ALIEN Nostromo Maquette Model

I've always loved the 'Leviathan' design from The Book of Alien - and planned many years ago to build a replica - I never got around to it.
 
I've always loved the 'Leviathan' design from The Book of Alien - and planned many years ago to build a replica - I never got around to it.

If you did it, and it was good, and you moulded it, I'd buy a copy. :)
 
I've always loved the 'Leviathan' design from The Book of Alien - and planned many years ago to build a replica - I never got around to it.

Υοu mean the yellow Foss one described as platypus-looking? Or the Cobb one? Sad story about the Foss: apparently that drawing was put up for auction recently and only got around 1000 pound. And it's a huge piece, about 3 feet across. Which makes me feel a bit sorry for the man. Not least because ,at the same time, self-styled contemporary art 'genius' Glen Brown gets 50 times that for making large copies of Foss's works and passing them off as some sort of Roy Liechtensteinian cultural mirror, which of course gets lapped up by dealers and galleries.... Also, the forum at his website closed down for lack of interest, so whenever I see him left out of designing the Nostromo, my heart aches and I have to wade in, my black and yellow striped banner flying in the wind....


(Incidentally, if anyone has that making of Alien documentary, would it be possible to make a screen grab of that photo of Foss and Cobb standing in their Alien office, surrounded by drawings? Don't have the disc, and am desparate to see that picture again...)
 
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Foss' yellow Nostromo design was inspired by one of his own designs for Jodorowsky's DUNE project... (it was first intended as a navigators' guild ship, IIRC)

Fred
 
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The "Guild Merchant Ship" Foss originally conceived for DUNE subsequently appeared, in slightly revised form, as the "Leviathan" for ALIEN (one rendering of which featured a bright yellow hull).

Foss also contributed a bright yellow "Spice Container" ship design to DUNE, along with my personal fave; the yellow and black striped "Pirate Ship."
 
Sorry Colin, I should have been more specific - the Cobb design.
As for Foss, I have a collection of Asimov paperbacks from the 80s with Foss artwork on the covers. I do love his work, and have a rare poster of his around here somewhere...
 
Foss also contributed a bright yellow "Spice Container" ship design to DUNE, along with my personal fave; the yellow and black striped "Pirate Ship."

Same here, LOVE this "fish ship" too... I was truly amazed the first time I saw it !!! (still am nowadays)

BTW, here is a cool link on the story behind Jodorowsky's DUNE project and how it influenced STAR WARS & ALIEN (sorry, french text only) :

http://www.toutlecine.com/film/arti...tieme-passager-dune-emportee-par-le-vent.html

And for those who don't read french... Well, scroll down to the bottom of the page and go to "les photos du projet", it's a link to some Moebius & Foss concept artwork for this film !

Fred
 
Same here, LOVE this "fish ship" too... I was truly amazed the first time I saw it !!! (still am nowadays)

It's a corker, that ship. So glad it's not only me and Colin Droidmilk who are crazy for it!

I dug up the wreckage of my old sculpt the other day to take a couple of pics for CD. It's in a terrible state unfortunately. Restart time! Bigger and better!!
Martyn
 
Well, since we're having a Foss party here we may as well have a look at that Dune Guild ship. Just an awesome piece of draughtsmanship, let alone anything else. Thank heaven Jodorowsky was there to pull Foss free from the world of publishing deadlines and limited paperback formats and give him those months of total freedom in which, to my mind, he produced his greatest work.

Jodo says Dune material influenced Star Wars. Maybe, but the second Foss image below from 1975 suggests the Nostromo may not be the only movie spacecraft Foss helped birth. Mounted upon the rear fins is a Star Destroyer hull, including the exact geometry of the aft quarter. Either great minds think alike, or Foss nicked it from Lucas - difficult to see how in 1975; presumably no one outside the film would've seen a SD till '77 - or Lucas nicked it from Foss. Wonder which...?

(oh, and that mushroom cloud has a touch of the Old Masters about it - mighty rare in fantasy art!)
 
Either great minds think alike, or Foss nicked it from Lucas - difficult to see how in 1975; presumably no one outside the film would've seen a SD till '77 - or Lucas nicked it from Foss. Wonder which...?

I shouldn't be at all surprised if Lucas, or Joe Johnston, or the boys in the ILM model shop, or all of the above had that particular image thumb-tacked to their wall as inspiration for the ISD. Lord knows Lucas et el did a tremendous amount of sci-fi art-related scrap imagery hunting during pre-production. Foss' work would have been pretty hard to overlook.
 
What a trip down memory lane, you guys.
Yeah, you can be sure Lucas latched onto Foss' designs back then.
What ever happened to Foss?
 
I seem to recall Chris being interviewed recently about the new edition of the 'Joy of Sex' book that replaced all his illustrations.

Andy
 
A little Foss from my files. :cool
imageuploadimage.jpg


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This design was used in a German movie called "Die Sturzflieger". The movie was pretty bad, but the ship called "Titanius" looked great.

Here's another model from the movie:
sturzflieger_shuttle.jpg

http://ketzer.com/original_movie_props/sturzflieger_shuttle.html

Tim
 
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