See Super-Sexy Bat-Girl Costume That Was Never in 'Batman and Robin'

The Bat-Girl costume in Batman and Robin was pretty lame. Clunky and chunky, but had a certain charm. If they'd gone with Miles Teves' designs it could have rivaled Catwoman from Batman Returns. Teves has an amazing set of credits having worked on Indiana Jones 4, Iron Man, Men in Black and many more.

The guy is pretty out-spoken, so I'll just leave him to describe his illustrations using quotes from his website.

This is a glossy rendering that owes a debt to early good-girl illustrators like [Alberto] Varga.

I knew as I drew this that it could never work on Alicia Silverstone. Though she was sweet and adorable, she was also not 9 feet tall, and had rather more realistic proportions.

Bob Ringwood, the costume designer, always asked me to draw my figures to be about 9 heads tall like they do in the fashion world. He didn't seem to mind that what would work as a concept on someone with those impossible proportions, would not work on a [person]with real-world human measurements. However, it did make for more heroic and 'sexy' drawings that could sell a design to a fussy director or nervous studio head.

I regret that my idea of the cut-out Bat symbol window on the chest, showing a little skin and cleavage, didn't survive into the final suit. I thought it was kind of clever, and added just the right amount of wholesome flirtiness to the character.

I called this one 'BatGirl-Rear End' as a spoof on the absurdly overrated 'Batman: Dead End' short that made such a stink on the Internet a few years ago. Though it was drawn in 1996. This one always stops people when they are thumbing through my portfolio. Nothing like a tight girl's rear end in glossy black PVC to stop a viewer cold. Even if she is 9 feet tall. 

An alternate Batgirl design that is truer to what made it to the screen.

This is a strange blue version I was asked to do. I think they used this as the final design, only fortunately they made it black.

I had nothing to do with the suits that had the chrome additions to them. That was pure queerness incarnate.

Here's what the final costume looked like.

You gotta see his designs for other characters in Batman and Robin including a spiky version of the Uma Thurman's Poison Ivy costumes at his site http://www.milesteves.com/gallery/v/ILLUSTRATION/batman+and+robin/

What do you think? Should they have added some Bat-Girl sexiness to the film? 

What Would House M.D. Be Like As a Video Game? Christian Lorenz Scheurer Shows Us

Update: Added episode summary

If you're like me, you've often wondered what the medical drama House M.D. would be like as a video game. In season 6, we got our wish. In "Epic Fail", a patient starts having horrific visions  of the hospital as a video game and Christian Lorenz Scheurer designed the look of the hospital and doctors in his hallucinations.

Episode Synopsis: House leaves the hospital and tells Cuddy that he's making major changes in his life. At the hospital, Foreman wants House's job but is having trouble with a case involving a video-game designer who posts his symptoms on the Internet, and takes treatment suggestions offered by online correspondents over those offered by the team. This development upsets Foreman and threatens his relationship with Thirteen. Dr. Darryl Nolan: Andre Braugher. Original Air Date: Sep 28, 2009

Watch the end result below:

Image source: christianlorenzscheurer.com
Video from Encore Hollywood

2009© FOX and its related entities. All rights reserved

One More Fake Rejected Godzilla Concept Art Image?

Is this Godzilla concept art rejected by the studio Legendary Pictures?

According to Comic Book Movie which broke the image.

Like I said these were posted almost a year ago in the magazine, but outside of a few Godzilla fan communities this didn't seem to get picked up by most sites. I think it is certainly worth a peek. As you can see the first version is much more like the original design of Godzilla, while the other one has more of a T-Rex like look to it. It Reminds me of the Roland Emmerich version.

Everyone says G-Fan Magazine swears to it's authenticity, but I haven't read the article myself. Several say it's the "latest issue", which would be the fall 2011 issue (#97). But, it doesn't have any article titles even close to this. Unless its the article "King Kong vs. Frankenstein Part 2".

Comic Book Movie says it's in the February issue and the magazine is published quarterly. So, I'm assuming that's issue #94 in the article called "Godzilla still in Legendary limbo?"
What I find most interesting is the font is pretty generic and doesn't look like magazine font at all. In fact, at least one copy of the image is in landscape while the others are portrait. Smells like MS Paint to me.

Just like all the others, it may be fan art. Still cool. I like the different sized spines he has.

No word on the artist(s). You can read more about Legendary Pictures at http://www.legendary.com/.

Via Shock Till You Drop

UPDATED: Whacked Out Russian 'Arena' Concept Art

Update: The producers confirmed the artist is Anton Kokorin
The Russian site Film.ru posted some crazy, crazy concept art for a Russian film called Arena (Арена) by Janik Faiziev (also known as Dzhanik Fayziev).  Even if you don't understand Russian, this looks like an epic science-fiction film.

The list of bizarre things in these illustrations could take up a phone book, but two things come to mind. One, the guy is running around on an alien planet barefoot. Two, the guy's arm gets stripped to the bone and he's still alive.

I don't understand a word of Russian. Thanks to the magic of Google Translate, however, I can get a close approximation of what the site is talking about.

Synopsis:

And mankind, and the aliens - an equal chance to become Supercivilizations, if not the war they waged with each other. The main battle - will completely destroy one and plunge to the very origins of the others. Will the "higher reason" decides to fight the battle of the two soldiers. The possibility of physical superiority, and randomness. How will the man who turned out in an atmosphere that simply can not be? War, thousands of soldiers - far away, in another reality. And here - only you - naked and helpless. And your enemy - I would like to believe that in the same position. Man is very tenacious - and to win we must reject it. Make yourself a moment to sink into the abyss, from which, perhaps, has not come back. But if after - you can open your eyes - then surely you can and win.

