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StudioADI’s Alec Gillis Talks Designing The Feral Predator

In a new interview with IndieWire, studioADI co-founder Alec Gillis has been talking about working on designing and constructing Prey’s Feral Predator. Though only alluded to briefly within the actual film, Alec spoke about how they thought about whether the Predator could have inspired the Comanche’s demon folklore.

“Dan brought parameters of likes and dislikes, and initially one of the notes said that he wanted this [Predator] to elicit more horror. So that got us talking about whether or not this could have been the origins of demonic spirits in the eyes of the Native people, such as the Wendigo. That influenced our thinking.”

While the Feral Predator’s unmasked appearance is causing some controversy within the fandom, Feral’s new mask is much more unanimously loved! Alec spoke about the thought behind the much loved mask, as well as explaining that Feral’s penchant for decorating with bone is present on the other technological parts of the costume.

“The idea was that he found some alien and he hollowed out his head, added the tech bits that control his laser sight and heat vision.

And then he had his high-tech pieces, and one of the interesting design elements was that we wanted to keep to the time. When he’s messing with gear on his arm, you’ll see bone inlay. That’s a reflection of the trophies being embedded in the technology.”

 StudioADI's Alec Gillis Talks Designing The Feral Predator

Alec also spoke about Feral’s less-advanced arsenal, revealing that Feral’s most advanced weaponry – the floating mines – were intended to be an earlier iteration of the Predator’s iconic weapon-of-last-resort.

“It wouldn’t be a fair fight [to have the plasma caster]. He did have the flechettes: the little floating land mines, which were intended to be little shrapnel bursts and were a precursor to his nuclear bomb on the wrist.”

Head on over to IndieWire to check out the rest of the article where they also spoke to Predator performer Dane DiLiegro who told the outlet that he thought that Feral had a “sense of hubris with him, lack of refinement. Maybe he’s younger.”

Alec Gillis also recently announced that he would be parting ways with studioADI, with his co-founder Tom Woodruff Jr. pursuing his career with writer, director and producer. Gillis is instead forming studioGillis where he will continue to work on “Creature Characters, Make up FX, Specialty Props and Costumes, Art Projects and everything else you know me for.” We’re currently awaiting news on what this means for studioADI.

Be sure to keep your targets set on Alien vs. Predator Galaxy for all the latest Prey news! You can also follow us on FacebookTwitterInstagram, and YouTube to get the latest on your social media walls. Be sure to join in with fellow Alien and Predator fans on our forums as well!



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Comments: 30
  1. BlueMarsalis79
    Pretty much, that's one of the reasons I don't care much for Crucified Predator, he's just Jungle Hunter, I know Scout's basically Jungle Hunter as well so precedence exists... But I prefer them to have their own personality and a design that compliments that character.
  2. SizzyBubbles
    The eyeless bone bio-mask is such a cool idea that I personally really loved  ;D  Still gave him an aura of mystery even though he like has less armor than the other predators we've seen in film.

    Quote from: morseman on Aug 19, 2022, 12:26:57 AMI was pretty fond of Feral, felt like his own person as opposed to an homage/knock off jungle hunter

