The Art and Craftsmanship of Alien Costumes: A Closer Look at the Burn Effect and Rubber Cement

When it comes to creating costumes for iconic films like Aliens, attention to detail is crucial. The team responsible for dressing James Cameron's 1986 sci-fi classic went above and beyond to ensure that every piece of armor, from helmets to breastplates, was meticulously crafted to resemble the real thing. One technique they employed to achieve this level of realism was the use of rubber cement. "We used rubber cement to make sure fire stayed exactly where we wanted it," explained one cast member. This clever trick allowed for a slow-burning effect that not only added to the film's tension but also helped preserve the paint underneath, minimizing discoloration.

The attention to detail on display is truly remarkable, with every piece of armor meticulously crafted to resemble its real-life counterpart. The team even used weathering and aging techniques to create a worn, battle-worn look on the armor, giving it an air of authenticity that's hard to match. For example, the aluminum panels on the breastplate were carefully aged to give them a subtle patina that adds depth and character to the overall design.

One notable piece in the collection is the replica helmet for Ripley's iconic armor set. According to the collector, this particular piece was used as a study for the main body armor, rather than being worn by the actress herself. However, it's clear that the attention to detail on display is truly exceptional, with every aspect of the design carefully considered to create an authentic look.

The use of camera tricks and close-up shots also played a significant role in capturing the intricate details of the armor. Behind-the-scenes footage shows the mannequin dressed in the full armor, complete with accessories like a cigar, which adds to the film's humor and humanity. This attention to detail is a testament to the team's commitment to creating an immersive experience for audiences.

Alien has long been revered as one of the most iconic franchises in science fiction, and its influence can still be felt today. The franchise's enduring popularity is a tribute to the hard work and dedication that went into bringing these characters to life on screen. From the early days of concept art to the final product, every aspect of Alien was carefully crafted with attention to detail, resulting in an experience that continues to captivate audiences around the world.

The collection at hand is a testament to this enduring legacy. Spanning multiple pieces of armor, including some rare and unique items, each one offers a glimpse into the creative process behind this beloved franchise. Whether it's the subtle weathering on the breastplate or the intricate details of the helmet, every aspect of these costumes has been carefully crafted to transport viewers back to the world of Alien.

The collection also highlights the power of fan culture in preserving and celebrating iconic franchises like Aliens. With a dedicated community of collectors and enthusiasts working tirelessly to track down rare items and piece together the history behind them, it's clear that this franchise will continue to endure for generations to come.

Finally, James Cameron's own vision for the future of the Alien franchise is worth noting. With projects like Avatar and Avatar 2 already in development, it's clear that the director remains committed to pushing the boundaries of science fiction filmmaking. Perhaps one day we'll see a new chapter in the Alien saga, exploring the further adventures of the Colonial Marines or delving deeper into the mysteries of the Xenomorph.

Whether you're a seasoned collector or simply a fan of the franchise, this collection offers an unparalleled glimpse into the world of Alien. With its meticulous attention to detail and commitment to authenticity, it's clear that these costumes are more than just mere replicas – they're an experience in and of themselves.

