Adam should be writing this. That’s all there is to it. My brother has preached the gospel of Stan Winston for longer than I can remember. When I wanted to make movies in order to best Spielberg and Lucas and Cameron, Adam was driven to the dream by one man. The man who rendered animated our finest dreams and made our nightmares beautiful. He built the T-100, sculpted the ultimate interplanetary trophy hunter, machined Tony Stark’s armor, brought dinosaurs into my living room, and revolutionized creature effects before I could cuss:

and again as recent as 1999:

Winston was a hero among heroes who never failed to bring class and humor to the table while showing the world a creative spark the likes of which we have hardly ever seen. His talents brought into being a neo-cryptozoological world that is recognizable around the Earth. A teenager in Taiwan may or may not know what a Golden Retriever looks like, but show the same kid a picture of the Predator and he’ll give you a short list of the creature’s weapons, tell you what color his blood is and clue you in as to his personal favorite kills perpetrated by said creature.

The man gifted us with textures that simply were not possible before him.

I look forward to a long conversation with Adam concerning Stan Winston’s passing. I know how his heart dropped when he heard the news. He’s his John Lennon. I loved the man for what he gave me and the world is a lesser place to be without him. When I first read of his passing moments before beginning this post I started mourning him as a loved one without even realizing it. When friends and close relatives have died, one of my strongest reactions was to hurt because I would never again be able to do a certain thing that we had done together – or something they or I had promised the other. And as much as I know the fourth installments of Terminator and Jurassic Park are going to be horrible and thus (yeah, I just said ‘thus’) enrage me without end – I absolutely knew that Stan Winston would craft for me visual spectacles which would make my brain explode with the purest of geeky joy. He had promised me that… then cancer took him from me.

He was only 62. I wasn’t done with him yet. My heart’s a little emptier now. He deserves something far more poetic than what I’ve got here or even what I’ve read other places.

Stan, we loved you as a friend because you were in it for all the right reasons. Thank you for showing us magic again.