Miniature model maker Fon Davis has worked on over thirty feature films across a two decade career. He’s an alumnus of the Industrial Light and Magic Model Shop and Disney, having produced concept art and made models for Starship Troopers, Galaxy Quest, The Nightmare Before Christmas and Coraline. Recently, he’s worked on Interstellar, Guardians of the Galaxy and Neill Blomkamp’s Elysium.

Fon founded his own design and fabrication studio, Fonco Creative, in 1997 in San Francisco, and after setting up shop in the premises of Vanaheim Studios in Los Angeles, he bought the whole 16,000 square foot facility out at the end of first quarter 2017, renaming it Fonco Studios.

Join us for a fantastic chat about the importance of a portfolio in the special effects industry (and why Fon didn’t wind up needing one when he interviewed at ILM), the possibilities of virtual reality in entertainment, how special effects folks insert themselves into the movies they work on and the questions from the show’s Patreon backers!

Thanks again to my guest for episode 86, Lauren Matesic of Castle Corsetry, for getting Fon on the show, and thanks to Patreon backer Matt Dawson for your questions for Fon!

Fon Davis, Fonco Creative and Fonco Studios

Fon Davis on Facebook

Fon Davis on Instagram

Fon Davis on Twitter

Fonco Studios / Fonco Creative

Fonco Creative on Facebook

Fonco Studios on Facebook

Movies

Coraline

Galaxy Quest (Wikipedia)

James and the Giant Peach (Wikipedia)

The Nightmare Before Christmas (Wikipedia)

Starship Troopers (Wikipedia)

Fon’s Projects and Loves

Kaiju movies (Wikipedia)

MORAV

Movie and Effects Companies

Colossal Pictures (Wikipedia)

• Henry Selick (Wikipedia)

Disney

Industrial Light and Magic

• Mark Anderson (IMDb)

Lucasfilm

Stan Winston School of Character Arts

Tippett Studio (Wikipedia)

Television

BattleBots

Other Projects

Hyper-Reality

MegaBots