|
I haven't seen a concept art thread on this forum, and that's a shame, so I thought I'd give one a shot. What is concept art? Concept art is an aspect of film preproduction which is used in visual development. A lot of times this is done in the form of 2D art such as painting and drawing, though sometimes sculpture is used. My understanding is that often it's done digitally these days, so that artists can work faster. Concept art allows art departments to design sets, characters, creatures, costumes, art style - basically everything to do with the visual development of a film. I have to admit, I haven't researched this topic in much depth, so a lot of what I have to say about it is based on my observations, but I've observed quite a bit! A lot of art is created when developing the look of a film, and you can often see different stages of designs and rejected designs. Visual development begins early in the film production process, and even during the writing process for some movies, so not only can you see the visual development of familiar elements from a movie, you can sometimes see rejected ideas and characters which didn't make it into the finished film. I definitely want to get into that last idea in the art I include in this post. Concept art is often really cool art on its own terms, so it's enjoyable to look at for that purpose as well. Sometimes moreso than the movies they were created for. The concept art I'm most familiar with is for fantasy, science fiction, and animated films, but it exists for other genres of films as well. How important is concept art? It is super duper important. Maybe it shouldn't surprise me as much as it does, but it's always striking to look at the concept art of a film and realize you're essentially looking at the movie. Concept art heavily influences the finished look of a film, and it even influences things such as cinematography, to various degrees of success. The concept art for the original 1933 King Kong features several compositions which were recreated in the final film. What is previsualization? Okay I'm not as familiar with this, but I think previsualization (or pre-viz) refers specifically to things such as storyboards which allow filmmakers to map out shots in a movie in advance. Those belong in this thread too. Alfred Hitchcock films have notably detailed storyboards, and one interesting form of storyboarding an action sequence on the cheap that I've seen came from the behind the scenes features for Desperado, in which Robert Rodriguez and his actors walked through the scene with a videocamera to preplan the cinematography and choreography of the scene. This thread is for posting and discussing concept art, previsualization, and other forms of behind the scenes art used to develop films. But this thread's about pictures, not words, so the next post will be full of art. ThePlague-Daemon fucked around with this message at 05:53 on Aug 5, 2016 |
#
?
Aug 5, 2016 05:29
|
|
|
|
| # ? Jun 4, 2024 12:25 |
|
|
Okay so this post is just a few examples of concept art over the decades. I've tried to credit artists where I can. This is just a few to get started. Metropolis - Erich Kettelhut (but I need to double check)    King Kong - Byron Crabbe, Mario Larrinaga, Willis O'Brien, Ernest Smythe       Bambi - Tyrus Wong    More here. Gojira - The 2D art here is storyboards by Kazuyoshi Abe, I think, and I need to look into the sculpture a bit more.     Thanks K. Waste for posting that last picture in the Godzilla thread. 2001: A Space Odyssey - Robert McCall   Star Wars - Ralph McQuarrie     Obviously this is just a small sampling of McQuarrie's Star Wars art. I really like Hoth, and that bizarre proto-Tauntaun running from AT-ATs in what I'm guessing was a removed setpiece. Raiders of the Lost Ark - Jim Steranko    Comic artist Jim Steranko helped define the old school adventure look and feel of Indiana Jones. John Carter - Michael Kutsche and Ryan Church   John Carter isn't the most popular movie, but one of the interesting things about production art is, especially these days, that even movies that aren't great can have really cool production designs and production art that's worth looking at. And here's a couple of resources for finding concept art: Disney Concepts and Stuff - This Tumblr has a lot of really cool concept art from Disney and Pixar films, including a few shelved projects. Concept Art World - A website dedicated to the field. Features a lot of recent concept art, and features art sorted by artist and studio. A lot of non-movie art as well. Andreas Deja's Blogspot - Another Disney one. Former Disney animator Andreas Deja likes posting production artwork from older Disney movies. A lot of overlap with Disney Concepts and Stuff. Concept Art Library - Not actually familiar with this one, but it looks like they've got some good stuff from movies and videogames. Living Lines Library - A cool blogspot full of animation-related production art, including pencil tests. And there are a lot of Tumblrs (some run by the artists themselves) which feature concept art, and of course Google's a good resource. ThePlague-Daemon fucked around with this message at 05:19 on Aug 6, 2016 |
|
#
?
Aug 5, 2016 05:29
|
|
|
Okay but now post the actually rad concept art for the lovely 90s Godzilla movie.
|
|
#
?
