How Legacy Effects crafted the practical creature effects for the Offspring in Alien: Romulus. An excerpt from befores & afters magazine.The climactic encounter of the film occurs between the remaining characters and the fast-growing humanxenomorph hybrid: the Offspring. Romanian former basketball player Robert Bobroczkyi was brought on to play the tall and skinny creature, owing to his distinctive body features. Fede called us and said theyd seen Robert in some YouTube clips, and said, Do you think we could use this guy? Hes not an actor, he is an athlete. Do you think itd be a good idea? And we were like, Hell, yeah.When we were first talking about the Offspring and looked at storyboards, adds Mahan, it just looked like it was supposed to grow very fast and be like a teenage underdeveloped brain but a big, gawky thing with a lurking presence that doesnt really understand itself. The sub-base of what Robert is just naturally was going to be phenomenal. We could do the same makeup on a six-foot tall guy and it would just be okay. But Robert made it special and really made the ending tremendous. Hes 90% of the success of that creature.The Offspring make-up effects from Legacy consisted of 13 pieces of translucent silicone appliances, with portions of Bobroczkyis skin showing through. Mahan and MacGowan were particularly impressed with Bobroczkyis on-set acting, for someone who had not ever done this kind of work before. Says Mahan: Robert was phenomenal because he really took it to heart and really put the effort in to make a character. I think it was his idea to be smiling during some of it. He worked with the acting coach at his school. He worked very hard on creating the movement and character, and he just showed up ready to rock and roll.When Chris Swift and I, with the team, did his make-up test for the first time, we took him to second unit to shoot a test, recounts Mahan. We knew it was very, very special and we both said it was like when Karloff as Frankenstein walks through the door backwards. It was that magical. Fede and everybody had video monitors over on first unit and they could see us setting it up, and then everyone ran over to come to see it. They just couldnt believe it. Read the full issue of the magazine.The post A new challenge: the Offspring appeared first on befores & afters.