Weta Digital artist Gino Acevedo says he was "born a monster guy".
Gino grew up in Phoenix, Arizona, but has been in Wellington for over 20 years now.
He's curated a (sold-out) Halloween exhibition of his friends and his own monster artwork that's on in the capital right now – Things That Go Bump in the Night.
As a kid, Gino loved watching monsters on TV and also drawing them, even in class.
After high school, he showed some of his Dungeons & Dragons drawings to a local Halloween company – owned by the guy who invested vampire blood and glow-in-the-dark vampire teeth – and got a job sculpting Halloween masks.
Gino says he was happy working there until a make-up artist friend got him over to LA in his early 20s where he worked in film for 15 years.
He eventually arrived in Wellington in 1998 to work for Weta Workshop on The Lord of the Rings and later crossed over "to the dark side", i.e. the art department at Weta Digital.
Gino says it's a dream come true to have a monster art exhibition in the event space at Courteney Creative, which is owned by Weta co-founder and co-owner Jamie Selkirk.
The show includes 70 pieces of monster artwork – "all sorts of very strange stuff" – from 14 artists including Gino.
Of all the monsters he's created, Gino says one of his all-time favourites is the Uruk-hai leader Lurtz, who was played by New Zealand actor Lawrence Makoare in The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring.
New Zealand actor Lawrence Makoare as the Uruk-hai leader Lurtz Photo: YouTube screenshot
A conversation with Gino Acevedo
Weta artist Gino Acevedo chats about the special connection that brought him to New Zealand, and he reveals how his traditional make-up FX expertise translates into 3D visual fx for movies like Avatar… Audio
Behind the Scenes at Weta Digital
Comprising of a team of around 800 staff the effects house is broken into specialist areas; Models, Creatures, Textures, Motion Capture, Animation, Lighting and more. The good folk at Weta Digital… Audio
