Career in Creatures: A Stan Winston Art Retrospective

With the sad news earlier this week that special effects master Stan Winston had died, Hollywood lost one of its master creature-makers. Though Winston's studio did do some digital effects, Winston may have been one of the last great artists of the animatronic. With the help of a huge group of artists, sculptors, mechanical engineers, and even (at one point) the Sociable Robotics Lab at MIT, Winston built everything from a life-sized dinosaur for Jurassic Park to the uncannily realistic teddy bear bot for the movie A.I. Artificial Intelligence. He also had a hand in some productions you might not have guessed, like 1970s Wizard of Oz remake The Wiz with Diana Ross and Michael Jackson (holy crap I loved that movie when I was a kid). At the time of his death, he was working on James Cameron's upcoming Avatar, and Martin Scorcese's Shutter Island — but despite his association with primo directors, his amazing creations have appeared in more than one cheesy-but-awesome movie, too. Below, we take you on a photographic tour of Winson's career in creatures. More »