Face to face: Alan Groves dinosaur man
Alan Groves is fascinated by dinosaurs.
That fascination has given him a worldwide reputation as a sculptor, model maker and special effects artist who specialises in designing and creating dinosaur models.
Alan, 38, was born in London but is now based in Brisbane where he lives in the rainforest at Mt Glorious with his partner Sascha Joffe.
“We have a huge barn which backs onto the National Park. We live upstairs and my workshop is downstairs.”
Alan is a great example of how the Smart State is attracting extraordinary talents across a range of disciplines. In April he will be in the international spotlight when he travels to Expo 2005 at Aichi in Japan.
He has been chosen as part of a Queensland promotion at the Australian pavilion and will demonstrate his skills by sculpting clay dinosaurs over a week-long visit.
“It’s a great opportunity for me to help promote Queensland.”
As a schoolboy Alan Groves developed an early interest in fantasy drawing and sculpture.
When he left school he became a make-up artist and soon began work in the film industry. He developed a talent as a sculptor, prosthetics and special effects artist, working for various special effects studios including Jim Henson’s Creature Shop and the BBC’s Visual Effects Department.
At the BBC he worked on a number of popular shows including Red Dwarf, The Chronicles of Narnia and The Bill.
“I blew up a police car on The Bill once, which was fun.”
He also worked at Pinewood Studios on a number of big budget films, including Gladiator and Saving Private Ryan.
But fantasy and his fascination with dinosaurs were his first loves and in 1990 he set up his own company Millennium Dinosaurs.
Alan continued with film and television but by now he was designing and building models for museums in Europe, America and the Middle East.
A holiday to Australia in 1999 was the beginning of a major life change. He worked at Fox Studios in Sydney designing and building special effects for commercials and films, including Moulin Rouge and Star Wars.
His next job was at the Australian Museum where he stayed for a year and a half continuing his work in Palaeo (dinosaur) reconstruction.
“I like museum work. Your work is on display for years. In the movies it’s all gone in 10 seconds.”
Alan met Sascha in Sydney, moved to Queensland and in 2002 set up Art Dinouveau, a business that services clients from around the world.
Alan’s work has been shown in the Queensland Museum, the Australian Museum and the National Museum of Australia in Canberra.
His recent work includes a two metre long feathered dinosaur modelled on Dilong Paradoxus, discovered last year in China, and he worked closely with scientific experts in Beijing and New York during construction.
The models and images of other dinosaurs Alan has created have been chosen to illustrate a book on feathered dinosaurs to be published by National Geographic in April.
He also designed and built a feathered dinosaur exhibition featuring four models that has been displayed in museums in Brisbane, Sydney, Newcastle, Melbourne and New Zealand.
Then there’s the collection of 14 dinosaurs he was commissioned to create for the National History Museum in Goseong, South Korea. The job took five months.
Alan’s work is anything but boring. Later this year he flies to Atlanta in the US to see a client who wants him to make model dinosaurs for a restaurant chain called Fossils.
“They’re 400 seat restaurants and he’s opening 25 in the States and 125 around the world.
“That’s a lot of dinosaurs.”
Last reviewed 19 January 2006
