There's a highly technical interview with Scott Patton, one of the concept artists and character artists on the James Cameron science-fiction film Avatar. He's also worked on Alice in Wonderland (post-production/concept artist) and Iron Man 2 (post-production/concept designer) besides a slew of other work with make-up and effects.

He talks a lot about the 3D modeling software ZDraw he used to design and even has some tips for up-and-coming artists.

"I always tell young artists that when they are doing a job they need to 'under promise and over deliver'"

Check out some of his renderings and the interview here: arttalk.ru/articles/content/interview-with-concept-artist-avatar-scott-patton-eng

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Tim Flattery has a large body of work going back to amazing future vehicles for Back to the Future 2, but what caught my eye were the costume designs for the comic-book movies Fantastic Four and Spider-Man 2.

The representation of fire in the above image is stunningly simple. I'm not sure is he did the costume design, but it looks more faithful to the comics than the final version.

This is an interesting intrepretation of what Dr. Doom could have looked like if he had continued to transform.

The use of reflective surfaces in the above concept art is impressive. Plus, he looks a looks more impressive with clothes on. 'Nuff said.

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Last year concept art from the Green Lantern movie coming out next year were leaked. No idea who the artist is, but IMDB lists Rodolfo Damaggio, James Lima, Seth Engstrom, Henrik Tamm, E.J. Krisor and Tim Flattery.

Kilowog


Abin Sur and Tomar-Re
[Image Source: cosmicbooknews.com thegreenlanterncorps.com] more »

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

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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. more »

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] more »

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]

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