Bringing the Rancor monster to life
by Jeremy Fisher
My name is Jeremy Fisher. I’m an LA-based artist and stop-motion animator. My “day job” over the last couple years has been animating on shows such as ROBOT CHICKEN, SUPERMANSION, and the soon to be released BUDDY THUNDERSTRUCK. I fell in love with the stop-motion medium after seeing the original STAR WARS trilogy as a kid and learning how they animated the creatures and AT-ATs. Soon after, I was making my own little STAR WARS inspired stop-motion animations with action figures and Legos.
Pictured above: Jeremy Fisher animates Titanium Rex on SUPERMANSION.
Stop-motion animation pulls from many different skill sets. In college, I didn't have the opportunity to major in stop-motion, so instead I studied everything stop-motion related: animation, drawing, story, photography, film, sculpture, VFX, and editing. These skills have also influenced my art outside of stop-motion.
Powdered Toast Man
My first home-built costume was Boba Fett for Halloween back in 1997, complete with milk-jug plastic armor and curtain-tassel Wookie scalps. Since then, every Halloween costume I've made had to be bigger and better than the last. There’s also something magical about wearing a costume and embodying that character rather than making a static sculpture. Like animating in stop-motion, it's a way to add life and movement into my creation.
Pictured above: Jeremy Fisher as Powdered Toast Man from REN & STIMPY at WonderCon, Anaheim 2015.
A few years ago for Halloween, I tackled a realistic interpretation of my favorite irreverent superhero, Powdered Toast Man from REN & STIMPY. Afterward, a friend suggested bringing it to LA’s Comikaze Expo and the fan reaction there was unexpected and exciting. From then on, I was hooked on cosplay. I started planning ways to improve the costume to make it even more accurate to the cartoon. I built a cartoony muscle suit and added a screen-accurate Powdered Toast can. After winning a top prize at WonderCon 2015, I was ready to move on to the next challenge.
Rancor
I knew my next cosplay had to be STAR WARS related. But where do you go if you don't want to be another StormTrooper, Vader, or Jedi? During pre-production for RETURN OF THE JEDI, Dennis Muren and Phil Tippett experimented with using a “Godzilla-style” costume to bring the Rancor monster to life on film. After some tests, they concluded that the suit was not believable enough and a rod-puppet would work better. The Rancor seemed like the perfect “holy grail” costume challenge for me.
Video below: A short summary by Vulture about Jeremy's Rancor from San Diego Comic-Con 2016.
Building Process
I started roughly a year ago researching the character, downloading any behind the scenes images, movie freeze-frames, analyzing toys, and finding fan art to figure the out the proportions, bone structure, and ways to add believable movement to the design. I didn’t want to look like a “guy in a suit” as much as possible; so I added in features like a swaying head and anatomical jaw movement into the design.
Pictured above: Jeremy Fisher's original sketches for the Rancor project.
Pictured above: These diagrams helped determine the measurements, proportions, and height to enable visibility through the mouth.
It’s been a huge learning experience and challenge to work on something this large when my background is building and animating small puppets. There’s a whole different level of engineering needed to build and support something so heavy and affected by gravity, not to mention getting it to fit through the door of my studio.
Pictured above: Jeremy started building the PVC skeleton rigging to an army backpack frame. The bike brakes were originally meant to control the hand mechanisms.
Pictured above: The mouth mechanism of the Rancor.
The mouth is made out of corrugated plastic and MDF. The jaw hinges in a similar fashion to a human jaw to add believable motion. The full head is hung from a PVC arm that connects to the backpack frame with bungee cords. This allows for the head to move around while supporting the weight. The head can easily be removed via the PVC arm as well.
I subscribed to and started religiously watching the Stan Winston School courses. Ted Haines’ Make A T-Rex was especially helpful for how to build something as big and complex as a Rancor. I also found Rick Lazzarini’s and Richard Landon’s Animatronics courses, Shannon Shea’s Garage Monsters videos, and Tom Woodruff, Jr.’s Monster Suit Performance courses very helpful.
Pictured above: The Rancor body in progress covered in brown masking paper.
I covered the body in brown masking paper then cut it away and turned it into patterns for the EVA foam. The overall shape and structure of the costume is done using bent PVC, hula hoops, EVA foam and polyfoam details. The EVA foam pieces for the arms and legs were patterned off of a toy rancor and scaled up on the computer, cut into contact paper with a Silhouette cutter, and traced onto the EVA foam. The head and jaw were sculpted in wed clay and cast in light WonderFlex.
Pictured above: Jeremy Fisher used Wed clay for the large sculpt of the head.
Pictured above: The taped-up arms and legs with patterns for where there should be cut lines.
Pictured above: All the pattern pieces spread out for scaling and cutting foam.
Once the patterning was finished, I carefully X-acto'd the pieces off and scanned them into the cutter program. I zoomed them up, then cut the patterns from a roll of contact paper using a Silhouette cutter. Then I glued it to the foam to trace and cut out.
