King Kong and Mighty Joe Young, Armatures still going strong, nearly 90 years on.
In recent years I came across two videos on Youtube made by Special Effects artist and stop-motion enthusiast Tom Woodruff Jr. He had special permission to animate the original armatures of Mighty Joe Young and King Kong, both armatures made between the 1930's and 1940's. Tom is one of the founding members of Studio ADI and a former artist of Stan Winston Studio. You may recognize his name from his creature suit performances from the films Aliens, Aliens Vs. Predator, Pumpkinhead and many other feature projects. It's interesting to see the movements of these armatures without the fur and bodies to conceal the mechanics of each joint and their relationship to the rest of the armature. Considering their age, they still hold up extremely well after nearly 90 years, which is a testament to the original creators of the armatures Marcel Delgado and Willis O'Brien. Understanding how these mechanics translate into the characters performance, especially when comparing to...