"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: enhey everybody adam savage here in prop store in los angeles and well clearly i have some alien props in front of me and brandon ellenger to my right brandon these are some screen used alien pieces in front of us yeah so we had a great collection of alien stuff that came in for our upcoming auction and these are a couple of the pieces that were part of that set this is a hero frost helmet from aliens and this is his main helmet that he wears in maybe in all the movies certainly in 90 of the movie almost any picture you ever see a frost or if you watch the film you'll see this exact helmet and it's very easy to pick it out because it has this camo cover on it with the unique pattern so you always see these distinct marks in the front of it and the eyepiece i've been always wondering about how that eyepiece works yeah you want to take a look it's pretty cool really really it's just sitting in two tracks the inside of this helmet is a a fiberglass liner and the liner's just been cut away to receive these two tracks and this eyepiece actually turns on it still turns on yeah how cool is that i know it works uh when it reaches the bottom i assume that little ball we saw inside is like some sort of catch that holds it up perhaps okay would lock it in place yeah yeah but amazing i've always wanted to see the inside of that thing yeah this is a great one because it's main character and it's screen matching we've handled a few other aliens helmets which are what we might call like mid-grade or b helmets where they're probably generic just if they need another helmet but most of the most the characters who wear a helmet they don't all wear helmets they pretty much have the same one on the whole film and so this is frost this was actually in my collection about 15 years ago really collectors tend to pass things around this did lift at my house at one point in time not mine anymore but it's very cool to see it again i love aliens all that stuff that terry english built we got a couple of terry english plates on the back here right back here these lobster plates with the camo pattern i love that they're hammered out of aluminum and this one i think is missing its microphone it would have a microphone piece that comes down through the ear guard here it doesn't look like it was oh yes it does look like it was meant to have it but it's no longer there but other than that it's pretty complete it's got the original helmet camera and on the inside there's a label for frost so it doesn't get more yeah screen used than that and this is drake yes vasquez actually wow drake's slightly different drake's has a little piece of eyeball graffiti over the eyepiece that was painted on and and we could actually screen match this one because you can see right here this little shape it looks like the letter h yeah and it's unpainted there presumably there was a greebly at some point in time i and you can see that on screen i really want to find out if i could figure out what that gravely is that would be cool that would be cool but i love the you were commenting on the build of this and what they made this out of i think you recognized some parts right well so i just finished a motion tracker and when you build a motion tracker a whole bunch of parts come out of a flash unit uh some of the labels on the like a camera flash a camera flash yeah and i recognize this here as one of the pieces i removed from the flash to get at some other pieces for the motion tracker so that i hope you didn't throw it away no no no in fact i did a piece to camera about how when you're doing found part props even when you think you've got all the pieces don't throw any of your cutoffs away because you'll end up looking at a reference picture and be like oh there's a little thing oh it's in that and you've thrown it away so i don't throw anything away anymore it's clear to me that the prop department of aliens spent a lot of time using old camera gear for their propage but it's delightful to have just removed that from a piece and find it here on vasquez's eyepiece and you see that little blue color makes it very distinct right no seriously i have two of these sitting on my workbench right now that's awesome uh and that's the standard camera lens that's also on the that's right a little pentax lens yeah uh and this looks like a an original microphone but it's not it's actually scratch built and it's a really nice scratch build of the microphone oh that's awesome i didn't realize that yeah huge amount of work and all the props from aliens you know whenever we've had something remember we looked at the welder a little while ago huge amount of work in that thing all the brass work that they did on it and resilient like i it clearly came down from the top that like you got to make this stuff able to handle lots of abuse because the actors weren't being careful nor should they have been uh and everything sort of wears that mark of the of the heavy heavy weathering you've got a couple of amazing pieces back here too is this one of the smart guns yeah that is one that's the only one that's known to still exist that came out of bapti in the uk which is the famous armory that also provided all the guns for star wars and things like that so this was a real firearm i think it's an mg-42 that fired blanks of course it's been deactivated since that they customized and dressed to turn it into the smart gun and of course the famous guy with the smart guns they put on the steadicam rig right so that's the guys frost so cool and clever you know i don't know where the steadicam rig is but this is one of the original guns and um some of the dressing parts are original such as the flash suppressor that was a custom-made thing that's original to it gorgeous other pieces like these bits here which are off of i think a kawasaki motorcycle yeah those are recreations they've been put back on it so once it went back to bafti they kind of stripped it apart as they do with many things but i like this little detail here because that's original what does it say so in the movie one of their smart guns says adios and the other says my and that i don't know if you have to bleep that that seems to be uh that seems to be a hybrid of both if you really stare at it you can kind of see that like that's a d wow and then an eye and then an o and an s so probably they were using them interchangeably they'd slap a little paint