n 1979, the world got to know the artwork of Swiss-born H.R. Giger in the form of a 7-foot-tall alien creature that inspired nightmares in many viewers for years. The film Alien based its creature design on Giger's work, which was known, but not yet widely known. Giger's work had an unmistakable style that blended the organic with the machine. Bones blending into pipes, flesh merging into gears, a creepy blend of the human and the inhuman.
So it is little wonder Giger's design for the alien menace was reviled and revered at the same time. Here was one of Giger's creepy paintings brought to life, and very successfully. It changed the face of horror forever. Giger went on to win an Oscar that year for visual effects for his Alien creation.
One effect of his sudden worldwide acclaim was that people began to take notice of his work. But this was not his first work of pop culture. Ridley Scott took inspiration from Giger's Necronomicon, published in 1977. In 1973, the Emerson, Lake and Palmer album Brain Salad Surgery featured a cover by Giger. And earlier, in 1968, he designed armor for a movie called Swiss Made.
Giger married actress Li Tober, who inspired many of his paintings. The famous "Li II" is an eerie work, like any of Giger's pieces. Three faces, blended into organic pipework, bordered by two skeletal contraptions that could be anything from daggers to paint pumps.
McFarlane Toys, known for its Spawn figures as well as its Movie Maniacs lines, has produced a 10-inch adaptation of this, one of Giger's best-known paintings, as a 3-D sculpture. Made of a combination of hard and soft plastics, this piece is lovingly crafted and painted to resemble and pay homage to the original painting. It measures 10 inches tall by 6 inches across by nearly 4 inches deep at the base, which is painted with the artist's name, the name of the piece and the year the sculpture was released (2004).
Mechanically organic art
Much of Giger's work deals with severed body parts connected through pipes or hoses to machines that look as if they were made from the spines of chickens with human skulls and other bizarrely machinelike bones and organs.
This piece adapts the "Li II" painting by reducing the number of faces from three to one. The decapitated head is connected with small hoses to the machine's superstructure. The face, painted white against a matte-black background of superstructure and ribbed hoses and metallic bolts, is detailed with veins and mechanical tubes, almost Borg-like with ridged eyebrows and seamless connections to the machinery above, which looks to be made completely out of bones and hoses, with skulls mounted atop one another. On each side of the headpiece are two small bone-creatures that resemble the pilot of the derelict craft in Alien. Each of those holds a spray can aimed toward the center of the headpiece. Further up are more parts that resemble bone and flesh merged into a metallic frame. A snake slithers through the eye holes of the bottom skull and makes its way down between the eyes, like a bizarre caricature of an Egyptian princess' headdress.
Behind all this is more superstructure that looks like the walls of the aforementioned derelict ship.
The skeletal forms to either side of the central face feature flesh-covered hands, spiderlike abdomens with ribbed chests underneath half-skulls connected with wires to what could be paint reservoirs. (This assumption comes simply because of the paint cans featured in the paintings, but the real purpose, if any, is unknowable.) Each of these figures has flanged openings where the shoulders would be, which end below in large split blades that make them appear to be elaborate swords or daggers made of either bone or hammered metal, each sheathed in its own hollow coffinlike aperture.
This is quite the departure for McFarlane Toys, which specializes in highly articulated action figures. This is more of a decorative sculpture designed to adorn a desk or shelf (though it is conspicuously missing a hook hole in back for those who wish to wall-mount this piece.)
While you can get other sculptures of Giger's work (including "Spell 1" from Sideshow Toy), this piece is both affordable and accessible. At the cost of an elaborate action figure, this piece can be obtained from most stores that sell McFarlane's other pieces, specialty toy stores and record shops, though not likely regular toy stores.
As a first, this piece is encouraging. Here's hoping that McFarlane sees the interest in Giger's work and continues to create 3-D versions of his work.