Doesn't make sense to me either. It seems to be an alien war between a man and some kind of higher powers.

So, here's how the site describes the project:

Janik Faiziev with the producer center "Ivan" prepared to work on a fantastic project , "Arena". On Youtube-channel production center "Ivan", responsible for the creation Novels of Paul Sanaeva "The Game" , was found a curious video. Producer and director Janik Faiziev talks about the concept of a fantastic project , "Arena" , which we expect and spaceships that are based on current available technology earthlings, and the match between the different galactic races, which will decide the outcome of the battle.
The story is accompanied by a demonstration of numerous concept art, illustrating the idea of the director, "Turetsky Gambit" . In general, it seems pretty interesting. In the presentation of ideas a lot of time to detail and visuals, while not lacking motivation of characters, a coherent narrative structure. In fact, it all comes down to the story of the duel, and the temptation, but the proposed visual range is very curious and worth it to give this video 12 minutes of your attention.
Update: The producers asked us to remove the video, apparently, intended more for potential co-investors of the project, than for the general public. But to sweeten the pill, to the public given nine concept art, from those that flashed in the video. They are, in principle, and illustrate most of the described Janik Fayzieva scenes.

Pretty trippy hunh? Oh, those wacky Russians. Read more about the film at Official Website
Via Quiet Earth

Great Scott! Storyboards of Marty And Doc's First DeLorean Test From 'Back to the Future'!

One of the most pivotal scenes in Back to the Future (1985) was the first test of the DeLorean using Doc Brown's (Christopher Lloyd) pet dog Einstein. Andrew Probert () did storyboards for the film and posted the scene on his site.

Directed by Robert Zemeckis, the scene has some great visuals, from the license plate spinning in the street to Marty McFly's (Michael J. Fox) hair being blown back by the re-entry. Plus, there's a nice description of what the script calls the "Time-Slice."

I love Doc Brown's hair in these images. I don't know if it was before or after he was cast, but it's great. Probert describes the storyboards this way.

This is the sequence where Doc Brown runs his final test on the DeLorian [sic] Time Machine.

 

Amazingly cool stuff. Here's the original scene for a comparison.

Feast on these and other cool storyboards and concept art at Andrew Probert's site http://probertdesigns.com/.

Review: 'Captain America: The First Avenger (2011)' Blu-Ray Review

Captain America: The First Avenger has no concept art gallery. I was going to drop my rating because of it, but then I watched the gorgeous featurettes and stopped complaining.


Product Details

• Actors: Chris Evans, Hugo Weaving, Samuel L. Jackson, Hayley Atwell, Sebastian Stan
• Directors: Joe Johnston
• Writers: Christopher Markus, Jack Kirby, Joe Simon, Stephen McFeely
• Producers: Alan Fine, Amir Madani, Dan Masciarelli
• Format: AC-3, Color, Dolby, DTS Surround Sound, Dubbed, Subtitled, Widescreen
• Language: English, Spanish
• Subtitles: English, French, Portuguese, Spanish
• Region: Region A/1 (Read more about DVD/Blu-ray formats.)
• Aspect Ratio: 1.85:1
• Number of discs: 2
• Rated: PG-13 (Parental Guidance Suggested)
• Studio: Paramount Studios
• DVD Release Date: October 25, 2011
• Run Time: 124 minutes

Special Features

• Includes Digital Copy
• Deleted Scenes
• Behind-The-Scenes Featurettes
• Marvel One Shot: A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to Thor’s Hammer -- Go deeper inside the Marvel Universe and unveil secret plans to assemble the ultimate superhero team, the Avengers. 
• And more!

Here are some of the featurettes I found interesting along, with some admittedly poor screen caps from the disk. I just couldn't resist putting some of these on the site.

Featurette Review
Designing the Costume
The director and producer talk about the challenge of designing a faithful comic book costume while making out realistic. Some concept art with interviews with lead concept artist Ryan Meinerding and some brief, but beautiful pan and scans of the illustrations.

Heightened Technology 
The producers and actors talk about the desire to bring advanced technology to WWII without looking out-of-place. We get a few shots of concept art on boards during production and some beautiful images of Daniel Simons' vehicle designs. He's the star of the featurette since he talks extensively about his design principles.

The Transformation 
A great explanation of how the creators got Chris Evans to look skinny and why they did it the way they did. There are only two illustrations, but the focus is on the technology.

Behind the Skull 
This feature talks about how they brought the character of the Red Skull to life. Artists Ryan Meinerding and Charlie Wen take about the challenge of balancing the anatomical effect of a man with his face burned off while maintaining the classic image of the comic book character. Here are some really nice illustrations in this video. The best on the disk really.

Overall, it's a really good set of disks. The concept art for the Marvel films are some of the best in the business and, besides the lack of a gallery, it's still a good disk to own.




Charlie Wen's website is http://charliewen.typepad.com/ and Ryan Meinerding's is http://boyrobot.com/. Both guy's are pretty busy, so Wen's site hasn't been updated since 2010 and Meinerding's blog domain has lapsed. Just go to Marvel.com to see their stuff.