on it put new lettering and change it around but the fact that both them are still hidden under theirs it's pretty in the aliens prop collecting uh when they when this first came out a lot of my film student friends were shocked that they had used like steady cam rigs for the props because those were behind them yeah and now those steady camps have gotten inexpensive enough that i see them traded occasionally on the regular props for them for just a few thousand dollars but like back when this movie came out i used one of those was still like 60 or 70 big deal yeah yeah yeah that is incredible and is this a real set of armor yeah that's a real terry english set um i love aliens again i love all things terry english and i about 25 years ago i used to go and stare at this and play in hollywood washington dc because it was on display there this exact set you have been staring at this specific set for 25. there's a picture of a much younger me standing in front of this set if we could have that i would love to cut it and give you that picture that is just for me that is just for me but uh but the cool thing about this one it's funny because at the time you know there wasn't as much knowledge people thought maybe it was a terry english replica yeah and there were a couple reasons they thought that the foam on the interior looks a little different but it turned out it's an original film used costume and it was used specifically for the burn scene so frost kind of meets his end when he catches on fire and they basically put this armor on a mannequin lit on fire practically and threw it down a stairwell and that's what this was used for so there's some pretty heavy damage on it in a few places which you can imagine oh yeah look at that that's probably it it took a real puncture falling down seriously and then over here on the shoulders you've got this chemical yeah which is to do with the burn effect and there's a lot of it on the back also that would be usually that would be rubber cement that's a way to really make sure that fire stays exactly where you want it and it burns slowly and not too hot because you can see it didn't dis it didn't discolor the paint underneath it too much oh okay i said jamie on fire once and we used rubber cement see if we had talked to you before that we did the catalog that would be in in our catalog so that's good information rubber cement is made yeah what we've seen there it looks like now that you're saying it yeah um it looks amazing i just bought a set okay i just purchased a set of terry english replica armor yeah um but now of course i now have the eyes right once you once you've owned something and you've really stared at it for a while you can kind of spot the differences in the towels and this is just magnificent the weathering the aging on these the way the aluminum wears it's all so wonderful you know and um i've i've seen some of the replica sets obviously they're wonderful also there's just a slight sort of character difference to them and the the genuine ones you know well i was also surprised at how comfortable it is to wear right it's so lightweight and that i mean these actors every one of these actors spent weeks and weeks and weeks wearing this stuff so of course it should be comfortable yeah yeah um and i really appreciate that like the the the frost frost the frost helmet so this is the helmet for this costume it is yeah i don't know that he ever wore them together oh because this might have just been a study right right this is not the main body armor it is the main helmet if that makes sense but it is all the same character so they're two separate lats in the auction but theoretically someone can reunite them and have a full frost so i mean when i'm building databases to find stuff if i was super obsessed i would start collecting every picture of breastplate armor i had and start to actually pattern match between the screen and the you must have something a little bit like we've done a little bit of that yeah yeah and actually the aliens armors are really good for it because the camo is extremely distinct yeah so just like what i was saying about the camo cover on the helmet you can pick stuff out pretty easily and there is a behind-the-scenes picture uh which i could show you we could run that on the video where you see the mannequin and it's in like just a production office but it's all dressed up and you can screen match this set and they've got the mannequin there and he's holding a big cigar which is obviously a joke about the fire gag that he's about to get burned so somebody came up some aliens fan came up with that picture and it was like oh i think it's this set and so then it's elevated to photo match status because you can't screen match it because in the film it's so blurry and it's on fire and you can't see enough to really tell but there's no question that's what it is and it was used for that shot um between i mean all four of these pieces are pretty amazing amalgamation of original alien hardware back in one place together definitely i mean this there was a collector who was focused on aliens specifically he's decided it's time to let some things go and that's why multiple great aliens items have come to the surface at one time uh normally we're happy to get anything from aliens but so yeah this is this is a it's a pretty serious spread you know it is a testament to the franchise that so much information about it has survived and there's still so much love for this amazing oh yeah yeah yeah it's just it's you know much like star wars indiana jones and ghostbusters it's just the fan culture loves that title you know and um it's interesting because it's probably one of the few that hasn't had a real shot in the arm by like modern content i mean obviously there's sort of there's prometheus there's covenant whatever but they're not really aliens they're they're pretty different those are all in the genre of the same original film they're all more like horror films right but aliens is a cowboy movie right it's never really been redone in any way so it's really kind of interesting you know james cameron i know you're busy with avatar but maybe we could have another aliens that would be good the further adventures of the colonial marines so you must have worn this back when you when you can't remember maybe there's some of you getting in there yeah brandon thank you so much what an amazing collection of aliens harvest yeah no