The Blob's shiny surface created a real headache for optical matting. Because the Blob's slimy surface was reflective, front-projection blue-screen set-ups were much more effective for pulling mattes off the Blob. "Everything had to be composited in optical in order to ensure the Blob's actions coincided with what was happening in the background and foreground of each shot," explains Yeatman. Since many shots mixed frame rates, the crew employed a density control device to maintain control of the variable frame-rates. A shroud of Aquapull, a fabric that becomes transparent when wet, was draped over the rig. The painted Aquapull hung over a nylon base with urethane tints and painted veins. Over that went the bulky "Blob Jacket," a back-zipped vest made up of Blob quilt that fit over the whole structure. "We also used a couple of strips about three inches by nine inches long whose sides were heavily quilted while the center was clear silk with small little pockets sewn into it," explains Gardner. "These moving pieces were streaked with blue while the pieces underneath were streaked with red." When the two fabrics crossed, the Blob color-shifted purple. The slime in the quilt pockets was dyed varying colors to convey a sense of depth: a transparent halo around Leitch's face that radiates out into a deeper crimson. The sequence called for three visible stages of mechanical effects. First, a miniature of Donovan Leitch for the establishing shot of the football player. Then, another miniature of Leitch, with his face distended, holding onto a miniature of Shawnee Smith. The third was the only full-sized close-up in the sequence: Leitch's melting face with rolling eyes and a distended mouth best glimpsed in behind the scenes photos from Garnder, Zar, and Bill Sturgeon's Alterian Studios. To get the effect of Leitch's face collapsing in, Gardner approached Image Masters, who scanned the actor from the collarbone up and fed the information into a computer that used the data to produce a six-inch wax bust. This was then placed into the Blob to imply a partially-consumed Paul. For the effect of Smith pulling Leitch's undigested arm off, the crew made use of an over-the-shoulder "Blob sled," which consisted of an arm rig with a quick-release mechanism fitted with a fake appendage. Smith would fight against a crew member with a pistol grip release, providing resistance with the sled. "Then all the tendons would stream out, and she'd go flying!" Gardner recalls. "The take they used was the one where the operator got a little trigger happy and let go before she was expecting it, so her look of surprise was really genuine." Shot at the end of the schedule, the sequence came together very quickly. Like, "in less than a week" quickly. While Conway's original approach to the scene centered on mechanical miniatures, Gardner "felt puppets were a really good idea in that they would give us a lot more control and permit us to shoot with a wider angle I also felt we needed Donovan himself to sell the effect." As Gardner details, the sequence begins as a full-sized live-action effect. And over the course of the scene, there are cuts back and forth between the puppets, miniatures, and the actors. the sequences required the construction of two elaborate rigs: one full-scale rig that would house Leitch, and another smaller rig that would contain Leitch's mini-counterpart. Both featured a sliding, pivoting Blob-platform that came through the floor. They also included a separate fiberglass piece covered in vinyl bladders, and Blob quilts nicknamed "The Waterfall," which stretched from Leitch's head to the window behind him. The platform Leitch sat on rolled back into a cavity inside the Waterfall. These components give the impression of the Blob moving in two different directions at the same time: sliding over its victim while moving up the wall and out the window. "Donovan spent a day in this horrible rig," Gardner recalls. "He sat on a small seat mounted on a rolling platform, leaning forward. His body was encased in a translucent pink fiberglass shell, except where his head stuck out past the neck and an area where his right hand was exposed." When the Blob pulls taut over Paul's face, that's really Leitch under there. Reportedly, it felt like being suffocated. Vinyl bladders that worked off air compressors sat directly on top of the fiberglass shell, simulating bulging surface movement. Finer "subdermal" surface movement was accomplished with layered nylon tricot fabrics pulled from different directions at different speeds.

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