Monsters On Screen: The Outer Limits (1963)

The Outer Limits' monsters were made by freelance special effects company Project Unlimited, set up by effects designers and sculptors Gene Warren, Wah Chang and Tim Baar, with prosthetic makeups supplied by John Chambers and Fred Phillips. Harry Thomas, who had been makeup artist on many 50s and 60s scifi b-movies, also contributed to the series, and Jim Danforth and Al Hamm provided stopmotion effects.

All the alien scenes in 'The Galaxy Being' were shot in negative, so I had to manually edit the images to get an idea of what the prop really looked like. The alien was a performer wearing a mask and sculpted gloves, promotional photos revealing it was painted silver.

The surgically transformed astronaut in 'The Architects of Fear' was a large puppet with a wide head and spindly limbs. The puppet is only seen very briefly in the episode itself, and mostly closeups of the head at that.

Some of John Chamber's most famous makeup work on Outer Limits was in 'The Sixth Finger', for David McCallum's evolution into an evolved super-human. The first stage was the most subtle, with McCallum wearing a forehead prosthetic showing his cranium had enlarged.

The second stage was a more advanced makeup, with pointed ears - noticeably, this one now had pointed ears, similar to the pointed ears Chambers would make for Leonard Nimoy to wear as Mr Spock in Star Trek.

The third and final stage was the most elaborate, with McCallum wearing a full face prosthetic with pronounced eye sockets, nose and chin, as well as the domed cranium and pointed ears. John Chambers would later recreate the makeup in a photoshoot for issue #42 of Famous Monsters of Filmland, this time applied on model Danny Smith.

The disfigured future human Andro in 'The Man Who Was Never Born' was a heavy prosthetic makeup designed by John Chambers and applied on Martin Landau, with complimenting gloves as well.

The one-eyed alien in 'O.B.I.T.' was a mask with an open area for the performer's mouth, that was blended with makeup to be seamless. In the actual episode the alien is barely seen, but the mask would eventually be used in an episode of The Munsters, specifically 'If A Martian Answers, Hang Up'.

The frozen ghost of the army private Gordon (so nicknamed 'Chill Charlie)' in the 'The Human Factor' was originally intended to be a full bodysuit with a more grotesque appearance, with glowing eyes and sculpted icicles covering the suit. This version of the suit appeared in promotional materials for the episode.

However, this version of Chill Charlie never appeared in 'Human Factor' at all, and was replaced with a more restrained makeup design.

The Ebonite aliens in 'Nightmare' were rubber masks blended with makeup over the performer's face; the masks were sculpted with pronounced chins and scowling facial expressions, which together with the winged lycra suit evoked devils or gargoyles, encouraging the audience to assume they were evil. The mask was later reused in 'Fun and Games' albeit shot in shadow.

The aquatic reptiles in 'Tourist Attraction' were elaborate costumes, with the performer crawling inside them using their hands.

The Zanti (easily the series' most iconic aliens) in 'The Zanti Misfits' were mostly stopmotion miniatures for close-up shots of them moving; it was believed that Jim Danforth did the stopmotion for the episode, but in actuality it was Al Hamm. For shots of people throwing the Zanti, static 'dummy' props were made. One of the Zanti props was reused in 'The Mutant', but altered with mandibles stuck on the head.

The jellyfish-like Chromoite in 'The Mice' was a performer in a sculpted costume; in the episode itself, the Chromoite is mostly shot from the waist-up, to hide the very human legs of the performer no doubt!

The gelatinous alien in 'Don't Open Till Doomsday' was a large quivering puppet, with a moving eyeball that was presumably operated from inside.

The crab-like alien parasites in 'The Invisibles' were realized as puppets with a single eye and a plume of hair from the back.

The Bifrost alien in 'The Bellero Shield' was a prosthetic mask, sculpted with wraparound eyes and a domed head.

'The Children of Spider Country' had a human-like alien being stalked by his father, whose true form resembled a demonic visage with large bulging eyes and pincers for a mouth.

The Empyrian alien in 'Second Chance' was realized as rubber mask fitted with feathers in lieue of a beard, with actor Simon Oakland wearing makeup underneath the mask to help it blend on camera.

Two fake enlarged eyes were sculpted for Warren Oates in 'The Mutant', with tiny holes cute in to allow him to see.

The Calco galaxy aliens in 'Fun and Games' were a sculpted static masks, shoes and gloves.

The stone-like Luminoids in 'A Feasibility Study' were realized as sculpted masks fully covering the performer's face, worn with appliances worn over the torso as well.

The reptilian aliens in 'The Chameleon' were, similarly to the alien in 'O.B.I.T' a static mask with but prosthetic makeup around the performer's mouth, allowing them to say their lines clearly.

The Venusian in 'Cold Hands, Warm Heart' was realized as a puppet held on strings, and designed to have a gorgon-like appearance, especially with the hair and scaly skin texture.

'Behold, Eck!' was a more off-kilter episode, involving an alien from a two-dimensional universe ending up in our own; this resulted in a headache for the special effects artists to actually realize the 2D alien. Ultimately, Eck would be realized as a puppet, but with some visual effects trickery in order to make them appear ethereal, as well as hide the innate fakeyness of a two-dimensional alien prop!

The sand sharks in 'The Invisible Enemy' were realized as puppet heads, with the sand obscuring any performer underneath.

The spectral alien in 'Wolf 359' was realized via puppetry, though I'm not sure the exact method; footage editing was also used to give the puppet a more ethereal look.

An influence on 1989's Communion...?

The aliens in 'Keeper of the Purple Twilight' were performers in headpieces and gloves; their leader has a large brain in order to do all their thinking, with the soldiers under its command lacking the enlarged cranium. The leader alien has a serrated triple mouth that is right under the eyes, with the soldiers having more rows of mouthes, contributing to a very eerie design.

The Megasoid in 'The Duplicate Man' was a performer in a hairsuit, fitted with a tail and mask; the mask itself recycled prosthetics used for the Empyrian in 'Second Chances', altered with a beak.