Exclusive: The 'Amazing Spider-Man' Concept Artist Ron Mendell Says Web Was 'Challenging'

I spoke with Ron Mendell about working on the film The Amazing Spider-Man (2012) and helping to design Peter Parker's webshooters.

Director Marc Webb was adamant about getting back to the mechanical webshooters from the comic books. 

"I had a meeting with Stan Lee and we talked about the web-shooters," Webb said. "I was curious about the incarnation of them [because] of course in the previous films [they went away from them] and we wanted to reestablish ourselves. That was one thing but the other thing was the fact that the web-shooters were able to dramatize Peter's intellect and I thought that was really cool. ... It was in the comics and we have a different design but it's a cool element to have. It's not something we over-use or over-exploit. To me, it's something I remember from when I was a kid and thinking 'It would be cool if I could build those.'"

Artist Ron Mendell (Batman & Robin, Iron Man, Star Trek 2009) talked about what it was like to work on the film.

"In this movie, the creators wanted to really explain where all the cool stuff comes from this time." Mendell said. "Based on original comic pages, I worked on initial re-designs for the web shooter mechanism on Peter's wrist as well as what the web itself would look like."

He also did design and airbrush work for a swirling rainbow-like logo that is in the lobby of OSCORP. It is an organic clear acrylic wave in a donut shape. He added, "I painted it with candy clears and it looked very cool."

Of all the designs he said designing the web itself was most challenging. Mendell said. "Trying to explain how a man made synthetic would respond like a spider's web and make it look cool took a lot of passes."

Next, Ron is working on Looper, G.I. Joe 2, Oblivion, Oz: The Great and Powerful, Iron Man 3 and Hunger Games 2

See more of Ron Mendell's portfolio at http://www.ronmendell.com

What do you think of the interview? Did you learn something new?