The hat is a beanie called a Zaphat, and the logo on the front acts as a target for an iOS app that will render a 3D model “mask” over your head. One of the masks that it (presumably) ships with is a werewolf, who reacts accordingly when you poke it in the nose.
The company behind this gimmicky (but cool) technology is Zappar, who “make bite-sized entertainment experiences using our proprietary image recognition”. The Zaphat will hit retail “real soon”, at which point you’ll be able to purchase additional masks based on original and licensed properties.
I don’t spend a lot of time just starting at people through my iPad, but if augmented reality garments go mainstream, I might have to start! (Zappar, if you want this to go mainstream, please use models who don’t look like extras from Jesse Pinkman’s crew).
Juan Martinez Moreno’s Game of Werewolves is one of those movies I keep hearing good things about, which is why I keep posting about it, but I have no way of seeing it. The Spanish horror / dark comedy film has been screened at a few festivals – most recently Montreal’s Fantasia International Film Festival – but it hasn’t been picked up for North American distribution yet. Film guru and Werewolf News contributor Craig J. Clark sent me a link to this review by Horror 101’s Aaron Christensen, posted last week. I encourage you to read the review on Aaron’s site, but I can’t resist quoting this line:
I’ve seen the film twice this year already (once in Belgium at the Brussels International Fantastic Film Festival, once Stateside at the Chicago Latino Film Festival) and am gearing up to watch it again this Friday at Fantasia in Montreal.
Film’s so good, dude saw it three times. If you’ve seen it, I’d love to know what you thought! The more people talk about it, the more likely it is that someone here on our big dumb continent will pick it up for distribution.
The film’s appearance at Fantasia has shaken loose a few new photos of the film’s numerous werewolves, and I’m happy to share them here. I’ve seen folks on other sites post the usual “I hate CG but these suits are dumb” comments about these werewolves, but I like ’em a lot!
Bob Burns – friend of Rick Baker, monster collector extraordinaire and keeper of the aforementioned AWIL “Werewolf David” costume – provided Tom & co. with their latest restoration project: the original “emaciated porno theatre puppet” version of AWIL’s Jack Goodman. When Jack arrived at Tom’s workshop, his decomposition had progressed far beyond his ghoulish state during his final appeal to David’s better nature. From the TSD site:
Working at the project over a period of weeks, the TSD crew would work together to bring a bit of life back to this incredible piece of film history. Patrick Louie performed most of the cleaning, Mike Thomas did much of the conservation and patching and Tom Spina handled rebuilding the larger missing areas and all paint work.
Below are a few of the photos Tom sent me. You can see more photos – and read about Rick Baker’s reaction to the restoration – on the TSD project page. Fantastic work as always, and thanks for sharing, Tom!
I’ve always liked the Underworld werewolf aesthetic, which was originally developed and executed by Patrick Tatopoulos & crew. The Lycans are the polar opposite of the Twilight / True Blood “fluff-wolves” I detest – they’re big, hairy, and monstrous in a way that’s fantastically bestial. The task of bringing these big guys to life for Underworld: Awakening fell to the folks at MastersFX (based in the Vancouver area, which gives me fanboy “cool stuff in close proximity” paroxysms). Todd Masters and his staff had to evolve Tatopoulos’s design into something that would stand up to the unforgiving clarity of hi-def film, and if you’ve seen the film I think you’ll agree that they pulled it off with authority. If you want to get a better look at the Lycan suits used in Awakening and learn about the challenges of building, maintaining and performing in them, check out this extra from the Awakening Blu-ray release: Building A Better Lycan.
There’s so much great stuff crammed into this 10 minutes that I don’t even know where to begin. The detail on those suits are just incredible (those masks! those hands!), and it looks like the Lycan “performers” Richard Cetrone and Dan Payne had a lot of fun, despite the hardships of being stuck in skin-tight foam latex onesies for 12 hours at a time. Craig might not have been a fan of the film or the digital effects, but from the perspectives of craftsmanship and werewolf aesthetics, I think there’s a lot to like here. I’m going to pick up the Blu-ray this weekend, if only to watch Building A Better Lycan on something bigger than my Macbook. Many thanks to @Hoof_Pony for sending me the YouTube link!
The fact that I’m even posting about Cabin in the Woods is a spoiler in itself, but the fact that I’ve said “spoiler” three times already and you’re still reading means you’ve already seen it, you haven’t seen it and don’t care, or you have poor reading comprehension skills. In any event, Werewolf News reader Nyetwerke sent in a link to an Ain’t It Cool News interview with CITW director Drew Goddard, and there are some photos in there that I was excited to see. Because you and I are friends, I thought you might like to see them, too. (more…)
Hey, what do you know, it’s Werewolf Wednesday again! Put on your special bib and suck the marrow out of these bloody tidbits.
