The Artists of The Last Airbender : Dawn Brown

On Thursday, the new M. Night Shyamalan film The Last Airbender will be released and I'll be featuring a profile on the two concept artists (Warren Manser and Dawn Brown) and storyboard artist Jim Magdaleno.
Dawn Brown Manser is a set designer, conceptual artist and comic book creator. Raised in the suburbs of Kansas City, she began her career in the art department on the underwater science-fiction show seaQuest DSV. Now she's an established set designer and concept artist, and has worked on many big-budget feature films like Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen (2009) (set designer), Star Trek (2009), Watchmen (2009) and Tim Burton's Alice in Wonderland (2010).

In addition to film projects, she has created two critically acclaimed titles, "Little Red Hot" and "Ravenous."

She has a great eye for ornate work and we can expect some wild designs for The Last Airbender.

Here's a sample of her costume design for Watchmen's Dr. Manhatten from her gallery. I like how she manged to capture the glowing feel of the character.

Image property of Warner Bros. Pictures

The Artists of The Last Airbender: Warren Manser

On Thursday, the new M. Night Shyamalan film The Last Airbender will be released and I'll be featuring a profile on the two concept artists (Warren Manser and Dawn Brown) and storyboard artist Jim Magdaleno.

Warren Manser started out working for Sam Raimi on Army of Darkness, since then he has worked on great films like The Matrix, X-Men, Spider-Man, Minority Report, Serenity and is currently working on Transformers 3. "Primarily, my work has been for the film industry, but I've also had the opportunity to be involved with theme park design, video games, animation, and other industries. I'm originally from Detroit, Michigan where I studied Industrial Design at the Center for Creative Studies."

Here's what he told io9 about the difference between being a comic book versus a concept artist.
"Concept art differs from comic art and book illustration in many ways. It is extremely rare that a concept art piece is actually seen by the audience, whereas other forms of illustration display a faithful reproduction of the art piece itself.

Concept art depicts a set, scene, or object that will be built by carpenters, model makers, or digital artists, so the concept artist has to have some idea of the reality of the final product.
And, the concept art piece can be created to depict its subject in a cinematic manner. That is, in some instances a 2D piece that is illustrated, however beautifully, potentially depicts a scene that can not be shot with a camera."

This a profound statement. A concept artists job is to take a two-dimensional image and portray it in a way that allows those working on the film to see it in three-dimensions. That takes a lot of skill.

If you'd like to read more about him check out "The Art of the Matrix" and "Pearl Harbor: The Movie and the Moment." Also, check out his new book "Constellation Orion: The Immortal Hunter". It is beautiful.

I was hoping to get permission to feature some of his work on this blog, but, for now, just head over to the gallery on his website for more.

Ralph McQuarrie Made Battlestar Galactica Look Cool First

Ralph McQuarrie is one of the true legends of the conceptual art world and his work on Star Wars is inspiring. He also helped design the look of the original Battlestar Galactica television show.

"Following the opening of Star Wars I was contacted by Glen A. Larson. When I went in to talk to him he described his idea for a 'Wagon Train' in outer space. It sounded interesting so I agreed to do it. The Empire Strikes back had not started yet so I came to George and explained the job, he said go ahead. Over time as I was introduced to the characters and the similarities began to come out." This is ironic, because soon after the show went on the air, George Lucas unsuccessfully sued the show.

 

Original Battlestar Galactica design was far more detailed and not as sleek.

Early Colonial Viper design (Eventually used for buck Rogers).

Late Colonial Viper design.

[Image source: galactica.tv]

Chomp on Brilliant PAC-MAN Concept Art

While not technically movie or television concept art there was a Saturday morning cartoon of the iconic 80s arcade game Pac-Man. Tōru Iwatani (岩谷 徹), was at the Festival of Games in Holland and shared some of his original designs for the game on graph paper. Back then, the game images consisted of rather large blocks, so it was easy to do.

[Image from Bleedingcool]

Is Peter McKinstry Giving Away Doctor Who's Pandorica?

I'd call it a spoiler, but here in the States we're way behind the Brits on the science-fiction show Doctor Who. For all I know the Pandorica is the Doctor's bathrobe. Apparently, it has to do with the next episode of the show "Cold Blood."

Doctor Who's concept designer, Peter McKinstry, has posted some concept art on his website which may reveal one of Series Five's biggest mysteries. That mystery being, what is contained inside the Pandorica. - DoctorWhoTV

The monochromatic green color scheme and eerie water effects are surreal. I also like the patterns in the ceiling that mirror the patterns on the box. The worms-eye angle is powerful at conveying the power and scale of the device. He must have gotten in trouble for posting it because it's not on his site anymore.

Matthew Savage's Dalek Tank Marches On

Matthew Savage is a concept artist who's worked on a host of television and movie projects, but these beautiful paintings are from when he was a production assistant on the science-fiction show Doctor Who.I'm pretty sure from the date stamps and design that they're from "The Parting of the Ways." It looks like they ended up combining the design of the Dalek tank with elements of the Emperor Dalek to make the final design.

Dalek Tank

Emperor Dalek

Final Emperor Dalek concept design.

[Images from mattsav.co.uk and Wikipedia]

Dynamic IRON MAN Storyboards by DaMaggio

The images below are storyboards by Rodolfo Damaggio who's worked on, among other films, Star Wars II: Attack of the Clones and Fantastic Four. He's currently working on Captain America: The First Avenger and Green Lantern. I find it interesting to see the beginnings of the suitcase armor (Mark V) that we see in Iron Man 2.

The scene is from Tony Stark's attack on the rebel camp. You can see more on his website.

Captain America Concept Art

The images below are from Captain America: The First Avenger and feature Chris Evans in costume.

Costume Design by Jeffrey Kurland and Anna B. Sheppard. I'm not sure who did these, but they list James Carson and Rodolfo Damaggio as the concept artists

A couple of things I like are the almost accidental inclusion of Captain America concept elements like the red and white stripes on the tunic. and the muted colors. Most notably missing are the wings on the helmet. This is probably a good idea since they'd get blown off by weapons fire anyway. Overall, it looks good.

I find it interesting that Marvel is using computer graphics to create the "concept art" for their upcoming movies. I hope it's not a trend since I prefer hand-drawn art.

Aborted Thundercats Movie Concept Art Looks Epic

Back in 2007, the internet was abuzz with news about an upcoming Thundercats movie based on the popular 1980's cartoon show. Eventually, it was killed, but now Cartoon Network has announced they're making a new anime show from Warner Bros. and Studio 4c.

Here are some concept sketches from the aborted movie. If anyone knows the artist please let me know.

Lion-O

The world of Thunderra

The ship crashlanding on Earth

Looks like Mumm-Ra's pyramid