He is one of Hollywood’s most decorated figures, a makeup and special effects icon whose groundbreaking work can be seen in movies as diverse as An American Werewolf in London and the 1996 remake of The Nutty Professor. Now Hollywood’s pre-eminent monster-maker, Rick Baker, says he is planning his retirement at the age of 64, citing the industry’s increasing demand for “cheap and fast” CGI.

In an interview with California public radio station KPCC, Baker said he would consider consulting and design work, but had decided not to “have a huge working studio any more” after selling his creature shop in Glendale, California and laying off his staff last year. He said his work on recent fantasy Maleficent, starring Angelina Jolie, which was CGI-heavy, could have been done “in a garage” and suggested studios are increasingly looking to use technology to replace handcrafted work.

“I said the time is right, I am 64 years old, and the business is crazy right now. I like to do things right, and they wanted cheap and fast,” said Baker. “That is not what I want to do, so I just decided it is basically time to get out.

“First of all, the CG stuff definitely took away the animatronics part of what I do,” he added. “It’s also starting to take away the makeup part.”

Baker won makeup Oscars for An American Werewolf in London, Harry and the Hendersons, Ed Wood, The Nutty Professor, Men in Black, How the Grinch Stole Christmas and The Wolfman, and was nominated a further five times. He also worked on Gremlins 2: The New Batch and the two Men in Black sequels.

One of Baker’s best-known projects is for the Michael Jackson video Thriller, for which he was hired after the singer saw his work on the now classic, 80s John Landis comedy-horror, An American Werewolf in London. “I said I’d rather not turn him into a werewolf. I think it’d be cooler if we turned him into some kind of cat, feline kind of thing,” said the special-effects artist. “I wanted to put a whole bunch of monsters in it, but that turned into being a whole bunch of zombies and doing the dance.”

He added: “Seeing the Thriller dance live for the first time, it was amazing. Landis said: ‘You’re going to be known more for this than anything you do.’ And I just said: ‘No, you’re crazy!’ But when people say: ‘Oh, what do you do for a living?’ ‘I’m a makeup artist.’ ‘Have you done anything that I’ve seen?’ ... I know that if I say ‘Thriller’, they’ve seen it.”

Baker has also appeared in front of the cameras on a handful of occasions, notably in Men in Black III (as an agent who helps aliens with their disguises) and as the giant simian King Kong in the 1976 remake starring Jessica Lange and Jeff Bridges. “I was 25 years old and I actually played King Kong,” he told KPCC. “I built the suit and played King Kong because they couldn’t find anyone else stupid enough to wear the suit.”

The effects guru is selling off more than 400 of his pieces on 29 May via the Prop Store website. Baker’s imminent retirement ironically comes just as practical effects could be set for a minor revival caused by the December release of JJ Abrams’ Star Wars: The Force Awakens. Reports from the set of the Disney space opera, which is expected to be 2015’s biggest movie, suggest Abrams will make extensive use of animatronics and puppetry alongside CGI.

