On the 19th/20th July, the UKCM went to LF&CC. It was one of the best UKCM drops so far and various stars from the Alien series were in attendance. John Hurt, Carrie Henn and Charles Dance in particular …
Dragon Skin Studio, a UK Predator costume maker has a project on the go to make a Giger Alien costume. He is striving for screen accuracy as much as possible and I’m sure you’ll agree, the WIP pictures of the sculpts look real tasty!
On the morning of the 30th April 2008, I had a BBC journalist and a Fox PR woman on my door step. I travelled with them on the tube to promote a Sci-Fi film festival, the release of AVP2:R on DVD and the UKCM.
High Quality Streaming Quicktime, 19 Mb
YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=azK-oB_d4dQ
So, this blog has been quiet for a long time. I’ve been quite busy, moving down to London from Aberdeen, and attending UKCM events.
My Belgian TV Ad aired though!
The World Community Grid is a not-for-profit initiative headed by IBM that provides computing resources to various projects (including ones that research cancer, AIDS and Dengue fever). It is a Volunteer Grid Computing project; Thousands of small computers around the world working together on a problem yielding power greater than many supercomputers.
The project relies on volunteers downloading a small application and allowing it to run either in the background or as a screensaver. The program runs with a low process priority so should cause minimal impact to normal use of the computer. It can be stopped at any time for when you need full use of your computer’s power. The client is available for Windows, Mac OS X, Linux and FreeBSD. All code ran by the projects are security-audited by IBM.
If your PC is on for a large part of the day then please consider joining the Alien and the ~350,000 other members by Signing Up!
On the 1st December, the UKCM went to Portsmouth for this one day event. Much fun was had, and a few good scares were had. Abe the Alien was joined by Preston and Percy the Predators.
Wow! What can I say? I think we might have managed to top last years event!
AE was excellent: More Screamers.
We also did “Bug Hunts” in the main building. The kids helped the marines search for an Alien, and when it (I) was found, we gave them a little show.
Links to other peoples pics from the event:
BurntKona
Luinsar
PVB
Spat, who is the maker of most of the suits of armour on show.
Darren/FriendlySkies
Randomly found
This years Sci-Fi weekend will be happening on 3-4th November 2007 at the NSC in Leicester. It will be even bigger and better than last year. The UKCM and UKG will be out in force to make it the biggest Alien-related event for years. The “Alien Encounter” will be back, scarier than ever, and special guests will include Ian Whyte (Predator in AVP and AVP: Requiem), Trevor Steedman (Pvt. Wierzbowski in Aliens). Harry Harris will be showing his world-renowned “Harry Harris Aliens Collection and Archive” and Terry English (Armourer for Aliens, Batman & Robin, and Excalibur) will be showing off some of his work. Spat Oktan will be doing special make-up demonstrations.
All-in-all, a great family weekend for Aliens and general sci-fi fans! All proceeds will go to charity.
More details and ticket info from the National Space Centre website.
Another week, another event for the UKCM. This time, Abe was joined by Friendlyskies’ stunning Predator, Preston. Abe and Preston shared the lime-light nicely managed to get up to all sorts of mischief. Many kids (and Adults) were scared!
Now Abe goes into hibernation, getting beautified for the NSC Sci-Fi weekend at the start of November…
The UKCM attended this event in force, with several guys making the long trip up from Englandshire. In total there was about 13 of us, including UKCM “virgins” PVB, Gina and Kat. It was also Dave the Alien (Bri)’s first trip out in public!
Great fun, as always. The number of guests there was small, but they were all very friendly. Ian Whyte (Predator in AvP and AvP2) was signing and he was a great guy, posing with the Marines and Aliens.
JediFraz and I just got back from Belgium: We have been filming a TV advert for Belgian State Bonds.
I was contacted a few weeks ago by a film company wanting an Alien to appear in a advert. It was on/off for some time (hence why I didn’t post about it here before!).
We flew out from Edinburgh to Brussels, all-expenses paid. Stayed in a swanky hotel and ate where we wanted on the company’s penny. For the shoot, I had an assistant (as well as Fraz!). The day before, we went into the studio to watch the filming of the other ads in the series of ads for State Bonds. One was themed on the faking of the Moon landings!