Pictured above: Jeremy with his work-in-progress Rancor. It's bigger than HE is!
I clamped the legs to the body. Then I added foam strips through the ankle and back of the knee.
Pictured above: The Rancor is coming together
I added PVC to the neck to bring the head forward. Then I wrapped the head with a cushion foam tube to start the neck. After installing the head and trimming the neck, I wrapped thicker foam to add neck rolls. Hand-mechs were made from pool noodles, corrugated plastic, and old guitar strings. I added soft foam to the shoulders and chest and covered the humps in thin cushion foam to form the backside shape.
Video above: Suiting up in the nearly finished Rancor cosplay. It took about 10 minutes to get in/out.
Pictured above: The finished exterior of the Rancor body suit.
Finally, I started to see the finished foam covering of the body parts. I created warts and bumps, installed the spikes, and used a soldering iron to add wrinkles . The foam teeth are arranged in the same manner as the puppet and still allow the mouth to open and close without bumping into each other .
After meeting with Frank Ippolito and seeing his version of the Rancor character, I followed his suggestion and painted with Creature Cast Super Flex to keep the suit light and flexible.
Pictured above: The Rancor assembled with base color complete.
I assembled Rancor when the base color was finished. Then I started to add more detail colors and hide the bare spots. Lastly, I installed computer fans with a 3-pin to USB adapter and a 10,000mAh power bank, inside the suit to cool the costume for around 3 hours.
The Rancor was finished just in time for San Diego Comic-Con and the reaction has been incredible.
Video below: The ready Rancor costume by Jeremy Fisher, featured by IGN.
Gallery Work
I enjoy making sculptures that pose questions and investigate topics I'm curious about. In the "Superhero Skull" series, I was interested in what separates us and these pop culture icons like Iron Man and Batman. They are superheroes who have no discernible superpowers, yet have the moxie to fight against god-like opponents. These pieces explore the underlying vulnerability of these characters. They are currently part of a traveling art exhibit “My Hero!” through 2019 by The Bedford Gallery.
Pictured above: Bruce Wayne - The Batman.
Pictured above: Tony Stark - The Iron Man.
With the Superhero Skull series, I was interested in the underlying vulnerability and fragility of these fictional heroes.
Skull imagery first showed up in my “Temporary Happiness” series. I wanted a way to explore the longevity and complexity of relationships and came across images of skeletons holding hands and embracing in unearthed tombs. The deer and fantastical nature scenes were another important theme in my work; stemming from my upbringing in rural Pennsylvania. In “Till the End,” the two deer are separated by a unbreachable chasm but long for connection while the two skulls are connected. In “We’re Alone In This Together,” the deer find each other, but the skulls will never be able to fully connect.
Pictured above: Temporary Happiness - Part 3.
Future projects
After the amazing reception for the Rancor cosplay, I'm looking into a few new STAR WARS characters that would be challenging, but also exciting to turn into real-world cosplays. I’m really interested in finding ways to incorporate puppeteering and animatronic elements to bring future cosplays to life, which I was unable to for the Rancor. I’m also developing a few more sculptures to add to my current Superhero and Skull series.
- By Jeremy Fisher
*Cover Photo: The Rancor, Jeremy Fisher, and Esterlina Arts as "FemMalakili" the Rancor Keeper at San Diego Comic-Con 2016.
You can follow Jeremy on the following pages:
- Website: www.jeremydfisher.com
- Instagram: 0fish0
- Facebook: 0fish0 Cosplay
- Twitter: Jeremy Fisher
- Linkedin: Jeremy Fisher
Jeremy used the following courses for making Rancor:
Courses with Ted Haines:
- Make a Dinosaur - T-Rex Foam Fabrication Part 1
- Make a Dinosaur - T-Rex Foam Fabrication Part 2
- Make a Dinosaur - T-Rex Foam Fabrication Part 3
Courses with Rick Lazzarini:
- Animatronic character creation - Organic Mechanics Part 1
- Animatronic character creation - Organic Mechanics Part 2
Courses with Richard Landon:
- Animatronic Tentacle Mechanism Basics
- Animatronics Basics - An Introduction To The Mechanical Skeleton
- Single Axis Tentacle Hand Mechanisms - Mini Lesson
Courses with Shannon Shea:
- Garage Monsters
- Garage Monsters 2 - How To Make Creature FX On a Budget
- Garage Monsters - Mini Lesson- Setting Up A Monster Garage Home FX Workshop
- Garage Monsters - Mini Lesson - How To Make Sculpting Tools
- Garage Monsters Mini Lesson - Guide To Sculpting Clay
- Garage Monsters - Mini Lesson - Direct Creature Hand Fabrication
- Garage Monsters - Mini Lesson - Airbrush Guide To Airbrushing
Courses with Tom Woodruff, Jr.: