Alien won the Academy Award for best visual effects for its intense and gruesome alien effects as well as its amazing use of miniatures. One of the coolest spaceship designs ever put on film is the Nostromo, where most of the story takes place. But coming up with the look of the ship’s exterior was a bit of a nightmare. No one had made a movie like Alien before and finding the right design that would be both realistic and stylized would be very tricky to pull off. Perfecting the outer design of the Nostromo would take the blood, sweat, and tears of Scott, the chief concepts artists Ron Cobb and Chris Foss, and a few other characters who might surprise you. There were a gazillion designs for the Nostromo, but how and why did they go with the one that appears in the movie and how did they make it look so realistic?
