Maybe not the most clever of titles, but it should make searching for it a bit easier.

A few years ago, I offered a model based upon Albert Nozaki's manta ray inspired Martian war machines from George Pal's 1953 movie adaptation of H.G. Wells' "War of the Worlds". Winchel D. Chung Jr. modeled it in Blender and granted me permission to convert it to a Poser friendly format and distribute it with the 3D community. Later, Thalek rigged the model, giving the cobra headed heat ray "EasyPose" parameters.

Now, I present the pilot of that vehicle, the Martian itself as envisioned by Charles Gemora, known throughout the 1940s as the "King of the apes suits". If you have ever watched a film from the 40s that had a performer in a gorilla costume, odds are it was a suit Gemora built and was himself wearing. By the 50s, gorillas as "monsters" were losing their appeal and Gemora started branching into other creatures. Arguably his crowning achievement was the Martian that threatened Gene Barry and and Ann Robinson within the ruins of a farmhouse for the 1953 film. Admittedly very different from the cephalopodic creatures wells described in his novel, the capped mushroom silhouette became one of the most iconic images of cinematic science fiction, still holding its own after 64 years.

According to his daughter who assisted him during the production, Gemora was still working upon the costume/puppet the night before it was to be filmed, the rubber still curing while on set. Gemora's daughter queezed bladder that pumped air into "veins" of the costume, making them pulsate on camera. To have the Martian flee the premises after Gene Barry struck it, Gemora balanced upon a dolly wearing the suit. When the crew pulled a cable, making the dolly roll across the set, the force was so great as to make Gemora topple backwards! Alas, the costume did not survive the production, so all that's left are images, footage from the movie itself and a few "behind the scenes" snapshots.

SsSandu_C is the talented fellow who made the model I now offer, sculpting it originally in ZBrush and converting the multi-million polygon mesh into a frugal .OBJ format, the detail preserved as various texture and bump maps. I then presented a tweaked version of this mesh to Jim "Xaa" Farris who deftly rigged it for use in Poser giving it some "extended remore control" morphs to bend and sway the "trunk" as well as to bend the digits with a single dial. He also supplied a collection of "starter" poses. I created a displacement map to extrude the veins ans the lenses of the tri-faceted eye.

You're probably wondering why there are no lower appendages. When SsSandu_C accepted the modeling challenge, I provided a few resources, noting probably the best was a vinyl model kit released a few years ago by "Pegasus Models". The makers of that kit had a dilemma. The movie only revealed part of a central torso and the unusual shoulder structure with the 3 lens eye. the fact was, there was no "bottom". What we saw in the movie was just a fraction less than what Gemora sculpted. Since then, fans have envisioned all sorts of lower extremities, everything from 2 conventional, but spindly, legs, to 3 legs, to a mass of writhing tentacles. Rather than playing favorites and thus frustrating a sizeable percentage of fans, the kit designers took a cue from Gemora's efforts and gave the Martian nothing more than the "trunk" we saw in the movie, merely flaring it at the base, suggesting something akin to the "foot" of a snail or a slug. Now, I can't imagine such a locomotive appendage could have allowed it to race from the room as fast as depicted in the movie, but it was a "neutral" and safe choice by the kit designers. SsSandu_C decided to take that approach. Jim Farris was kind enough to add control points to the for points of the base so they can be twisted and shifted. In theory, one might animate these points to have the Martian "slither" and undulate across a scene.

Silly me, I nearly forgot; you can find the model upon ShareCG.

http://www.sharecg.com/v/87706/gallery/11/Poser/Pal-Martian-1953-Design

Yes, both SsSandu_C and Jim Farris have granted me permission to share this model with the 3D community.

I's like to see what one does with this famous monster of filmland.

Sincerely,

Bill

Tempt the Hand of Fate and it'll give you the "finger"!