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Star Trek: Aliens & Artifacts
"Special bonus: a section that will show you
how to re-create your own makeup as well as create
your own props, using readily available items." Words on paper. Without the resourceful, innovative, almost magical talents of the untold hundreds of behind-the-scenes people who have worked on "Star Trek," those and countless other futuristic marvels would be just that -- words on paper. For years the major responsibility for making it all real for viewing audiences has fallen to people like Academy Award(R)-winning makeup supervisor Michael Westmore and property master Alan Sims, and their incredible staff of artisans. These modern-day dream shapers have guarded their award-winning secrets with national security-level caution...until today.
The veil of secrecy is pulled back in "Star Trek: Aliens & Artifacts." Through dozens of rare sketches, photographs, and designs, discover how those remarkable craftspeople made the fantastic vistas, creatures, and technology encountered every week. You'll be amazed at how low-tech some of these hi-tech wonders really are!
Who decided to make the Andorian blue? Of what was the belt on the original Klingon costume made? Was the first phaser really a block of wood? All your questions will be answered in "Star Trek: Aliens & Artifacts!"
how to re-create your own makeup as well as create
your own props, using readily available items." Words on paper. Without the resourceful, innovative, almost magical talents of the untold hundreds of behind-the-scenes people who have worked on "Star Trek," those and countless other futuristic marvels would be just that -- words on paper. For years the major responsibility for making it all real for viewing audiences has fallen to people like Academy Award(R)-winning makeup supervisor Michael Westmore and property master Alan Sims, and their incredible staff of artisans. These modern-day dream shapers have guarded their award-winning secrets with national security-level caution...until today.
The veil of secrecy is pulled back in "Star Trek: Aliens & Artifacts." Through dozens of rare sketches, photographs, and designs, discover how those remarkable craftspeople made the fantastic vistas, creatures, and technology encountered every week. You'll be amazed at how low-tech some of these hi-tech wonders really are!
Who decided to make the Andorian blue? Of what was the belt on the original Klingon costume made? Was the first phaser really a block of wood? All your questions will be answered in "Star Trek: Aliens & Artifacts!"
208 pages, Paperback
First published October 1, 2000
55 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
November 16, 2024
This book is far from perfect. There are actually a number of errors and mis-rememberings from the artists, but it’s still a lot of fun. One of the highlights is that Michael Westmore shares some of the make-up brand and model numbers he used for specific characters so one can recreate them fairly accurately.
October 8, 2013
This is a fairly light read for Star Trek fans, featuring the trivia surrounding alien design/make-up and props on the various Star Trek shows, covering from ST: TOS up to ST:DS9 and ST:Voyager (no Enterprise or Reboot - the publication date being before those started).
It was fun to read about aliens seen on the shows but I found it varied a lot in its coverage of the aliens - some more prominent characters and species got several pages as would be expected, but most of the recurring aliens and once off designs tended to get a very small paragraph or two, even when those designs look like they would be quite interesting to hear more about.
Mostly it dipped into lots of different designs with brief anecdotal talk about the challenge of the design, or what was originally envisioned, which I liked but I do think would be nice to have more in depth generally and not just on the well known things featured. Most but not all designs had an accompanying photos - if it had been all that would have been an improvement as a few once-off aliens were sometimes a bit hard to recall by their descriptions.
If you were wanting to read this book for the fact it proclaims on the cover "Create your own makeup and props!" you will probably be disappointed. This section is 29 pages in the back of the book, but had very little content on those pages.
The DIY makeup section has step-by-step with pictures for the following: Data, Klingon, Ferengi, Borg, Romulan, Vulcan & 7 of 9 BUT, with the exception of Data, these all rely on use of the Rubies kits available for those characters/species. There is nothing helpful in this section about actually creating appliances yourself, and I imagine most steps for each will actually, hopefully, be included in the kits they use, which make them seem kind of redundant. The most useful info here is the occasional references for which colour/type of makeup to use for a certain skin tone required.
The DIY props section sadly has only two props as a part of it, 1) the Sims Beacon and 2) a Dermal Regenerator. The first they spend more time explaining what it is then telling you how to recreate it and frankly it does not sound hard to figure out by yourself anyway. The second prop skips from the super easy to rather involved, requiring soldering, rewiring and a Dremel. This was more like what I was hoping they would feature but the tutorial pictures were scant which doesn't help it - a nice item to include a how-to for but not a great how-to for it.
Overall I don't figure this to be a bad book but it really skims most of the designs featured. The best parts of the book are the ST:TOS and ST:TNG chapters that go more into depth on the behind the scenes processes, but in comparison they make the ST:DS9 and ST:Voyager chapters feel rushed. Still, if you are a big ST fan then this may well interest you.
It was fun to read about aliens seen on the shows but I found it varied a lot in its coverage of the aliens - some more prominent characters and species got several pages as would be expected, but most of the recurring aliens and once off designs tended to get a very small paragraph or two, even when those designs look like they would be quite interesting to hear more about.
Mostly it dipped into lots of different designs with brief anecdotal talk about the challenge of the design, or what was originally envisioned, which I liked but I do think would be nice to have more in depth generally and not just on the well known things featured. Most but not all designs had an accompanying photos - if it had been all that would have been an improvement as a few once-off aliens were sometimes a bit hard to recall by their descriptions.
If you were wanting to read this book for the fact it proclaims on the cover "Create your own makeup and props!" you will probably be disappointed. This section is 29 pages in the back of the book, but had very little content on those pages.
The DIY makeup section has step-by-step with pictures for the following: Data, Klingon, Ferengi, Borg, Romulan, Vulcan & 7 of 9 BUT, with the exception of Data, these all rely on use of the Rubies kits available for those characters/species. There is nothing helpful in this section about actually creating appliances yourself, and I imagine most steps for each will actually, hopefully, be included in the kits they use, which make them seem kind of redundant. The most useful info here is the occasional references for which colour/type of makeup to use for a certain skin tone required.
The DIY props section sadly has only two props as a part of it, 1) the Sims Beacon and 2) a Dermal Regenerator. The first they spend more time explaining what it is then telling you how to recreate it and frankly it does not sound hard to figure out by yourself anyway. The second prop skips from the super easy to rather involved, requiring soldering, rewiring and a Dremel. This was more like what I was hoping they would feature but the tutorial pictures were scant which doesn't help it - a nice item to include a how-to for but not a great how-to for it.
Overall I don't figure this to be a bad book but it really skims most of the designs featured. The best parts of the book are the ST:TOS and ST:TNG chapters that go more into depth on the behind the scenes processes, but in comparison they make the ST:DS9 and ST:Voyager chapters feel rushed. Still, if you are a big ST fan then this may well interest you.
June 12, 2025
Great book about the TV shows of the same name & the creatures & gadgets of said TV shows
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews