Ginger Snaps Back: The Beginning (2004)

Ginger Snaps Back was filmed back-to-back with Ginger Snaps 2, and also had its makeup effects realized by KNB EFX, with particular involvement from Howard Berger, Greg Nicotero and Robert Kurtzman. The half-transformed 'Wolf Boy' was a sculpted prosthetic mask worn by child actor Stevie Mitchell. The mask was seperate to the jaws, connected to Mitchell's own face, with having an opening for the mouth.

The werewolves in Ginger Snaps Back were realized in the same fashion as the werewolf in Ginger Snaps 2; several additional 'burnt' stunt heads were also created.

Torchwood (2006)

The 2005 reboot of Doctor Who was enough of a success in its first few years to allow the greenlighting of various TV spin-offs aimed at different audiences. The three spin-off series covered here all had their prosthetic effects realized by Neill Gorton's Millennium FX (with many of the same crew involved), which is why they have been grouped here; K9, the Australian kids spinoff, is not included here thanks to having been done by an entirely different effects team, being filmed in Australia and all.

The first of these spinoffs was Torchwood, a more violent and raunchy spinoff about a special government division fighting off alien nasties in Cardiff - despite this premise, the practical effects creatures were surprisingly minimal. One of the recurring alien nasties were the 'Weevils', carnivorous humanoids with large jaws, realized as an actor in a prosthetic mask that could have the jaw snap open and shut.

Another recurring alien menace were the Blowfish, humanoid fish that despite the name, resembled lionfish more than blowfish! A specially made prosthetic mask was made for when a Blowfish got their head blown open by gunfire.

Tragically, the most impressive practical effects alien in the series was barely seen on-screen at all! The third series, Children of Earth, involved the Earth's children being held hostage to the whims of the mysterious '456' aliens, the title referring to the radio wavelength they used to communicate with the human governments. The 456 were designed as a three-headed raptor-like creature, and realized on-screen as a large puppet; in the episode itself though, they are entirely hidden by a mist, for suspense reasons y'know.

The X-Files (2016)

The X-Files was rebooted in 2016, keeping the tradition of 'mythology' episodes interspersed with 'monster of the week' standalones. The reboot's two seasons were filmed in Vancouver, and had their special makeup effects designed by Bill Terezakis. Greys would appear again, but the actual Grey heads were entirely realized as CGI in post-production; Chris Carter was unimpressed with Terezakis' more human-like design, which can only be seen thanks to behind the scenes images.

Terezakis then designed and sculpted a more 'classic' Grey facial prosthetic to be worn with the suit in later episodes.

'Ghouli' had a brief appearance of a monster that was CGI-enhanced in the final cut; the practical monster was designed as a humanoid with a head resembling a goblin shark and fully sculpted suit but extra limbs and facial movements were overlaid digitally.

The Ghouli mask in the X-Files Preservation Collection

The episode 'Mulder & Scully Meet the Were-Monster' had a loving tribute to the original Kolchak the Night Stalker series that inspired The X-Files in the first place, with the episode's titular 'weremonster' being a reptilian humanoid realized as a facial prosthetics and sculpted bodysuit.

'The Lost Art of Forehead Sweat' had another prosthetic makeup made for the alien visitor who gives Scully and Mulder 'all the answers'; the design is a send-up of the large cranium makeups worn by David McCallum and Richard Kiel in The Outer Limits and The Twilight Zone, shows that had been inspirations on The X-Files.

The X Files: Fight the Future (1998)

The X Files' jump to the big screen had its special makeup effects realized by Tom Woodruff and Alec Gillis' Amalgamated Dynamics, who were tasked with realizing the 'long-clawed aliens'. According to Woodruff, 'The initial concept was that the creature would be reminiscent of the classic Gray alien - the little bald guy with the big, almond-shaped eyes and the little slits for nose and mouth - but that we could push it in a new direction. The idea was to come up with something that, if sighted, might lead someone to describe it as the typical Gray alien. So, even though we had some freedom and leeway in how we designed this thing, we had to keep the Gray's basic features in mind.'

The long-clawed aliens went through many designs in concept art by Jordu Schell, Andy Schoneberg and David Perteet. It was originally intended for the long-clawed aliens to have two variants - one for the sequence set in prehistoric times, and an 'evolved' version for the present-day scenes - but this cut due to time constraints. The production of Fight the Future was some of the shortest ADI ever had, thanks to the film being rushed into production to release before the show's next season and not helped that ADI were working on Alien Resurrection at roughly the same time.

When the concept art was approved, Schell then sculpted a ten-inch high maquette for the sculptors to use as reference. The early maquette had the long-clawed faces have smaller, slightly more human-sized eyes on their faces.

However, the design was then altered to have larger eyes, closer to those of the classic Greys.

The final long-clawed alien was realized as a performer (none other than Woodruff himself) in a sculpted bodysuit, with animatronics fitted on the hands and head to achieve the alien's finger movements and snarling. To keep with the idea of there being an 'old' and 'young' version of the alien, it was decided to alter the suit between takes with different paintjobs in order to get around sculpting a new suit.

According to Gillis, 'Our thinking was that the modern aliens were also newborns, since you see them in the movie shortly after they have burst from host bodies. As newborns, their skin would naturally be softer and less wrinkled. But the primitive alien has supposedly been around for a while by the time we see him fight the primitives. He has been living and hunting and killing in the harsh environment of the ice fields, so he would look more weathered and worn'.