Guardians Of The Galaxy 3's Humanimals Required A Truly Massive Team Of Artists

Partway through James Gunn's sci-fi adventure film "Guardians of the Galaxy, Vol. 3," the titular Guardians arrive on a planet called Counter-Earth. This is a planet that was artificially constructed by a powerful, villainous scientist named the High Evolutionary (Chukwudi Iwuji) who built it as a massive sociological/biological experiment. The High Evolutionary was very fond of planet Earth, but detested the planet's propensity for crime, war, and discord. In order to improve on it — and perhaps taking inspiration from Dr. Moreau — he built a world that was populated entirely by hyper-evolved, humanoid Earth animals, and built entire city centers and suburbs for them to live in. There were humanoid bats, goats, pandas, slow lorises, bears, etc. The Guardians were hosted by a kindly family of bat people before driving into the city and witnessing drug dealing and muggings at the hands of several fretful porcupines. 

The animal people, or Humanimals as they're called in Marvel comics, were largely all played by human actors in elaborate makeup. For some, the makeup is exceedingly complicated. A quick glance reveals that dozens of Humanimal makeup designs were required, and dozens of extras spent a lot of time in the makeup chair.

According to a May 2023 article on Popsugar, no less than 30 actors were required to be in makeup at a time. This required the hard work of at least 75 makeup artists working simultaneously. Popsugar spoke with Emmy-winning makeup artist and makeup department head Alexei Dmitriew ("Star Trek: Picard") about the Humanimals days, and how massive a production it was for him as well as lead hairstylist, Cassie Russek, and their respective teams.

Alexei Dmitirew said of the 30-Humanimals-at-once days that:

"Those were big days. [...] Each one of them had such a different approach and system to putting it together. [...] They all had teeth, gloves, and some wore contact lenses."

Dmitriew pointed out that one of the more creative details of the Humanimals' masks was their eyes. The rubbery/silicone facial prostheses were applied to the actors' faces, and the hair would be applied, but the eyes would be left off. This is for the animals, of course, that couldn't get away with wearing contact lenses (like the bat characters), or those who could simply look out with their own eyes (some of the bears seem to have human eyeballs). The eyes would be constructed with a 3D printer and then locked onto the already-applied facial pieces. The solution of making eyes stick was ingenious. Dmitriew said that "the eyes were then put on after makeup was done, and they would lock in with magnets." Lightweight and elegant. 

Dmitirew also noted that several of the characters wore wigs. It seems that none of the human-like hairdos that the Humanimals sported were the actors' actual hair. The wigs, Dmitirew said, were designed with the schematics of the facial makeup in mind, assuring that none of his hard work would be obscured. 

While the 30-odd Humanimals were a massive project, both Dmitirew and Russek were already in fighting shape. Thanks to the recently completed "The Guardians of the Galaxy Holiday Special," an hour-long TV episode released on Disney+, a lot of the "assembly line" had more or less been put together. Both artists knew how to work on dozens, if not hundreds, of extras. The only issue? Now they had to reinvent the wheel.

The pair elucidated on their transition from the "Holiday Special" to "Vol. 3" in a separate May 2023 interview with Movieweb. The film was a huge change of pace for them, and they had to invent brand new aliens, all new colors, and so, so many Humanimals. Alexei Dmitirew said: 

"What was really cool about that is when we got to the Humanimals, it was later on in our shoot, and we had already shot the holiday special at the same time. [...] We'd been shooting for maybe seven months, I think, then that came along, and it was like we were starting a whole new movie because it was so different. We'd been doing all these aliens the whole time. Then we got to them, and it was like a new color palette, new prosthetics, new people, and it was on a new location as well. All of those characters were so unique."

Dmitirew recalled one Humanimal in particular that he was proud of. One of Counter-Earth's postal workers was a humanoid blue jay played by Michelle Civile (Star-Crossed Woman from "The Suicide Squad"). Dmitriew recalls constructing a very elaborate in-mask system of moving parts that would allow Civile to manipulate her beak. He said: 

"We taped this cup to her chin, and as she opened her mouth, the beak would open on a set of pulleys [...] Then we put the prosthetics all around it so she can control the beak and everything. We also had about 80 pairs of gloves, so all these animal gloves could be used. It was cool and made everything look fresh." 

The Humanimals are so visually impressive, it's only disappointing that audiences didn't get to see them more.