The Stan Winston School of Character Arts (SWS) is an online school devoted to special FX make-up and animatronics founded by veterans of the Stan Winston Studio (now known as Legacy Effects). Their subscription based service offers a wide range of downloadable video tutorials on almost every aspect of character effects imaginable, ranging from basic character sketching all the way to how to create fully realized movie monsters. Best of all, the videos have been created by some of the best artists and technicians in the business, many of whom were colleagues of Stan Winston himself.

To help promote their service, SWS has been regularly posting lots of rare and never-before-seen footage from Legacy Effect’s work, including this latest video of their crew rehearsing a leaping “attack” with animatronic and rod-controlled raptor puppets for The Lost World: Jurassic Park (I’ve previously posted behind-the-scenes video from the Jurassic Park trilogy here and here). You can find lots more great footage from the Legacy Effects archives in the Stan Winston School YouTube Channel.

If you’re interested in checking out full length tutorials from the SWS, now is a great time to start. This week only they are offering 30% off of all of their training videos. Just go to www.stanwinstonschool.com and use promo code 600K by Friday to get the special discount.

This is a short, but undeniably great look at the making of the Godzilla suit for the movie monster’s self-titled film debut in 1954. It was made by Godzilla expert Ed Godziszewski and includes lots of rare behind-the-scenes photos of Japanese special effects legend Eiji Tsuburaya and his team at work.

Found via Mike.

Jim Henson shows viewers around the Muppet Workshop in this 1989 segment for CBS This Morning.

A great (and rare) look at the men who build traditional water puppets in a small village in Northern Vietnam. This is from a documentary that Italian film student Alessandra Grassi is currently working on. She spent two months in Vietnam in 2011 and if this footage is any indication, her film is going to be really fascinating.

You can learn more about Vietnamese Watter Puppetry and follow along with the progress of her film on her blog Vietnam, Water and Puppets.

Tough Pigs recently sat down for an exclusive interview with Bonnie Erickson. If you don’t already know Bonnie’s name, you should; she headed the Muppet Workshop for many years during the Muppet Show era (she is credited as as the designer and builder of Miss Piggy, the Muppet Newsman, Statler and Waldorf among many, many other famous characters) and is currently the Executive Director of the Jim Henson Legacy.

Here are links to all four parts of the interview:

• Interview with Bonnie Erickson, part one
• Interview with Bonnie Erickson, part two
• Interview with Bonnie Erickson, part three
• Interview with Bonnie Erickson, part four

It’s a great interview and a must-read for Muppet fans and anyone els curious about what it was like to work in the Muppet workshop in the heyday of the `70s and `80s.

Todd the Puppet Master (see previous post) demonstrates proper glue gun technique. You can watch all of the Puppet Master’s videos on YouTube.

How To Train Your Dragon Live is a new $20 million arena show that opens next March in Melbourne and Sydney, Australia. It looks pretty incredible; all of the dragons in the show were created by the Creature Technology Company, which was previously responsible for the internationally touring arena show Walking With Dinosaurs (see previous post).

Here’s a behind-the-scenes look at how the animatronic dragons in the show are being created:

Videos via Kari and Cartoon Brew (lots more can be seen in CTC’s Vimeo profile).

I’ve been lucky enough to collaborate with Mathieu René (see previous post) – better known online as “Creaturiste” – off and on for past few years thanks to our mutual association with Unraku. He’s one of the most knowledgeable and innovative puppet and mask makers working in papier mache anywhere in the world. You can see some of his papier mache work in his incredible online portfolio, but photos don’t really do his work justice. It’s simply beautiful.

Mathieu is now offering online courses in papier-mâché mask making; he’s also willing to custom tailor the workshop to your specifics needs and interests. If you’ve ever wanted to learn how to work in this medium you should sign up for one of his online workshops (or in person, if you live in or near Montreal).

To learn more or sign up for a workshop, contact him directly at creaturiste@gmail.com. You won’t regret it.

Over the past few years Etsy has been producing a lot of videos, ranging from craft tutorials and “how-to” videos to really beautifully shot mini-documentaries about prominent Etsy members. I think my personal favourites are their Process series, which profile artists at work and their creative process. One of the best of these features the work of Geahk Burchill, who is the founder of The Cast Iron Carousel Marionette Troupe and sells his beautiful work on Etsy. Not only does Geahk do great work, but this is a really inspiring video to watch.

You can watch all of the Etsy videos online for free. I previously mentioned their profile of my friend and fellow Unraku-er Stacey Gordon back in 2009.

Just some absolutely incredible animatronics by John Nolan.

Hat tip to Dangerous Minds via Sons of Punch.