    RIGHT? My thoughts exactly. I was getting really tired of studio-mandated-original-predator-copies.
  3. morseman
    I was pretty fond of Feral, felt like his own person as opposed to an homage/knock off jungle hunter. What I didn't like about the face was the distance between the eyes, sometimes gave off a bit of a cave troll effect
  4. bobcunk
    Quote from: PVC on Aug 16, 2022, 05:39:56 AMHi everyone. Movies exist .....holy grail..... doesn't exist          Again, Stan W was so much better with no cgi.   We don't care about animatronics inside the head and technical invisible crap. It's about what we see on the screen. And it's not better at all nowadays than 35 years ago   And it's not just the case for this movie   But for most of it.  Terminator, Robocop , alien ,Star Wars etc.    Regards
    The Terminator movies all had good effects whether it was cgi or practical, the movies themselce werentball great but I always thought the special effects were all top quality. I also dont think practical is always better than cgi and at times is realy the only way to do it. ( something like transformers would be almost impossible to do practically abd would be way to expensive)
  5. what if
    Hey guys, maybe it already exists, but i wonder what it would be like if all the early scenes of the masked Predator from the original movie were photoshopped with his face without the biomask
  6. PVC
    Hi everyone. Movies exist .....holy grail..... doesn't exist          Again, Stan W was so much better with no cgi.   We don't care about animatronics inside the head and technical invisible crap. It's about what we see on the screen. And it's not better at all nowadays than 35 years ago   And it's not just the case for this movie   But for most of it.  Terminator, Robocop , alien ,Star Wars etc.    Regards
  7. bobcunk
    Unless you are looking gor it most peole probably dieven notice it. Everything else looked good. There are tine in the originals that didnt look thst great (the P2 animatronic face looked alittle csrtoony or something and in the first one therevare times you can see the eye hole seems. I like the practical verson of Feral's face but the cgi version looks bad. His eyes look to fare apart at times. I don't see anything wrong from a biological pov and the designer's explanations fir the differences smmake sense.
  8. skull-splitter
    Quote from: Kradan on Aug 15, 2022, 05:51:29 PMWords can't describe how tired I am of this "StAn WiNsToN lEgAcY" shit. Don't get me wrong, I have nothing but respect for the man, he is responsible for one of the most iconic movie monsters design. But come on, people, we're talking movies here not Holy Grails
    I think a lot of people appreciated his design philosophy. His last living project was Iron Man, and IMO nothing beat the Mark III since.
  9. Mike’s Monsters
    I wonder how Stan would do it nowadays if he were still around, and what it would look like with how special effects are done today. I wonder if he'd go the hybrid route like Prey did, and if the design would look like what Winston purists would want.
  10. Kradan
    Words can't describe how tired I am of this "StAn WiNsToN lEgAcY" shit. Don't get me wrong, I have nothing but respect for the man, he is responsible for one of the most iconic movie monsters design. But come on, people, we're talking movies here not Holy Grails
  11. PVC
    Hi all reel fans. Seriously feral mask is much more unanimously loved. Come on. Just take a look at this mask again.  It looks like an old broken oyster.  And think about it. Why to wear a mask like that. Useless. Half a mask ?  Why  ? predators use a mask to be able to breathe in hostile environment. This is half a mask , like a broken mask ..... and no holes for the eyes. It's totally useless. And the face of this guy ; the feral one. Who designed that stuff ? It's not just ugly. It's ridiculous. Except a couple of mandibles, nothing of a predator
    And where is the net on the body ? ( the stuff who make the beast invisible)   The Hands are terrible too. Just a pair of cheap gloves. And this bodybuilder torso with 2 hundred abdominal muscles.  What about the rasta. No Rasta this time. It's hair. Thin and long dark Comanche hairs. No Rasta anymore   So they changed everything cause predator was so bad  nobody loved the original look of the beast    The look of the predator in predator and predator 2 was so bad , they decided to change everything   So obvious. I'm sorry Mr Winston. My thoughts
  12. Corporal Hicks
    Some interestings bits in this new interview :) https://comicbook.com/movies/news/prey-alec-gillis-tom-woodruff-alien-vs-predator-rematch/

    Quote"Some of the things that are different is that we've got very, very concise digital motors that can be used to articulate the face that we didn't have back then. And that made it possible for us to slim down the head of the predator because our director Dan Trachtenberg wanted to see the head slim down quite a bit," Woodruff continued. "And it came right down to where it fit just within an inch of Dane's head. And one of the really cool things that was different was that we were able to digitally scan Dane and the artwork of the Predator head was created in 3D form. So we were able to pre-visualize where Dane's head would be and where the Predator head would be, and then print them out. And that became the basis of creating a suit that was different from what we'd seen before."

    Quote"It's always a partnership with the filmmakers. And in this case, this felt more like an old school film, despite being a studio film. This feels like a Fox movie, like a great old school Fox movie," Gillis said. "This was Dan Trachtenberg's vision, and we got to work directly with him without it running through too much studio input. And one of the things he said to us very early on was that he wanted a very lean Predator and he wanted it to be more like a horror character. And so those were two great anchor points that we used in conceiving this character.
  13. Lionhart
    Quote from: Master on Aug 11, 2022, 08:32:55 PM
    Quote from: Lionhart on Aug 11, 2022, 08:26:42 PMThat day ADI stops doing Predator designs is the day I will pop open 2 bottles of wiskey and celebrate. Team - Stan Winston for life baby.

    Oh yeah! KNB was so much better with gaping open mouth that wasnt moving at all...

    My message takes aim at KNB as well. Just forgot to mention them.


    Quote from: Kradan on Aug 11, 2022, 08:35:14 PMThen I'll have a drink when next Predator movie is announced and studioGillis will be doing the effects and all you ADI-haters will sigh so hard it will cause an earthquake

    Good luck 😉
  14. Kradan
    Then I'll have a drink when next Predator movie is announced and studioGillis will be doing the effects and all you ADI-haters will sigh so hard it will cause an earthquake
  15. Nightmare Asylum
    Quote from: Lionhart on Aug 11, 2022, 08:30:44 PM
    Quote from: Nightmare Asylum on Aug 11, 2022, 08:28:57 PM
    Quote from: Lionhart on Aug 11, 2022, 08:26:42 PMThat day ADI stops doing Predator designs is the day I will pop open 2 bottles of wiskey and celebrate. Team - Stan Winston for life baby.

    Better pop 2 bottles open, then, because ADI doesn't exist anymore.

    Curious to see what StudioGillis inevitably does with a Predator in the future, though!
    What's the difference? Gillis was with ADI before.


    Woodruff is going his own direction to focus on writing/directing, and Gillis has opened up StudioGillis and will be running it solo. ADI is no more.
  16. BIOROBOT
    I dig Feral a lot. I get why some folks have issues with the face because it is pretty different but the way I look at it is if every pred essentially looked the same under the mask then things get boring real quick. I'm glad feral is a different breed.
  17. Highland
    I love him, if they got his face just a smidge more predator like I think he'd easily be the second best Predator. The proportions are awesome and the bone mask is perfect.

    I particularly love the swagger he puts on in the trapper scene. No hunting going on, just beast mode  8)
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