How Hollywood Was Involved in Planescape: Torment’s Box Art

Have you ever wondered who the guy was on Planescape: Torment’s cover art? Not the character, that’s obviously the Nameless One, but the guy who interpreted the iconic immortal? If you ever did you may be interested in this article on that person’s very own blog, in which Guido Henkel, producer on the title, explains what went on with that photo shoot and how a Hollywood special effects guru helped with it. Here’s a snip from it:

Well, who am I to say no? So, the next day I went to the photo shoot. The really cool part about it is that we needed a monster-like look on the cover, as the character to be portrayed was undead. The agency had hired Hollywood special effects guru Tom Burman for the job, so I went to his workshop in Burbank. It was bit surreal, to walk into his studio and seeing all the work he had done on all sorts of movies, going way back to the original (Planet of the Apes) movies.

The next few hours were a completely new experience for me. Tom applied prosthetic make-up to my face a process that took about two hours if memory serves me right. Applying layers and strip of latex to my face he slowly transformed me into a demonic-looking creature. Then, to top it off, he hand-painted the entire make-up to give it a realistic look that would hold up under the glaring light of a camera.

The photographer then took a series of shots of my face, trying to capture what we needed for the cover layout and about 45 minutes later it was time to take it all off again.