Kitty, kitty, kitty!

Jonesy. Everyone's favourite interstellar scamp. Is it any wonder that he's been the focus of so many ALIEN tributes? After all, the little ginger Tom is Ripley's lucky star. Please enjoy this collection of purrfect artwork.

 

Acheron (LV-426)

I'm not really buying into the whole "Alien day" thing, because in the end it's just another marketing ploy. That said, if every April 26 brings us Alien artworks of the standard displayed below, then why am I complaining?

Laurent Durieux's "Alien" is a thing of haunting beauty. I like how he's worked the creature's head into the derelict ship. After seeing that, the whole surrounding landscape becomes suggestive of the xenomorph's form.

Moving from Alien to Aliens, Mark Englert's "should we take a look inside?" is a real stunner too. Lots of cool details in this one. Planet Calpamos and LV-426's two sister moons loom ominously in the sky. Hadley's Hope and the Atmosphere Processing Plant are visible in the distance. Turn the lights out and Newt and her ill-fated family disappear. In the distance the plant's reactor is detonating, and the Sulaco's final dropship can be seen heading for orbit with four desperate survivors aboard. A fifth passenger hitches a ride.

As a bonus here's Englert's previous Alien painting (and a colour variant), "you are my lucky star". The bane of the Nostromo drifts into space* after being blasted off the stern of the Narcissus.

*Here's a question for Alien aficionados: at the end of the film is the Nostromo still within the Zeta Reticuli system, or is it in interstellar space? I've always assumed the ship is still in-system as its crew haven't yet gone into hypersleep.

DARK STAR

I like the tone and atmosphere of this trailer for Belinda Sallin's Giger documentary, Dark Star: H.R. Gigers Welt. It's appropriately mysterious, dreamlike and unearthly. 

Apparently it's come under fire from some critics due to the age and frailty of the artist during filming, but that seems odd to me. How could it be considered disrespectful or exploitative if it was done in collaboration with Giger and his wife Carmen, and with their full blessing? Surely his frail condition would only be an issue if the film were overly critical of its subject, or manipulative in some way, and I doubt that's the case here.

If anything, the melancholy one might feel at seeing the man in his final days feels right for an artist who revelled in showing us the beauty that could be found in the darkest and scariest recesses of our imaginations. Western culture has a bad habit of shunning the old and frail. Simply put, we're terrified of death, and would rather sweep it under the rug where it can't be seen. 

Anyway, regardless of the quality of Dark Star's interviews, it looks like it offers an unprecedented glimpse into the man's home and personal life. There's an extensive gallery on the film's site featuring a number of beautiful images of Giger's house and ramshackle dreamscape of a garden. Some of my favourites are below, but check out the whole gallery and website here.

Lastly, I've updated my first ever Giger-related post (from way back in 2010), about the Japanese Pioneer ad that featured some of his unused designs for Jodorowsky's Dune. The original video of the ad was taken down for copyright infringement, and in finding a replacement I also found a cool little vid with some nice behind the scenes shots from the ad's production. Check that out here.

Strange Shapes

There's been a link on my blogroll for a few years now called Strange Shapes, and it just so happens to be the most exceptional Alien blog on the web. If you're an Alien fan and you haven't discovered it yet you need to do yourself a favour and go there now.

Strange Shapes is owned and written by one Valaquen, a Scottish Alien fanatic and Xenomorph scholar par excellence. This guy's knowledge of the Alien universe, both in front of and behind the camera, is vast and frankly, a little intimidating. I've been in love with Ridley Scott's movie for 35 years now, but reading Strange Shapes can make me feel like a lightweight.

So whilst scrolling through Bloody Disgusting today I was blown away to find a link to a behind the scenes gallery "curated" by Valaquen. And fuck me, what a gallery it is. I'm always on the lookout for rare Alien pics that I haven't seen before, and this gallery is a goldmine.

Of the 245 images he's posted there must be at least 50 that I've either never seen before or haven't seen for years. Some of the coolest are below, but you should really check out the whole gallery here.

killer promo shot of the Nostromo crew

a nice look at Giger's handywork

HRG with his designs for Jodorowsky's unrealised Dune 

 on the Space Jockey set

 working on the Jockey

with Dan O'Bannon

O'Bannon with Chris Foss

and on the Nostromo's bridge

 closeup of the unused full sized prop for Kane's burial shroud

 John Hurt

Veronica Cartwright

 together on the bridge

 Harry Dean Stanton looking cool

and Yaphet Kotto looking even cooler

Kotto contemplating Parker's fate

Parker and Lambert dead

this appears to be an effects test for Parker's gory demise

Sigourney Weaver looking badass and beautiful during a promo shoot

and posing with a Jones that looks suspiciously unlike the Jones seen in the movie

Weaver and Stanton

 the Narcissus on a workbench with raided model kits in the background

 an amazing look at the underside of the Nostromo coming in to land on LV-426 that was rejected by Ridley Scott. I wish they'd stuck with this one because the final effect seen in the movie is by far the weakest in the film

the Nostromo model on the planetoid set

another angle

and finally, a good look at the detail and texture of the derelict model