thank you thanks for coming inhey everybody adam savage here in prop store in los angeles and well clearly i have some alien props in front of me and brandon ellenger to my right brandon these are some screen used alien pieces in front of us yeah so we had a great collection of alien stuff that came in for our upcoming auction and these are a couple of the pieces that were part of that set this is a hero frost helmet from aliens and this is his main helmet that he wears in maybe in all the movies certainly in 90 of the movie almost any picture you ever see a frost or if you watch the film you'll see this exact helmet and it's very easy to pick it out because it has this camo cover on it with the unique pattern so you always see these distinct marks in the front of it and the eyepiece i've been always wondering about how that eyepiece works yeah you want to take a look it's pretty cool really really it's just sitting in two tracks the inside of this helmet is a a fiberglass liner and the liner's just been cut away to receive these two tracks and this eyepiece actually turns on it still turns on yeah how cool is that i know it works uh when it reaches the bottom i assume that little ball we saw inside is like some sort of catch that holds it up perhaps okay would lock it in place yeah yeah but amazing i've always wanted to see the inside of that thing yeah this is a great one because it's main character and it's screen matching we've handled a few other aliens helmets which are what we might call like mid-grade or b helmets where they're probably generic just if they need another helmet but most of the most the characters who wear a helmet they don't all wear helmets they pretty much have the same one on the whole film and so this is frost this was actually in my collection about 15 years ago really collectors tend to pass things around this did lift at my house at one point in time not mine anymore but it's very cool to see it again i love aliens all that stuff that terry english built we got a couple of terry english plates on the back here right back here these lobster plates with the camo pattern i love that they're hammered out of aluminum and this one i think is missing its microphone it would have a microphone piece that comes down through the ear guard here it doesn't look like it was oh yes it does look like it was meant to have it but it's no longer there but other than that it's pretty complete it's got the original helmet camera and on the inside there's a label for frost so it doesn't get more yeah screen used than that and this is drake yes vasquez actually wow drake's slightly different drake's has a little piece of eyeball graffiti over the eyepiece that was painted on and and we could actually screen match this one because you can see right here this little shape it looks like the letter h yeah and it's unpainted there presumably there was a greebly at some point in time i and you can see that on screen i really want to find out if i could figure out what that gravely is that would be cool that would be cool but i love the you were commenting on the build of this and what they made this out of i think you recognized some parts right well so i just finished a motion tracker and when you build a motion tracker a whole bunch of parts come out of a flash unit uh some of the labels on the like a camera flash a camera flash yeah and i recognize this here as one of the pieces i removed from the flash to get at some other pieces for the motion tracker so that i hope you didn't throw it away no no no in fact i did a piece to camera about how when you're doing found part props even when you think you've got all the pieces don't throw any of your cutoffs away because you'll end up looking at a reference picture and be like oh there's a little thing oh it's in that and you've thrown it away so i don't throw anything away anymore it's clear to me that the prop department of aliens spent a lot of time using old camera gear for their propage but it's delightful to have just removed that from a piece and find it here on vasquez's eyepiece and you see that little blue color makes it very distinct right no seriously i have two of these sitting on my workbench right now that's awesome uh and that's the standard camera lens that's also on the that's right a little pentax lens yeah uh and this looks like a an original microphone but it's not it's actually scratch built and it's a really nice scratch build of the microphone oh that's awesome i didn't realize that yeah huge amount of work and all the props from aliens you know whenever we've had something remember we looked at the welder a little while ago huge amount of work in that thing all the brass work that they did on it and resilient like i it clearly came down from the top that like you got to make this stuff able to handle lots of abuse because the actors weren't being careful nor should they have been uh and everything sort of wears that mark of the of the heavy heavy weathering you've got a couple of amazing pieces back here too is this one of the smart guns yeah that is one that's the only one that's known to still exist that came out of bapti in the uk which is the famous armory that also provided all the guns for star wars and things like that so this was a real firearm i think it's an mg-42 that fired blanks of course it's been deactivated since that they customized and dressed to turn it into the smart gun and of course the famous guy with the smart guns they put on the steadicam rig right so that's the guys frost so cool and clever you know i don't know where the steadicam rig is but this is one of the original guns and um some of the dressing parts are original such as the flash suppressor that was a custom-made thing that's original to it gorgeous other pieces like these bits here which are off of i think a kawasaki motorcycle yeah those are recreations they've been put back on it so once it went back to bafti they kind of stripped it apart as they do with many things but i like this little detail here because that's original what does it say so in the movie one of their smart guns says adios and the other says my and that i don't know if you have to bleep that that seems to be uh that seems to be a hybrid of both if you really stare at it you can kind of see that like that's a d wow and then an eye and then an o and an s so probably they were using them interchangeably they'd slap a little paint on it put new lettering and