Ray Harryhausen exhibition in Bradford

[karohemd]

As mentioned previously, I met up with the delightful snapesbabe at the NMPFT in Bradford on Saturday to take in Myths and Visions - The art of Ray Harryhausen.

It's a collection of his (mainly) original concept drawings and study artwork (incl. realistic anatomical drawings of animals and humans), storyboards, original models or casts of models from the famous films he did special effects for (Clash of the Titans, Jason and the Argonauts, Sinbad etc.) and technical drawings for those models (incl. the armatures etc.) as well as works by other artists who inspired him.

The models are incredibly detailed (for example, the skeleton's skull has sutures) and quite big, the Kraken is about a metre long and 30cm high. We were briefly considering smuggling the Kraken out of the museum because it'd be so much cooler than a rubber duck but it wouldn't fit under snapesbabe's jacket. :o(

The drawings are fantastic, too, he was a really good artist and could easily have pursued a career as illustrator. Various concept drawings made us really sad because they never got made into films (e.g. War of the Worlds, which looked absolutely stunning).

So, if you're interesting in those old cheesy films and especially if you're an artist or animator (I'm looking at belak_krin, pmoodie, motodraconis and majic13 here), try and see if you can make it. It still runs until the 24th of September and entrance is free.

The rest of the museum is worth seeing, too. There are loads of props and sets from TV series (photos to come later this week), TV technology through the ages and an interesting photography exhibit (both technology and works). The second temporary gallery (photos of London and New York through the ages) is very good, too.

Here are two Harryhausen photos:

 

Comments

[miss-s-b.livejournal.com]

pmoodie had a good 'splore of the museum when he came down for the Fantastic Films Weekend, I think.

[emperor]

The "lines" on the skull are the articulations between the various bones of the skull, they're called sutures.

[karohemd.livejournal.com]

I thought it was sutures (it's Nähte in German but that's not necessarily an indication). Cheers.

[undyingking.livejournal.com]

Cranial sutures.

[belak-krin.livejournal.com]

I refuse to accept that Harryhausen's films were cheesy :P

He was indeed a fantastic illustrator. Wish I'd looked this up earlier, or it was closer... one of the two, probably both

[the-lady-lily.livejournal.com]

Oooh! I love his films, they're so great :) Irritating I'm not over there to see the exhibit, though...