Written by Kerryn Caulfield, Executive Director, Composites Australia Inc.
Step inside the industrial building of Creature Technology Company’s (CTC) headquarters, and you’ll be transported to a place where prehistoric creatures come to life most impressively in movement, sound and emotional presence. With a team of digital designers, engineers and mechanics, fabricators, artisans, and other technicians and more than 6,000 sq metres of space to work in, the company has served an impressive list of multinational clients, including Universal Studios and DreamWorks.
Founded in 2006, CTC designs and builds the most advanced animatronic creatures for theme parks, exhibitions, arena spectaculars and live stage shows. While the company’s roots are firmly planted in Melbourne’s industrial precinct, the company has entertained audiences worldwide, from theme parks to the Broadway stage.
Animatronics are unique creations of creativity, interactivity, and realism, functioning as modern-day supersized puppets.
Designed with lifelike movements that evoke emotional depth, these mechanical performers are precision-engineered using mechatronics—a seamless integration of mechanical, electronic, and software engineering, along with robotics, computer science, telecommunications, systems control, automation and materials science.
These custom precision robotic machines transform into larger-than-life versions of real and imagined creatures. Brought to life through biomechanics, they use electric actuators to animate limbs, joints and even eyes, synchronised with sound and other effects to enhance realism. The mechanisms are concealed beneath rigid and flexible skins, adorned with intricate physiognomies that breathe life into the creatures, capturing their physical and emotional presence.
According to Damian Guiney, Director of Partnerships and Development at CTC, “Our animatronics aren’t just machines—they’re performers in their own right, captivating audiences with their lifelike movements and emotional depth. A key challenge in animatronics design is managing payload—the weight the mechanical structure must carry, which includes internal mechanisms and external coverings. To engineer smooth, lifelike movements, we minimise payload wherever possible while preserving structural integrity and durability. By reducing mass with lightweight composites, we can support complex systems and skins without sacrificing mobility or realism, making movements smoother and more lifelike.
With their lengthy forms, creatures like dragons and dinosaurs use centred controls that act as a fulcrum to enable balanced movement. Their skulls, positioned at one end, are often complex shapes, vacuum-infused to a thickness of 1.5 mm to reduce weight, so too foam sandwich materials for structural reinforcement. The jaws—subject to high loads—can be made with carbon fibre, providing the necessary strength without compromising agility.
CTC’s defining opportunity arrived in 2013 with a pivotal phone call from Russia to develop three giant, fully animated mascots for the Winter Olympics ceremonies: a bear, a leopard, and a hare. These animatronic creations performed in both the opening and closing ceremonies, enchanting an audience of over three billion people worldwide and cementing CTC’s reputation on the global stage.
Premiering in 2007, ‘Walking with Dinosaurs – The Arena Spectacular’ became one of the most iconic live shows in recent history, bringing prehistoric creatures to life on stage and captivating audiences worldwide. This ambitious project created 15 life-size dinosaurs that could walk, roar, and interact with their environment. This was followed in 2012 by How to Train Your Dragon Live Spectacular, a large-scale production that combined complex puppetry with state-of-the-art technology to animate dragons soaring across the stage.
The company continued to fuse engineering, creativity, and storytelling for stage shows in ‘King Kong: Alive on Broadway’, featuring an awe-inspiring, fully animated King Kong puppet that stood over six metres tall, embodying both brute strength and emotional expression.
Creature Technology Co. and Universal Creative – a subdivision of Universal Destinations and Experiences – subsequently established a strategic partnership, collaborating on immersive experiences within Universal’s theme parks. Their collaboration began with the development of “Skull Island: Reign of Kong” at Universal Orlando Resort, where CTC contributed to bringing the iconic King Kong to life. This partnership extended to Universal Studios Beijing, resulting in awardwinning attractions such as “Jurassic World Adventure” and “How to Train Your Dragon: Untrainable.” Both projects received Thea Awards in 2023 for Outstanding Achievement, highlighting the success of their joint efforts.
A recent challenge was creating Blueback, a giant, blue-coloured groper fish puppet featured in the adaptation of Tim Winton’s novella of the same name. Designed to interact with actors underwater, the puppet added a unique level of realism to the film.
The C-Tech Creature Control System, CTC’s proprietary control platform, was developed to enable seamless, lifelike movement in its creations. “Our C-Tech system makes our creatures come to life,” advises Guiney. It gives us unprecedented control over every aspect of their movement, from the mischievous twitch of an eyebrow to the powerful stride of a dinosaur. This system allows for precise manipulation of intricate facial expressions and full-body movements, ensuring fluid and realistic animations.
The company also patented a specialised fabric laminating process that replicates the wrinkled texture of dinosaur skin, providing visual authenticity to their leviathan creations.
Each project presents a fresh challenge for CTC’s team of digital designers, engineers, mechanics, fabricators, and artisans who relish every opportunity to innovate.
To bring complex animatronics to life, the company has expanded its technical horizons through collaboration with external technical expertise in composites engineering, fabrication and material science.
Victorian firms Special Patterns and JP Macquet have contributed specialised expertise in lightweighting and composite fabrication, playing key roles in reducing the weight of CTC’s giant puppets, enabling them to perform reliably with fluid and realistic movements.
Every creature, from a snarling velociraptor to the towering King Kong, is crafted to spark wonder, awe and a genuine emotional connection with audiences. With their technical wizardry and a pipeline of projects for major theme parks, stage shows and exhibitions, CTC continues to redefine the boundaries of what’s possible in animatronics. The future holds limitless potential as it brings ever more ambitious creations to life, inspiring audiences worldwide to believe in the impossible
Creature Technology Co. was established in 2006, following the success of the Walking with Dinosaurs – The Arena Spectacular project. This venture led to the formation of the company by Australian entrepreneur Gerry Ryan as a primary investor, along with Sonny Tilders serving as CEO and Design Director.
Certification Compliance Methodology Supplying theme parks and theatres globally requires navigating strict compliance regimes and adopting a risk-based approach to safety due to their interaction with the public. Operating in a highly litigious environment, these venues must comply with safety standards such as ISO 45001, which ensures that all products, including animatronics, meet rigorous safety guidelines to protect both guests and workers. Material inputs must be accompanied by evidence of mechanical and environmental testing, as well as material certification, to verify their safety and durability. Additionally, suppliers working with licensed intellectual property must ensure compliance with intellectual property laws, guaranteeing the proper and lawful use of copyrighted characters and themes.