change it around but the fact that both them are still hidden under theirs it's pretty in the aliens prop collecting uh when they when this first came out a lot of my film student friends were shocked that they had used like steady cam rigs for the props because those were behind them yeah and now those steady camps have gotten inexpensive enough that i see them traded occasionally on the regular props for them for just a few thousand dollars but like back when this movie came out i used one of those was still like 60 or 70 big deal yeah yeah yeah that is incredible and is this a real set of armor yeah that's a real terry english set um i love aliens again i love all things terry english and i about 25 years ago i used to go and stare at this and play in hollywood washington dc because it was on display there this exact set you have been staring at this specific set for 25. there's a picture of a much younger me standing in front of this set if we could have that i would love to cut it and give you that picture that is just for me that is just for me but uh but the cool thing about this one it's funny because at the time you know there wasn't as much knowledge people thought maybe it was a terry english replica yeah and there were a couple reasons they thought that the foam on the interior looks a little different but it turned out it's an original film used costume and it was used specifically for the burn scene so frost kind of meets his end when he catches on fire and they basically put this armor on a mannequin lit on fire practically and threw it down a stairwell and that's what this was used for so there's some pretty heavy damage on it in a few places which you can imagine oh yeah look at that that's probably it it took a real puncture falling down seriously and then over here on the shoulders you've got this chemical yeah which is to do with the burn effect and there's a lot of it on the back also that would be usually that would be rubber cement that's a way to really make sure that fire stays exactly where you want it and it burns slowly and not too hot because you can see it didn't dis it didn't discolor the paint underneath it too much oh okay i said jamie on fire once and we used rubber cement see if we had talked to you before that we did the catalog that would be in in our catalog so that's good information rubber cement is made yeah what we've seen there it looks like now that you're saying it yeah um it looks amazing i just bought a set okay i just purchased a set of terry english replica armor yeah um but now of course i now have the eyes right once you once you've owned something and you've really stared at it for a while you can kind of spot the differences in the towels and this is just magnificent the weathering the aging on these the way the aluminum wears it's all so wonderful you know and um i've i've seen some of the replica sets obviously they're wonderful also there's just a slight sort of character difference to them and the the genuine ones you know well i was also surprised at how comfortable it is to wear right it's so lightweight and that i mean these actors every one of these actors spent weeks and weeks and weeks wearing this stuff so of course it should be comfortable yeah yeah um and i really appreciate that like the the the frost frost the frost helmet so this is the helmet for this costume it is yeah i don't know that he ever wore them together oh because this might have just been a study right right this is not the main body armor it is the main helmet if that makes sense but it is all the same character so they're two separate lats in the auction but theoretically someone can reunite them and have a full frost so i mean when i'm building databases to find stuff if i was super obsessed i would start collecting every picture of breastplate armor i had and start to actually pattern match between the screen and the you must have something a little bit like we've done a little bit of that yeah yeah and actually the aliens armors are really good for it because the camo is extremely distinct yeah so just like what i was saying about the camo cover on the helmet you can pick stuff out pretty easily and there is a behind-the-scenes picture uh which i could show you we could run that on the video where you see the mannequin and it's in like just a production office but it's all dressed up and you can screen match this set and they've got the mannequin there and he's holding a big cigar which is obviously a joke about the fire gag that he's about to get burned so somebody came up some aliens fan came up with that picture and it was like oh i think it's this set and so then it's elevated to photo match status because you can't screen match it because in the film it's so blurry and it's on fire and you can't see enough to really tell but there's no question that's what it is and it was used for that shot um between i mean all four of these pieces are pretty amazing amalgamation of original alien hardware back in one place together definitely i mean this there was a collector who was focused on aliens specifically he's decided it's time to let some things go and that's why multiple great aliens items have come to the surface at one time uh normally we're happy to get anything from aliens but so yeah this is this is a it's a pretty serious spread you know it is a testament to the franchise that so much information about it has survived and there's still so much love for this amazing oh yeah yeah yeah it's just it's you know much like star wars indiana jones and ghostbusters it's just the fan culture loves that title you know and um it's interesting because it's probably one of the few that hasn't had a real shot in the arm by like modern content i mean obviously there's sort of there's prometheus there's covenant whatever but they're not really aliens they're they're pretty different those are all in the genre of the same original film they're all more like horror films right but aliens is a cowboy movie right it's never really been redone in any way so it's really kind of interesting you know james cameron i know you're busy with avatar but maybe we could have another aliens that would be good the further adventures of the colonial marines so you must have worn this back when you when you can't remember maybe there's some of you getting in there yeah brandon thank you so much what an amazing collection of aliens harvest yeah no thank you thanks for coming in\n"