Uploaded December 2022 | Updated September 2026, 1 week ago
SUBSCRIBE on YouTube: bit.ly/Zp70T4 and RING THE BELL!
FULL STORY here: bit.ly/SmallSoldBtsYT
Stan Winston’s puppets definitely got to ‘do their stuff’ on Small Soldiers (1998), Joe Dante’s film about action figures that are brought to life through high-tech military ‘smart’ chips. The studio designed and built two categories of characters for the film — Commando Elite soldiers, and alien Gorgonites, all of which were realized as articulated puppets. The Winston crew began designing the toy characters, on paper and in sculptures, a mere five months prior to the start of filming. Due to a deal with Hasbro to mass-produce a Small Soldiers toy line, and the necessity for the film’s release to be timed precisely with the debut of that toy line, every aspect of the production was subjected to a similarly tight schedule. The making of the film was such a seat-of-the-pants affair, Joe Dante would later call Small Soldiers ‘the first improv big-budget effects picture.’
In total, Small Soldiers would feature fourteen distinct characters: six Commandos, seven Gorgonites, and a ‘Gwendy’ fashion doll. For their design, Winston set up a kind of creative free-for-all within the studio, letting key artists loose to draw as many designs as they cared to. The project gave newer designers, in particular, an opportunity to shine. “Being a new designer at Stan Winston Studio was tough at first,” commented Jim Charmatz, one of those newer artists who got his first shot to design a character for Small Soldiers. “Because Crash was so well established here, it was hard to make your mark as a new designer. But on this show, there was such a tremendous amount of stuff to be designed, a lot of us got a chance to work on it. I was one of about seven people who started right in designing Gorgonites and Commandos.”
Text excerpted from The Winston Effect: The Art and History of Stan Winston Studio by Jody Duncan.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
JOIN the Stan Winston School Community!
stanwinstonschool.com
tiktok.com/@stan_winston_school
facebook.com/StanWinstonSchool
twitter.com/SWinstonSchool
instagram.com/stanwinstonschool
pinterest.com/stanwinston
Visit our WEBSITE: stanwinstonschool.com
SUBSCRIBE to #SWSCA on YouTube: bit.ly/Zp70T4
SUBSCRIBE on YouTube: bit.ly/Zp70T4 and RING THE BELL!
FULL STORY here: bit.ly/SmallSoldBtsYT
Stan Winston’s puppets definitely got to ‘do their stuff’ on Small Soldiers (1998), Joe Dante’s film about action figures that are brought to life through high-tech military ‘smart’ chips. The studio designed and built two categories of characters for the film — Commando Elite soldiers, and alien Gorgonites, all of which were realized as articulated puppets. The Winston crew began designing the toy characters, on paper and in sculptures, a mere five months prior to the start of filming. Due to a deal with Hasbro to mass-produce a Small Soldiers toy line, and the necessity for the film’s release to be timed precisely with the debut of that toy line, every aspect of the production was subjected to a similarly tight schedule. The making of the film was such a seat-of-the-pants affair, Joe Dante would later call Small Soldiers ‘the first improv big-budget effects picture.’
In total, Small Soldiers would feature fourteen distinct characters: six Commandos, seven Gorgonites, and a ‘Gwendy’ fashion doll. For their design, Winston set up a kind of creative free-for-all within the studio, letting key artists loose to draw as many designs as they cared to. The project gave newer designers, in particular, an opportunity to shine. “Being a new designer at Stan Winston Studio was tough at first,” commented Jim Charmatz, one of those newer artists who got his first shot to design a character for Small Soldiers. “Because Crash was so well established here, it was hard to make your mark as a new designer. But on this show, there was such a tremendous amount of stuff to be designed, a lot of us got a chance to work on it. I was one of about seven people who started right in designing Gorgonites and Commandos.”
Text excerpted from The Winston Effect: The Art and History of Stan Winston Studio by Jody Duncan.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
JOIN the Stan Winston School Community!
stanwinstonschool.com
tiktok.com/@stan_winston_school
facebook.com/StanWinstonSchool
twitter.com/SWinstonSchool
instagram.com/stanwinstonschool
pinterest.com/stanwinston
Visit our WEBSITE: stanwinstonschool.com
SUBSCRIBE to #SWSCA on YouTube: bit.ly/Zp70T4
