Artist Mike Trcic: Movie Monster Maker and Dinosaur Sculptor

You may not be familiar with the artist Mike Trcic, but you have most likely seen his work many times.  Although I’ve only discovered who Mike was about two months ago, I have been a huge fan of his since I was 5 years old.

Mike Trcic is one of the key artists responsible for many of Hollywood’s iconic characters and monsters.  If you’re a fan of memorable movies such as Batman Returns, Terminator 2, and Jurassic Park, then you’ve definitely seen Mike’s magic.  Side note: he was also a zombie in Day of the Dead!

For me personally, Jurassic park was a huge part of my childhood.  I can remember my mom taking me to the theatres expecting to be scared half to death, only to witness one of the greatest movies of all time.  My favourite part of the movie was definitely the T-Rex.  As I am sure with many of you, I can remember thinking “man that thing looks so real!” 

Mike sculpting the full sized version (Photo cred:Stan Winston School)

 

Mike Sculpting the 1/5 scale T-Rex( Photo cred:Stan Winston School)

 

Mike was actually the key artist in sculpting the T-Rex, so we owe a lot to what we saw on screen to his crafty hands!   The T-Rex was first sculpted at 1/5 scale for Stan Winston’s approval.  It was mentioned that the original sculpture looked more like a movie dragon than a dinosaur.  As a huge dinosaur fan himself, Mike had a back and forth struggle to convince Stan Winston to bring the sculpt back around to make it look like an actual dinosaur.  Believe it or not, the final T-Rex is only 60% of what Mike wanted to get it to …. I wonder what his full vision would’ve really looked like! After approval it was then created at 1/16 scale and the full sized 1/1 - 40 foot long version.

Above is a cool shot of all three versions Mike sculpted.

 
Cool side note: the 1/5 and 1/16 version were going to be used in the film until ILM created them in CGI.  So the only version we see on screen is the actual full sized model.  We also have to remember that this was just around the time that CGI was just realising its potential.  At that time, artists like Mike didn’t work in computers to create monsters, but hand sculpted full size versions of them.  I guess that’s why movies seem so much more magical to me back then.
 

Mike Trcic’s Work Today

Since his movie days, Mike has opened up his own business - Trcic Studios.  He is known as one of the top Paleo-Artists in the world and has sculpted beautiful, accurate and realistic Dinosaurs without the constraints of a director telling him how they should look in Hollywood.  Below are some of my favourite pieces from Mike’s collection:

All three photos are taken from Trcic Studio (trcicstudio.com)

If you’d like to own a piece of Mike’s work, please visit his website.  His recent work includes a lot of bronzes  that celebrates key figures in Western American History.  A lot of time, research and sculpting is invested into each piece he creates. All this is followed by a long process to create the bronze.  You can also purchase the 1/16 scale Horizon T-Rex model kit which is a direct casting of the 1/16 scale T-Rex that Mike sculpted.

I first emailed Mike back in June of this year and we’ve had a few conversations about his work.  I can tell you that Mike is a down to earth, helpful and humble artist.  It still amazes him that a movie made so many years ago has such strong and interested fan base.  For me personally, it would be an honour and dream to own a personal piece from Mike Trcic (fingers crossed).  I hope you enjoyed this article, until next time!