Vegas.  While working at AVG, one of my innovations in molding technology so impressed Alvaro Villa that he applied for a patent for the technology, with me principle inventor. As I understand, a sudden lack of business and revenues about that time caused him to “tighten the belt” and cut non-essential costs, and the patent attorney fees were non essential, so the application was suspended.

Lord of Sipan for Fowler Museum exhibit UCLA

 

In 1993 and 1994, I received a contract to outfit a new Archaeological Theme Park in Holland (Archeon, in the town of Alphen Rhine) with a full set of prehistoric wildlife figures showing the evolution of life first in the sea, then on land, and finally human evolution. Sadly, this enterprise never reached profitability, and closed a few years later.

 

Chimps for Educational exhibit, Japan

 

A commission for a Natural History Museum in Kyoto, Japan was for creating three prehistoric cats, the small Dinictus, the classic Saber-Toothed Cat, and the giant Cave Lion.

 

AVG hired me as animatronic skin technician and sent me to Taiwan (with two mechanical technicians) to help open a dinosaur exhibit based on both the 1992 Fuji/San Rio dinosaur exhibit (that CPI did) and the 1993 exhibit AVG did. I was the only person who had worked on both parts, and was invaluable in all the visual repairs (the exhibits had been in storage containers for several years) as well as the general assembly of the larger elements and creatures (including a 45’ sauropod).

 

Potomac Museum Group  Mammoths

 

A commission for the Tokyo Broadcasting Commission and the World T Rex Expo was for showing the evolution of flight with three figures, the small dinosaur Compsognathus, the proto bird Archaeopteryx, and finally a modern Peregrine Falcon.

 

A commission for the Ashland Oregon Museum of Natural History was for two bald eagles.

 

Gorilla Rentals - Buddy, Disney animation, San Bernardino Museum, Maryland Museum

 

Film industry work in the mid 90’s included an animatronic bear for a Hostess Twinkie commercial,   Extensive makeup, wigs and prosthetics for the TBS TV series “The Chimp Channel”.   Working with Animal Makers in 1996 and 1997, I created chimpanzee figures for the HBO Jane Goodall promo spot that won a Cleo, green wing macaws for a Texaco commercial, a bald eagle for a Anhiser Busch commercial, and some dog prosthetics for a Pepsi commercial.

 

Komodo Dragon for Wildlife Interiors,   Horse prosthetics for Mcfarlane

 

1997 I went digital, beginning my work in computer graphics.

 

My work with Bryce was so unique that MetaCreations (Bryce’s developer) hired me to create graphics for a product promotional campaign, “Bryce, the Eighth Wonder of the World (Because with it, you can create the other Seven)!”  With that commission, I created all seven ancient wonders of the world using only the Bryce software, nothing else.  1998-1999

 

2000 Computer Graphics World magazine ran a four page portfolio of my Seven Wonders artwork. Then in 2002, in their 25 year retrospective of milestones in computer graphics, my portfolio of work was recognized as one such milestone.

 

2000-2001 - Hired by Jester.com (a web portal site) to do VRML scenes of the Great Pyramids, the Lighthouse of Alexandria, an NFL stadium, and the Great Wall of China where website visitors could move through the scene while chatting with others online. I used 3D Studio Max, exporting my files to VRML 1 formats for Jester to use. Like many internet ventures, this one folded a while back.

 

Archaeological visualization for “Dos Cabases” excavation under direction of Dr. Christopher Donnan

2002-2011  Freelance Digital Graphics artist.

 

Industry Acclaim and Recognition of Excellence (Computer Graphics):

 

Computer Graphics World magazine, Retrospective of 25 years of computer graphics milestones, June 2002 issue on Architectural Milestones, listed my work as one such milestone.

 

Computer Graphics World magazine, Retrospective of 25 years of computer graphics milestones, January 2002 issue on Digital Art, listed my work as one such milestone. (one of very few people listed twice in the six-part retrospective.)

 

Digital Hall of Fame, nominee in 2000  and   SAN (Super Artist Network) featured artist 2002 Directory (listing by invitation only)

“Big Kahuma” nominee (for Architectural Visualization, 1999, 3D Design magazine sponsored awards.

Design Graphics Magazine Issue #40 (December 1998), six page portfolio and interview.

Numerous articles in 3D Artist magazine from issue 27 to 35.