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Auction Name: 2025 September 26 The Guillermo del Toro Collection: Bleak House Part 1 Hollywood/Entertainment Signature® Auction
Lot Number: 89086
Shortcut to Lot: HA.com/7425*89086
The Shape of Water (Fox Searchlight, 2017), Full-body Conceptual Clay Maquette for Amphibian Man. Months of development went into the design of Amphibian Man, the sapient humanoid amphibian held captive in a secret government facility in Guillermo del Toro's masterpiece that received 13 nominations at the 90th Academy Awards and won in four categories: Best Production Design, Best Original Score, Best Director, and Best Picture. This full-figure maquette is the next-to-final design for Amphibian Man that was chosen by Guillermo del Toro. Sculpted in clay by artists Dave Grasso and David Meng, this maquette was 3D scanned, along with another maquette, by acclaimed visual effects studio Legacy Effects, which combined the best features of each maquette to ultimately create Amphibian Man's creature suit worn by Doug Jones. Many of the 3D scanning tracking point "dots" are still affixed to the clay, while others have since fallen off. This beautiful, highly detailed sculpture offers a fascinating behind-the-scenes look at the art of movie making. The figure stands 22" tall mounted on its original 18" diameter production base with handwritten notation, "Concept / Dave Grasso / Dave Meng". Exhibits light wear from production. Clay is still malleable and must be handled with special care. Comes with a COA from Heritage Auctions.
"A concept maquette is rare to find. And this one was part of the main series of concepts done years and years before the film was greenlit. I paid for Dave Meng and Dave Grasso to do a series of concepts that would then be refined over and over and over again by them, then Legacy FX, and finally, the great Mike Hill. The key was to make the creature beautiful and otherworldly. This rarity provides a glimpse into the true process of design. 2D art will never allow the scrutiny needed for a final complex suit and make-up as we needed in The Shape of Water." From the personal collection of Guillermo del Toro.
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