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Lookback At All of Roger Dicken's Classic Work As VFX Artist Passes Away At 84
British special effects artist Roger Dicken, known for his work on Alien and When Dinosaurs Ruled the Earth passed away at 84. Discover more about his career.
Roger Dicken was an Oscar-nominated British special effects artist, sculptor and model maker who worked on Alien and When Dinosaurs Ruled the Earth. Mick Cooper, a friend of his for more than five decades, confirmed that the 84-year-old died on February 18 at his home in North Wales.
In his first film, Dicken worked as a member of the effects team on Stanley Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968). He later created and operated the dinosaur puppets in The Land That Time Forgot (1974).
Fascination for Old Gorilla Suits Might Be Roger Dicken’s Inspiration for VFX Career
Having been born on April 15, 1939, in Portsmouth, Hampshire, England, Roger Maxwell Dicken was a big fan of the "old gorilla suits in the 1940s films." In fact, he also confessed to making a paper-maché and fur ape mask, which he used to scare two local girls who were returning home from a dance late at night.
With friends, he created a comedy-horror routine for clubs in which he played Doctor Lugani, the master of "cemeteries" who introduced such characters as The Hunchback, Dracula and The Wolf Man to the audience.
Dicken sculpted several prehistoric creatures, including full-size pterodactyl feet, for Val Guest's Hammer Films stop-motion adventure When Dinosaurs Ruled the Earth (1970). In the visual effects category, he shared the Oscar nomination with American animator Jim Danforth.
How He Pulled off His Art And A Look At His Works
In the most iconic scene of Ridley Scott's Alien (1979), Dicken creates and controls the chest-bursting creature that kills Executive Officer Kane (John Hurt). In a 1992 interview, Dicken recalled, "I got underneath the set with my hand-operated alien, which, of course, appeared revoltingly through his body before zipping off the table."
To pulsate the small sacs in the body, two assistants held simple squeeze bubbles fixed to plastic tubes. The monster’s exit was accomplished by pulling me along under the table, lying on a trolley with my arm holding the puppet. I worked it through a slot as it knocked off strategically placed utensils in the process of disappearing.”
Dicken was not one of the five visual effects artists who shared the Oscar for the film.
“I would do a quick change toward the end and play the Frankenstein monster which went down very well in those days. I would carry off a girl planted in the audience to finish off the show,” he recalled.
He landed jobs with the BBC and made models for the Thunderbirds TV show before going freelance to join the team in 2001 after meeting VFX legend Ray Harryhausen.
Afterwards, Dicken created the moth monster for Peter Cushing's The Blood Beast Terror (1968) and also worked on Vincent Price's Witchfinder General (1968). Among his other credits are the bats from Scars of Dracula (1970), the octopuses from Warlords of the Deep (1978), White Dog (1982) and The Hunger (1983).
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