Gino Acevedo is a special effects and creature art director whose career spans more than three decades in both practical and digital effects. He began at eighteen designing masks for a Halloween effects company in Phoenix, Arizona, before moving into the Los Angeles film industry, where his early credits included Alien 3, Death Becomes Her, Wolf, Men in Black, Independence Day, and Godzilla. In 1998, Weta Workshop founder Richard Taylor invited him to join the team working on Peter Jackson’s The Lord of the Rings trilogy, prompting a permanent move to New Zealand. As Makeup and Creature Effects Art Director, Acevedo supervised the colour design and practical effects of the trilogy’s creatures, including its physical Gollum puppet.
His skill at making the puppet’s silicone skin appear believable led Weta Digital to bring him into digital production as a texture painter, eventually making him the art director bridging Weta Workshop and Weta Digital’s creature work. He went on to serve as Creative Art Director on Avatar, overseeing more than fifty texture artists, and has since contributed to King Kong, The Hobbit trilogy, Game of Thrones, Stranger Things, and The Last of Us. He continues to lead the art department at Wētā FX.
