CG Monsters/Vampires ect.

I am interested in creating monsters maybe vampires with final cut pro. I could take an actors face and morph it in something or completly creating something from scratch. I know people in small indie flicks are creating these monsters and they look pretty good in quick cut scenes. I don't even know where to start so a point in the right direction would be great thanks.

Do you have vision of the actor and vision of the actor as a vampire? If so, you could just do a simple transition from one to the other, depending on the style of your project.

If you wanted to, you could get a nice morphing plug-in from someone like CHV [www.chv-plugins.com] and do a lot more work but get a much more impressive result.

If you don't have vision of the actor as a vampire, but want to create one, you could always take a freeze of the actors face into photoshop and build a nice set of fangs in photoshop. Reimport this and morph from actors face to actors -face-with-fangs. This will only be a freeze frame though, unless you are the kind of masochist who is happy to sit animating frames in photoshop. (guilty)

After this there are a bunch of options that require a lot more money, time and expertise.

With the use of the liquifying tool in After Effects 6+ you can create some very interesting distortions of someones face (Forehead horns, fangs etc) and animate it over time. It is better than morphs. The clone stamp tool is also keyframe able over time.
-Easier that doing frame by fram in photoshop for sure.

After Effects 6.5 Pro / Effect / Distort / Mesh Warp

Controllable / keyframable bezier mesh points. Quick & dirty (& effective).

- Joey