Dan Platt | Character Modeler

The Cave – Mutant Bat Creature

Patrick Tatopoulos created a wicked sketch of this creature with a wildly strong silhouette. Once I nailed the silhouette, Patrick gave me pretty wide room to explore within those shapes. This maquette was created as a scanning model from which the CG bats would be modeled at a later time.

Sculpted in supersculpey in 3 weeks
Size: 4.5′ wide across the wings and about 2.5′ tall

The Cave – Mutant Mole

All of the sub creatures within the cave had to have the same look as the main bat creature – including moles the size of large house cats. The consistent design theme was thin, translucent skin stretched over a weird rib cage, twisted pelvis and deformed skull.

This sculpture was created in Roma Plastilina in about 2 weeks and was based on an African mole and the back end of an elephant. The underbelly was actually inspired by my lovable Jack Russel Terrier, Lexi!

…and the final result from the film. Can you say “wow”?

The Cave – Mutant Salamander

This sculpture was about 4′ long and took about 2 weeks to model in Roma Plastilina clay. With the lighting nearly dark, the subterranean, giant salamander was hardly visible in its splashing debut. At least there are these photos. I was working for Patrick Tatopoulos at the time and Patrick, an amazing designer, really let me run with the design.

I was given one day to airbrush the silicone skin. Here’s a quick shot of the work-in-progress.

…and a silly photoshop comp for kicks. In the film, it was nothing more than a big splash.

The Cave – Eel sculpture

Here’s an in-progress shot of a 10′ long mutant eel sculpture that I made for the film, The Cave. It was modeled in about 3 weeks using Roma Plastilina clay.

Here’s a photoshop comp of what it “could have” looked like. With the film called The Cave – everything was shot pretty dark.