Now, I had strong reservations about Copyright, and I have checked that I have no liability under Copyright for the ad. The film company made a couple of (reversable!) changes to Abe that has turned him into MONG-ALIEN! They think this is sufficient.
The advert involved the alien making crop-circles in a corn field, with a small tractor! Loads of driving up and down and endless shots and retakes, but great fun!!!
It was very hot: about 27 degrees C, often full sunshine and in corn “alleyways” with a very hot little tractor. However, I enjoyed every minute. Big thank-you to JediFraz for helping out, taking photos and above all accompanying me on the trip: It wouldn’t have been as much fun alone!
The Alien went to do Photo-whoring at the Kidney Research Bridge Walk on Sunday 24th June. Also present were UKCM JediFraz and SuperGirl from LOSS.
Other photos HERE
The new AW logo has been unveiled:
(Image copyright Alien War and Gary Gillies)
I didn’t have high expectations of this drop, but then I always say that! 
This was one of the best, and the photo-whoring was thick and fast. Also, ever trip out sees Abe become more and more likely to make people scream! The Alien takes me over!
I think all the UKCM got some love, and the marines even got a few photos without me!!! The atmosphere was great, with a mixture of geek-convention goers and “normals” doing their shopping: Abe got loads of attention and scares!
Blog love for the UKCM:
A couple of months ago, I was introduced to Halo. I got together with some friends and we hatched a plan to make scratch-built Halo costumes: Master Chief, Elite, Flood and Cortana. As you can imagine, this will be a long term project.
I’m not turning my back on the Alien, and I will still be doing improvements to him. I’m still a Xenomorph at heart and I can’t imagine that an Elite could ever be as big a photo-whore as the Alien! And I might have some big Alien War news soon, that might derail the Elite costume for a year or so…
The Alien will be at the next UKCM drop which is Collectormania at “thecentre:mk” in Milton Keynes on the 4th - 7th May. The UKCM will be out in force on the Saturday and Sunday. Micheal Biehn (Cpl. Hicks from Aliens) was due to appear, but he has now pulled out. Trevor Steedman and William Hope (Pvt. Wierzbowski and Lt. Gorman from Aliens) are still due to appear.
MEM was an immense UKCM drop. We provided an entourage for Al Matthews (Sgt. Apone from Aliens) and proved to be a hit with the crowd. The Alien and Predator were total photo-whores as usual, and many kids were traumatised!
Great event, and great social (we had drinks with Al on the Saturday night!)
Goes without saying really …
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You scored as Alien. You’re the elusive alien, climbing in and out of duct shafts and biting the heads off random marines. In times of need you require small sacrifices to help your cause. You’re actually kind of a weird person.
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I wasn’t expecting much from this event. It is mainly animé focused, and it was the first time that the event was held. It was small, but it was packed! The Alien surpassed himself for photo-whoring, and the Alien and Predator worked really well together. Thanks Rich, for not stabbing me!
I drove from Aberdeen down to Glasgow to pick up Bri and Jon. We then went to Carlisle and stayed in a hotel on the Friday night. We then set off for Telford at about 3:30am, and arrived in plenty of time at about 7:50am. We were the first UKCM to arrive!
We did loads of the normal photo-whoring. Additionally, we helped out with crowd control and then I had a DDR duel with a Marine (High-quality Quicktime version)!
In the Indian restaurant that night, I discovered that I had a mini-me: Gareth the Retarded Alien Baby!
All in all, a great event. And great to meet up with the guys again
aliencostume.co.uk Event Gallery
Next event is Memorabilia in Birmingham on the 31st March. Al Matthews (Sgt. Apone) will be there, so it’ll be another classic!!
I bought a resin Alien head on eBay. Very nice, sharp and straight, but it was damaged slightly in transit. I’ll repair it for display, but ultimately I would like to make a mould of it. Then I can make latex heads to experiment with animatronics.
Gary Gillies (co-creator of Alien War) has made a MySpace Page to cover the reopening of Alien War in 2007.
An interview with Gary about the new Alien War on avpgalaxy.net
