Production illustrator Mentor Huebner made concept art for the Dog-Thing sequence and Mike Ploog sketched some ideas into a storyboard.
Mentor Huebner's concept:
Mike Ploog's concepts:
Mike Ploog's storyboards:
Stan Winston had two of his guys–Lance Anderson and Jim Kagel–make some new sketches that were combined into what we see in the movie (Cinefantastique 55). Kagel sculpted the new design in clay.
Sculpted Dog-Thing.
The basic concept was designed by Winston, but the actual puppet was constructed by Lance Anderson and Michiko Tagawa (Cinefantastique 55).
Tagawa & Anderson working.
They used this pipe as a brace, because the head and neck were literally a hand puppet and the brace would keep it upright while they worked on it (Cinefantastique 55).
Here we can see Bottin and an assistant doing touch-ups on the puppet between takes during the two days they filmed this effect (Cinefantastique 55).
Bottin also made a fake husky in the position that would begin the transfromation.
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