I was going through some old photos, and happened upon some pictures from "The Blob".
We made a number of things for this, The meteor, the satellite, a snow globe, but the biggest piece, was the frozen Blob, featured at the end of the film.
I though you folks might like to see some behind the scenes shots.
This is the satellite , before it was painted. You can see the understructure ribs. The fellow next to it is the late Bob McGee.
Here is it with paint. At the time, there wasn't a bright, chrome like paint available, so we came up with a trick using a polishing cloth to polish the silver Krylon paint to a higher luster. You can see the ground reflecting in the surface of the satellite.
Then we made it with a "meteor" looking top, which was used in the scene where it was being craned out of the ground.
For the piece that is seen in the ground, we made this one. This is the prop used for scene where actor Frank Collison first finds the Blob. Bob McGee, Kerry Gilman, Scott Erickson?, Rima Li.
Another big piece we did was the frozen Blob. To do this, I made a 4ft by 4ft crystal vacuum form pattern, and we pulled .090" PETG (at the time I think it was called UVEX)
The pattern was made so it had opposite interlocking edges, and in the center, 12 separate patterns, that could be rearranged to make a couple hundred variations. This way, we could avoid the final sheet (once all the pieces were joined together) from looking like a giant repetitive quilt.
It also allowed us to make the crystals come out at all different angles, so they all didn't have to be straight up an down to avoid undercuts. Each of the 12 sub patterns would be built with no undercuts, but together we didn't care if there were undercuts, since each of the sub patterns could be removed separately.
We made 110 panels, plus a bunch of wedge shaped sections. In the end, nearly 2000 sq. ft. We painted them from the bottom, so the clear plastic would give them a nice gloss. The problem, was we used an Tamiya R/C car body paint for the test.
We first mixed some raw metallic pigment with alcohol, and air brushed this into the back side of the clear plastic. The covered it with the Tamiya car body paint (R/C car bodies at the time were vacuum formed Lexan, and you painted them on the back side, so the paint wouldn't scratch off if you hit something)
We did a couple of different colors, and presented them at a production meeting with the director (Chuck Russel).
At one point in the meeting, Chuck turned to me and said, "Chris, what color do you like?" I said the Pink /purple/ red color. "OK" chuck said, "Our Blob, is going to be Pink, purple and red".
The problem I mentioned is... We had 5 gallons of automotive paint mixed with a huge amount of metallic and pearlescent in it. It was like $200 a gallon. When we painted the first production piece, the paint looked "dead" it didn't have the luster of the original sample. Then it occurred to me.... The R/C car body paint is formulated so the mattalics and pearls are heavy, and sink to the bottom, so when you flip the clear plastic body over, the pearls and metallics are on the "surface". But auto paint, uses light pearls and metallics, that float, so they are on the "surface". Unfortunately, we couldn't get the Tamiya paint in bulk, so I ended up buying all of the Metallic, pearlescent purple paint, on the West Coast....in 3/4 ounce jars. About 1500 of them. In the end, the paint job cost about $5000 in materials.
Lesson learned, don't grab any old thing out of the cabinet for a sample.
Here are the pieces just set next to each other in our parking lot.
Here is is on location. They were then stapled together from underneath, then the resulting giant sheet, was nearly 2000 sq ft., which was then held up by wooden stand-offs raging in size from 1ft. to 4ft. The parameter was cut to a anamorphic shape, stapled to a plywood cut out rim, and then blended into the street with giant rock salt, sourced from a salt mine nearby. The salt chunks were dyed pink, purple and red, with Ritt dye in a wheelbarrow.
Thanks for looking..
We made a number of things for this, The meteor, the satellite, a snow globe, but the biggest piece, was the frozen Blob, featured at the end of the film.
I though you folks might like to see some behind the scenes shots.
This is the satellite , before it was painted. You can see the understructure ribs. The fellow next to it is the late Bob McGee.
Here is it with paint. At the time, there wasn't a bright, chrome like paint available, so we came up with a trick using a polishing cloth to polish the silver Krylon paint to a higher luster. You can see the ground reflecting in the surface of the satellite.
Then we made it with a "meteor" looking top, which was used in the scene where it was being craned out of the ground.
For the piece that is seen in the ground, we made this one. This is the prop used for scene where actor Frank Collison first finds the Blob. Bob McGee, Kerry Gilman, Scott Erickson?, Rima Li.
Another big piece we did was the frozen Blob. To do this, I made a 4ft by 4ft crystal vacuum form pattern, and we pulled .090" PETG (at the time I think it was called UVEX)
The pattern was made so it had opposite interlocking edges, and in the center, 12 separate patterns, that could be rearranged to make a couple hundred variations. This way, we could avoid the final sheet (once all the pieces were joined together) from looking like a giant repetitive quilt.
It also allowed us to make the crystals come out at all different angles, so they all didn't have to be straight up an down to avoid undercuts. Each of the 12 sub patterns would be built with no undercuts, but together we didn't care if there were undercuts, since each of the sub patterns could be removed separately.
We made 110 panels, plus a bunch of wedge shaped sections. In the end, nearly 2000 sq. ft. We painted them from the bottom, so the clear plastic would give them a nice gloss. The problem, was we used an Tamiya R/C car body paint for the test.
We first mixed some raw metallic pigment with alcohol, and air brushed this into the back side of the clear plastic. The covered it with the Tamiya car body paint (R/C car bodies at the time were vacuum formed Lexan, and you painted them on the back side, so the paint wouldn't scratch off if you hit something)
We did a couple of different colors, and presented them at a production meeting with the director (Chuck Russel).
At one point in the meeting, Chuck turned to me and said, "Chris, what color do you like?" I said the Pink /purple/ red color. "OK" chuck said, "Our Blob, is going to be Pink, purple and red".
The problem I mentioned is... We had 5 gallons of automotive paint mixed with a huge amount of metallic and pearlescent in it. It was like $200 a gallon. When we painted the first production piece, the paint looked "dead" it didn't have the luster of the original sample. Then it occurred to me.... The R/C car body paint is formulated so the mattalics and pearls are heavy, and sink to the bottom, so when you flip the clear plastic body over, the pearls and metallics are on the "surface". But auto paint, uses light pearls and metallics, that float, so they are on the "surface". Unfortunately, we couldn't get the Tamiya paint in bulk, so I ended up buying all of the Metallic, pearlescent purple paint, on the West Coast....in 3/4 ounce jars. About 1500 of them. In the end, the paint job cost about $5000 in materials.
Lesson learned, don't grab any old thing out of the cabinet for a sample.
Here are the pieces just set next to each other in our parking lot.
Here is is on location. They were then stapled together from underneath, then the resulting giant sheet, was nearly 2000 sq ft., which was then held up by wooden stand-offs raging in size from 1ft. to 4ft. The parameter was cut to a anamorphic shape, stapled to a plywood cut out rim, and then blended into the street with giant rock salt, sourced from a salt mine nearby. The salt chunks were dyed pink, purple and red, with Ritt dye in a wheelbarrow.
Thanks for looking..