A week or two ago, I was asked to provide a Twitter signal boost for a search being undertaken to identify this handsome devil. A number of people came to our collective rescue and identified the creature as a were-hyena (or werewolf) created by Spectral Motion for an ultimately deleted scene from Blade: Trinity. Not content to leave it there, reader Nyetwerke sent in this video of Spectral staff building the suit. Fascinating stuff!
My cause of the month is coming along nicely! The Anathema Kickstarter is $6k-and-change away from its $20k goal, with a week and a half to go. I’ve pledged more money to it than I’ve spent on Werewolf News in the last year; if you haven’t pledged anything, I want you to feel bad about yourself for five seconds and then please, go chip in five or ten bucks. Remember, if the fundraising goal isn’t met, you don’t get charged.
Subterranean Press has just published a very bestial 5,600-word short story by Locus-nominated author and charming geek-dandy Hal Duncan. The title of the story is Sic Him, Hellhound! Kill! Kill! I made that link open in a new window so you can go read the story when you’re done here. Read it. It’s filthy in all the right ways.
My Werewolf Wednesday cohort David Fuller is in search of the best tune to wolf out to. Today he looks at 11 werewolf-related songs spanning a variety of genres (including a selection by yours truly), and asks you to vote for your favourite (or suggest your own). Have a listen!
Here’s some follow-up! As mentioned in the previous Werewolf Wednesday, Simon Sanchez wrote in to tell me about his comic Nazi Werewolves from Outer Space, but he neglected to provide a link. He’s now provided a link to the comic’s Facebook page, which contains purchase information and some delightfully campy samples.
And that concludes this Werewolf Wednesday! Thanks for reading!
I have been stuck on the new Chronicles of Riddick movie doing insane hours for the last few months… I finished Riddick last Saturday morning and I wanted to relax from all of the madness by spending a few days in my shop and working on a personal project for once. So I took out the molds [from a previous werewolf project] and casted new skins from them which I assembled on a foam mannequin. I seamed and painted the whole thing and did the hair work (which is still not completely done). I took a few pictures last night to see how it was looking on camera and thought that you might enjoy the results.
Did you enjoy those results? I sure as hell did! When I saw the photos I got all giddy, especially at the one Adrien’s in, which gives a marvellous sense of scale. That’s a big, bad-ass werewolf! This design is pretty much the best execution of the “lupine head on a human body”-style werewolf I’ve seen. I love the detail on the muzzle and jaws (those teeth!), I dig those ears, and I think Adrien found the perfect balance between fur and visible skin – being able to see the definition of the muscles really adds to the “this was once a human” effect.
I asked Adrien if he would be continuing work on this guy… maybe giving him a body, perhaps? Hopefully? Please?
*laughs* No, I will not be making the rest of the body as I do not have enough free space around the shop for such a large display piece. The only thing left for me to do on this piece is to punch in a bit more fine hair on the nose and brows, and punch up the facial colors. I will also add up a bit of subtle details such as veins in the ears.
If and when he shares photos of the final results, you’ll see them here! Many thanks to Adrien for his generosity. If you have any comments about this piece, leave ’em below!
Tom Spina is one of the nicest people I’ve come in contact with through Werewolf News. I’ve posted before about the great work he and his colleagues do, and he always gives me a heads-up (and an early preview) when he’s about to share something werewolfy. Here’s a new promo video for his “New Moon” werewolf statue and head display (no, not that New Moon), which you may have seen previously, but which I am promoting again because they’re fucking awesome. Enjoy, and if you enjoy then a lot, you can buy them here and here (no, I don’t get a commission).
Convention season is fast approaching (ahem, ahem) and if you’re not already thinking about how to step up your game vis-à-vis werewolf costumes, well, there you go – I’ve just given you another anxiety to cope with.
Werewolf hands are tough to do realistically, especially on the cheap, which is why I like this video tutorial by fumsmusing. I saw this on YouTube last weekend, and fully intend to have tried it myself by the end of this weekend.
There you go! Darken those knuckles some more, maybe get some crepe hair happening around the wrists, and you’re ready for your big date!
The company behind this gimmicky (but cool) technology is Zappar, who “make bite-sized entertainment experiences using our proprietary image recognition”. The Zaphat will hit retail “real soon”, at which point you’ll be able to purchase additional masks based on original and licensed properties.
