The real color of Giger Alien

Hello, in a few weeks I plan to repaint some of my models the monster of the first film
I am having a problem...I can not understand what the official color, many photos can take deception


Here it looks gray with some areas faded brown



Here seems dirt rust


That the parties did not have a symmetrical color like any other alien, the brown parts seem random

pretty sure there was more than one costume/prop. i doubt the coloring was totally consistent between them and i've never seen 2 Alien collectibles that were the exact same color either. you're just gonna have to wing it.

which models are you painting? they generally come with paint guides, i just use those.

according to thhe guy who sculpted the cinemaquette -in an interview - Giger asked cm to include the "peeling skin" (some think they are veins on the statue) but is supposed to represent the peeling sking from all the molting the colors could represent mottled alien skin so I'd think it'd be asymmetrical -- not particularly a pattern, but random areas of unevenness.

As far as I know, the alien was painted black with various shadings of grays and tans.
The "brown parts" you see in movie stills are basically areas where the paint on the suit dissolved because of the KY-Jelly they used to give the viscous effect, which makes the underlying color of the suit shows through.

remember the scene when it attempts to hug Dallas? The yellow hands..

prefused said:

which models are you painting?

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The NECA 9'' and Medicom

This was my first experiment to acrylic on NECA 9'' three years ago, I am not satisfied, the color is very self interpreted

Lar'ja Thwei said:

remember the scene when it attempts to hug Dallas? The yellow hands..

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already

However, in this backstage photos he palm does not seem so clear


Or in this photo, the black streaks in the "grating" are all different


not to mention the dome........sometimes it is as transparent as a glass, is sometimes blurred, other times it seems silver

Giger repainted the suit daily because of the damage done to it during filming and the aforementioned dissolving of the paint, so it stands to reason that the details would change from day to day.
As for the yellow palms, I'd venture it has to do with lighting and the paint being dissolved/rubbed off.
The dome was transparent, but the mix of KY-Jelly and getting fogged-up during filming makes it look silvery/milky on all shots in the film.
Basically, I think the best you can do is look at film stills and behind the scenes shots and just interpret the whole thing to make your own representation.
It would probably help to study Giger's paintings from that period to get a feel on how he worked colors and shading.

HTH.

And I'm very much looking forward to seeing your work on the Medicom alien! Your NECA repaint is beautiful!

This scene STILL scares the hell outta me!

Its color i best summed up in one word: "cockroach"

What makes it so difficult to differentiate in pictures/stills is that all the glycerin on the body is reflecting all the lights/colors of the current environment/scene its in. On top of the already difficult task of photographing dark/glossy things.