Concept drawing for the skeleton fight scene in Jason and the Argonauts, Ray Harryhausen 1963. Courtesy of the Ray and Diana Harryhausen Foundation

Mention the name Ray Harryhausen to anyone with a fondness for movie creatures and animation and they will more than likely tell you he is the ‘godfather of special effects’.

It’s a reputation earned from a long and remarkable career in movies, in particular his stop-motion animated monster features such as The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms and Jason and the Argonauts. Now the stuff of movie legend, these classic films have cemented Harryhausen’s reputation and made him widely admired by filmmakers and audiences alike.

Myths and Visions – The Art of Ray Harryhausen runs at the National Museum of Photography Film and Television until September 24 2006 and explores this remarkable career and reputation with the most comprehensive exhibition of his work for almost 20 years.

Concept drawing for One Million Years BC, Ray Harryhausen 1966. Courtesy of the Ray and Diana Harryhausen Foundation

The exhibition focuses on the imagination and research that went into conceiving the fantastic creatures that populate Harryhausen’s films, but also looks at some of the sources of his inspiration.

The latter includes the more obvious sources – such as King Kong creator Willis O’Brien and the Hollywood art directors of the 1930s and 1940s, such as Byron Crabbe and Mario Larrinaga, his mentor.

But less obvious cues come from the prehistoric animal paintings of Charles R Knight and the work of 18th and 19th century artists such as Gandy and Doré, whose subjects were drawn from the Bible and the Classical world.

Character sketch for the Kraken, the sea monster in Clash of the Titans, Ray Harryhausen, 1981. Courtesy of the Ray and Diana Harryhausen Foundation

Drawing was key to Harryhausen’s work and a majority of his films came into being after he had meticulously drawn key scenes and characters in order to interest a studio in backing the project. Only then would the scripts be written and Harryhausen begin to design, sculpt and make the animated models.

Throughout this process he would develop his ideas by making technical drawings of his models and by producing storyboards that showed shot-by-shot how scenes in the film would look on screen.

Many of Harryhausen’s drawings, tracing his career from his early fairytale films, are included in the exhibition - from the ‘monster’ movies of the 1950s and 1960s to his large-scale features based on the Arabian Nights and Greek and Roman myths.

It also includes many key models, such as the Kraken and Medusa (from Clash of the Titans) Gwangi (from Valley of Gwangi) and the Minaton (from Sinbad and the Eye of the Tiger) as well as Harryhausen’s bronze sculptures based on his original animated models.