One of the great pioneers of movie magic, Stan Winston passed away on Sunday, June 15 at the age of 62. He originally moved to Hollywood with aspirations to become an actor, but instead began a makeup apprenticeship at Walt Disney Studios. A few years later he founded Stan Winston Studios and started to collect Emmy Awards for his work in makeup special effects.

His career took another leap forward when he was nominated for an Academy Award for his work on Andy Kaufman's "Heartbeeps". Then in 1984 he won an Oscar for his work with James Cameron to create the now infamous endoskeleton for "The Terminator", which was soon followed by another Oscar for "Aliens". He later won two Oscars (Best Visual Effects and Best Makeup Effects) for "Terminator 2: Judgement Day". In fact, Winston and James Cameron collaborated so much that they co-founded Digital Domain, which is now one of the world's foremost digital effects houses.

All told, Stan Winston was nominated for ten Academy Awards, of which he won four. He also worked on 32 major motion pictures (including this year's blockbuster "Iron Man"), and has another five films still in production. Along the way he founded four companies for various aspects of movie magic: Stan Winston Studio, Stan Winston Digital, Stan Winston Creatures, and Stan Winston Productions! (www.stanwinston.com)

Closer to home here at ZBC, many of you no doubt remember reading how Aaron Sims got his start in part under Stan Winston. In fact, it was Stan's achievements in "Jurassic Park" that inspired Aaron to become a digital artist!

We at ZBrushCentral and Pixologic are going to greatly miss Stan Winston. Although the man himself may now be gone, his legacy is going to continue for a very long time to come!