In a workshop strewn with hands, feet and otherworldly creatures, John Cox has spent 30 years bringing inanimate objects to life like a modern-day Dr Frankenstein.

Key points: Digital effects have become so cheap and realistic they have made animatronics redundant

Digital effects have become so cheap and realistic they have made animatronics redundant Oscar-winning Gold Coast animatronics creator John Cox is about to auction some of his prized creations

Oscar-winning Gold Coast animatronics creator John Cox is about to auction some of his prized creations Animatronics are now becoming the stuff of movie theme parks and live theatre

But now his animatronic creations have been rendered obsolete by computer-generated imaging (CGI).

John Cox's Creature Workshop on the Gold Coast is an Academy Award-winning creator of animatronics.

"I am very fortunate to have gone through the golden era, which was essentially the '80s and early '90s, when animatronics was one of the strong solutions that you could use because digital was not around," Mr Cox said.

"In 2009 the GFC (global financial crisis) hit and everyone went on hiatus for three years, but digital still got better, faster, cheaper.

"By the time the GFC was over and the Americans came back here (to Australia) to start making these big budget films, animatronics wasn't part of the solution anymore."

Mr Cox said his beloved spooky Luna Ghost from the Scooby Doo movie might be hard to part with. ( ABC News: Jen Huxley )

Which has forced Mr Cox to diversify into 3D modelling and sculpting.

Now he needs to clear space in his workshop, which is bursting with life-size models of animals, cartoon characters and terrifying science-fiction figures.

"We have no place to store them so we're putting a number up for auction to find them a happy home," he said.

"We have never sold anything before and it was a hard decision to make at the time.

"Pieces like Gadget's hat and phone hand are extremely complicated pieces of work and when we made them, which was back in 2003, this sort of thing had never been done before."

An animatronic head created by John Cox for Inspector Gadget 2. ( ABC News: Jen Huxley )

Computer-generated imagery (CGI) has come a long way since Jurassic Park, one of the first films to feature computer-generated graphics sharing the screen with human actors.

Gold Coast-based Brian Vining, from the New York Film Academy, said CGI had reached the point of photo realism.

"Today with some of the effects we are seeing it is very hard to tell what is real and what is computer-generated," he said.

"3D animation and visual effects are now able to create realistic characters, realistic environments, realistic vehicles all created within the computer.

"We are even seeing in some of the big movies now they are de-aging actors, or totally replacing them with a CGI character, so you have to wonder where it will end."

Some of the many colourful characters in John Cox's Creature Workshop. ( ABC News: Jen Huxley )

While CGI has forced animatronics out of the film industry, the artform still exists on a smaller scale at theme parks and in stage productions like King Kong and Walking With Dinosaurs.

"The last huge animatronic thing we did was Peter Pan — we did a giant crocodile for it and a number of the mechanical guys that worked with us on that went to work on Walking with Dinosaurs," Mr Cox said.

"They are now working on stuff for theme parks for the Universal Corporation, so animatronics has moved from film over to theatre and theme parks and they are doing astounding work."