Doug Drexler
Doug Drexler is a visual effects artist, designer, sculptor, illustrator, scenic artist, graphic designer, and a makeup artist who has collaborated with such talents as Al Pacino, Dustin Hoffman, James Caan, Meryl Streep, and Warren Beatty.
He began his career in the entertainment industry working for makeup legend Dick Smith on such films as The Hunger and Starman. He has also contributed to Three Men and a Little Lady, The Cotton Club, FX, Manhunter and Dick Tracy (1990). Dick Tracy earned Doug an Oscar, as well as The British Academy Award and the Saturn Award for his special makeup effects on characters such as Big Boy Caprice (played by Pacino) and Mumbles (played by Hoffman). Two Emmy nominations in the same field followed for three years working on Star Trek: The Next Generation (1987–1994), where he performed such tasks as aging Captain Picard for The Inner Light. His final make-up job for the series, and perhaps his career, was the Mark Twain makeup worn by Jerry Hardin in the two part episode Time’s Arrow.
In 1992 Doug made a career change by moving over to Star Trek: Deep Space Nine (1993–1999) as designer, digital artist, and effects artist. He continued in that capacity on the subsequent Star Trek films as well as Star Trek: Voyager. In April 2001, Doug worked as senior Illustrator and CGI designer on the fifth Star Trek series, Star Trek: Enterprise (2001–2005). Following Enterprise, Doug was hired by renowned Visual Effects Supervisor Gary Hutzel as CG Supervisor on Battlestar Galactica (2004–2009), Caprica (2009–2010), Blood and Chrome (2012), and Defiance (2013–2015). Doug won two Emmy Awards and a Visual Effects Society Award for Galactica.
Doug was born in New York City. He grew up on Long Island and attended Newfield High School. As of 2015, he is also a member of the board of directors for the Hollywood Science Fiction Museum. He is married to Dorothy R. Duder.
Doug has made a habit of making uncredited cameos in various projects during his career. Most notably in the film C.H.U.D as a police officer. He has appeared in numerous Star Trek episodes including The Next Generation as well as in the final episode of Enterprise. He also appears in the final episode of Battlestar Galactica. His other on-camera appearances have been in kitschy web series and in a couple of Star Trek Fan Films. In May 2013 he played a holographic gunslinger in Pilgrim of Eternity, the first episode of the fan produced web series Star Trek Continues.
When he started his tenure as scenic artist on Deep Space Nine, Doug taught himself the Adobe Illustrator software which, aside for submitting his early USS Voyager design propositions in this format, served him well in providing the graphics for the Star Trek Chronology, Star Trek Encyclopedia, and the subsequent Star Trek: Deep Space Nine Technical Manual. Doug actually had to learn computer skills as one of his main responsibilities turned out to be creating the various okudagrams for Deep Space Nine. Completely new to the computer phenomenon, he went about it with a fervor, admitting, “Two weeks before Mike hired me, I’d never touched one. On the day he gave me the word, I went out and bought my first. Spent the next two weeks cramming on Illustrator and Photoshop.”
View his ArtStation profile and his profile page at Memory Alpha. Follow him on Facebook, Vimeo, and on RosterCon Events. See his work on IMDB. Read his posts at Startrek Blog, TrekYards, and his page at StarTrek.com.