Battlestar Galactica (1978)

Battlestar Galactica was a project that producer Glen A. Larson had wanted off the ground since the 1960s, but it wasn't until the success of Star Wars that he finally managed to get it greenlit; to help ride Star Wars' coattails, Larson hired several of its production artists, such as Ralph McQuarrie and Joe Johnston, as well as sculptors Jon Berg, Laine Liska and Phil Tippett. However, also in the Battlestar Galactica crew were newcomers like Andrew Probert, who helped realize the final Cylon Centurion armor.

The iconic Cylons were entirely robotic in the final series, though realized as men in armor costumes meaning they don't count for this blog; however, their monarch, the 'Imperious Leader' counts, as they were realized as a reptilian humanoid. In earlier sketches by Ralph McQuarrie, the Imperious Leader was intended to have a more insectoid look.

However, in this later sketch by costume designer Jean-Pierre Dorleac, the Imperious Leader's design had moved to a more beaky, lizard-like design, with eyes on the far side of its head - I am still not sure if this was based on another concept art sketch for the Imperious Leader or not. According to this interview with Phil Tippett on the Galactica.TV fansite, he said he also worked a bit on 'some big cloaked alien, a dark overlord' which indicates he could have designed the Imperious Leader.

A preliminary sculpt was made of the Imperious Leader's head, which was also used as a reference by Andrew Probert and Joe Johnston when sketching the Cylon warrior helmets, as at this stage it was still intended for the Cylons to be reptilian beings in armor. This preliminary sculpt had a blue-green hue to the scales.

I am also unsure of the details as to who finally sculpted the Imperious Leader mask; it was at one point believed that famous special effects artist Carlo Rambaldi had sculpted the mask, but this was proved to have been an urban myth; regardless, the final Imperious Leader mask was only ever seen at a distance, seemingly a static mask with light fixtures under the eyes.

The casino sequence in the series' pilot episode 'Saga of a Star World', indebted to Star Wars' own cantina sequence barring that its aliens are barely seen in the final cut. The aliens were realized by a team of sculptors and makeup effects artists that included Chris Mueller, David Ayres, Craig Reardon, Gunnar Ferdinandsen, Rosalind Mercier, Dan Angier and lab department head Werner Keppler. Craig Reardon in particular (who would later work on Dreamscape, The Gate, Twilight Zone: The Movie and The Goonies - where he designed the character of Sloth, no less) did these two sketches for some of the various aliens, with the moth alien never being realized onscreen.

Another alien that never made it into the final cut was a multi-breasted feline woman, which according to Reardon, 'My best alien sculpture was a cat-woman that I liked very much. Originally, we were told they would use 'her' in the bar, and that her tail would pick up empty glasses, or deliver full glasses to patrons, a cute idea. She was also multi-breasted, and I sculpted a breastplate with three rows of [certainly human-type] breasts, which was very popular up in the lab, I must say! Not used, though.' There seems to be no other photos of the catgirl's other prosthetics, barring the one below of Reardon holding the breastplate. Also unused were a set of tentacle hands that it is unknown as to which alien they would have been attached to.

One of the other aliens Reardon designed was a flat-headed creature with black eyes and an elongatd head, that had the eyes altered to be more closed in the final sculpt.

Another background alien was this reptilian humanoid, that in the original sculpt was intended to have a striped skin texture, but this was replaced with a solid skin-tone instead.

One of the more oddball alien designs was sculpted by Chris Mueller, being a bird-like creature that seemingly had armor molded into its own body.

Another one of Mueller's aliens was this pincered creature, that also bears a resemblance to McQuarrie's original design for the Imperious Leader.

Another slightly more cliched alien design was this big-headed extra, that was presumably designed by David Ayres.

Ayres had also worked on The UFO Incident from 1975, and still had its alien masks left over, which he reused for the 'Saga of a Star World' casino scene! Ayres had worked previously on Close Encounters of the Third Kind helping realize Carlo Rambaldi alien designs, which would explain his hiring for The UFO Incident, but also makes me wonder if that wasn't the source for the urban myth that Rambaldi had worked on Battlestar Galactica.

One of the alien masks that would get the longest life in the series would be the 'pigman' prosthetics sculpted by Reardon, whose intention was to '...show a fattened-up, hapless, worried alien. The worry is sculpted right into its features!'.

Reardon was not happy with the fact that the pigman prosthetics was reused and copied for the 'Boray' raiders in the later episode 'The Magnificient Warriors', used in a more aggressive context, covered in fur around the face. This wasn't the oddest reuse of the masks though; that honor would go to the advert Richard Edlund (the visual effects artist who founded Industrial Light & Magic) directed for his 'Pignose' amplifiers! They even used the spaceship miniatures from the Battlestar Galactica series as mock instruments!

Also present in 'Saga of a Star World' were the Tucana singers, realized as performers wearing a mask sculpted with two mouths and two pairs of eyes.

The most ambitious alien effects in 'Saga of a Star World' were the Ovions, humanoid insects running the casino as a lure for other species. The Ovions took many iterations in their development, with Ralph McQuarrie's early artwork making them look almost mechanical.

Another proposed design for the Ovions was contributed by sculptor Ralph Massey, who submitted this complex maquette that indicated the Ovion would be hunchbacked and almost resemble a stag beetle; this design however, was rejected, presumably for being too complex to realize as a suit.

As development was continued, the humanoid shape won out for the Ovions, as present in the below concept art by Carl Aldana, Joe Johnston, Dan Goozee and Ralph McQuarrie, all of which are closer to the final on-screen Ovion costumes.

Carl Aldana's sketches for the Ovions

Joe Johnston's sketch for the Ovions

Dan Goozee's sketches for the Ovions

Ralph McQuarrie's concept painting of the Ovion's destruction, resembling the finalized design.

The final Ovion costumes followed the designs of especially Aldana's and Goozee's sketches, with a larger maquette being sculpted for the costumes; the photos aren't credited but Marcel Damen of (the now sadly gone) Galactic.TV fansite suspects they could have been sculpted by either Jon Berg, Laine Liska or Ralph Massey.

Also made to help finalize the look of the Ovion costume was this maquette by effects artist and sculptor Phil Tippett (who would go on to work on The Empire Strikes Back & Return of the Jedi, Robocop and Starship Troopers), that was presumably made before the earlier one judging by the coarse texture of the exoskeleton.

The on-screen Ovion costumes were a collaboration between Laine Liska, Jon Berg and Phil Tippett, with the former two artists presumably being responsible for the actual suit. The final suit was painted with a green finish, and sculped with static 'extra' arms. Fur was added between the joints; while calling to mind the anatomy of insects such as bees, it also doubled as a way to hide the connecting seams of the suit.

After 'Saga of a Star World', the only other episode with special makeup effects was 'War of the Gods' in which Patrick Macnee wore a sculpted latex mask as the demon Iblis.

Sources:

- Wayback Machine's archive crawls of Marcel Damen's currently offline Galactica.TV fansite, especially the concept art pages, as well as the interview with Phil Tippett.

- ByYourCommand.net's Gallery page, (especially the sections on the Ovions, Muffit II and the casino aliens) which is where all the behind the scenes images on this page come from.