Aug 5, 2016 05:56
|
|
|
Some words I said regarding 1998 Godzilla's concept art in the Godzilla thread:quote:Maybe I'm kinda late in noticing this, but I found a bunch of old concept art images online of the 1998 Godzilla. What's the deal with humanoid Godzilla? It looks like maybe originally the idea was taking advantage of CGI Godzilla more agile and flexible instead of being a stiff-moving suit, rather than being more like a t-rex. The design is really similar to the finished movie, but the way it carries itself is totally different. Did anyone behind the scenes on the movie ever talk about the change? Oddly huge Godzilla in that submarine picture. The finished film features a much smaller Godzilla next to a submarine, but if scales on the internet are correct, not actually smaller than regular Godzilla, as I had assumed in the past, so that submarine Godzilla is massive. ThePlague-Daemon fucked around with this message at 06:05 on Aug 5, 2016 |
|
#
?
Aug 5, 2016 05:58
|
|
|
Man I would kill to have a movie that looks like that '33 Kong concept art.
|
|
#
?
Aug 5, 2016 06:08
|
|
|
ThePlague-Daemon posted:Raiders of the Lost Ark - Jim Steranko This really underlines how much casting Ford did for these movies.
|
|
#
?
Aug 5, 2016 07:00
|
|
|
Yeah it looks like we could have gotten Indiana Stallone.
|
|
#
?
Aug 5, 2016 15:10
|
|
|
Jim Steranko was a comic book artist who did some crazy poo poo. This is pretty typical: 
|
|
#
?
Aug 5, 2016 15:28
|
|
|
ThePlague-Daemon posted:Okay so this post is just a few examples of concept art over the decades. I've tried to credit artists where I can. This is just a few to get started. Holy poo poo, Sylvester Stallone was supposed to be Indy? Anyway, Dune, the craziest story related to concept art maybe ever. To those who haven't seen the excellent doc, Jodrowsky's Dune, the madman/visionary behind Holy Mountain made it his mission to try to turn the seminal sci-fi epic into a feature. Here are some of his ideas, helped by freaking Moebius, Dan O'Bannon, Chris Ross, and H.R. Giger out of nowhere. Here are some of the results:        The movie was not to be, from money and the fact that it would been more than 12 hours long. But some of those images lived on and found them manifested in movies from Star Wars to the more recent Prometheus. If people find more pictures, please post them. There's supposed to be a book of this stuff, but I find it hard to find.
|
|
#
?
Aug 5, 2016 15:59
|
|
|
Shageletic posted:If people find more pictures, please post them. There's supposed to be a book of this stuff, but I find it hard to find. This site has some, but their Giger pictures are kinda small. Moebius's character designs: Paul Atreides  Duncan Idaho and Gurney Halleck  Baron Harkonnen  Chris Foss's ship designs Pirate ship  Sardauker warship  Spice tug  And of course there's a lot more in there. Edit: I can't believe I didn't add any of Tyrus Wong's art from Bambi. More here. ThePlague-Daemon fucked around with this message at 17:43 on Aug 5, 2016 |
|
#
?
Aug 5, 2016 17:35
|
|
|
Originally, Stay-Puft was going to transform into a freaky "pure Gozer" hellbeast at the end of Ghostbusters.  
|
|
#
?
Aug 5, 2016 20:23
|
|
|
Ah, the Marvel Vs. Capcom 2 progression
|
|
#
?
Aug 5, 2016 20:26
|
|
|
Very cool idea for a thread. Hope it keeps up. I just watched "The Death of Superman edit: "The Death of Superman Lives" not "Returns". My fault. It's got some absolutely insane and all over the place ideas. BiggerBoat fucked around with this message at 02:18 on Aug 6, 2016 |
|
#
?
Aug 5, 2016 20:41
|
|
|
I like the designs for Doomsday by Kerry Gammill they came up with for Superman Lives a lot better than what ended up in BvS. I like it a lot better than the design from the comics, for that matter. I mean I guess it's more or less a different creature, but I think it's cool. (edit: Actually, go to this post for more Superman Lives Doomsday)   Taken from this concept art tumblr, which I'm adding to the OP, as well as Living Lines Library, which is a great blogspot full of production art and pencil tests from animated films. edit: Check out this Frank Frazetta inspired John Carter concept art featuring a ghoulish white ape (and the designs that made it into the movie by Michael Kutsche here): 
ThePlague-Daemon fucked around with this message at 05:58 on Aug 6, 2016 |
|
#
?
Aug 6, 2016 05:14
|
|
|
This thread's really cool
|
|
#
?
Aug 6, 2016 05:56
|
|
|
Before they decided to make it 3D animation, Tangled had some amazing concept art by Lisa Keene    
|
|
#
?
Aug 6, 2016 17:19
|
|
|
The Art of The Force Awakens is really interesting for several reasons. It functions kind of as a making-of recount of the movie's production, and they talk a lot about how (especially early on) they were working on concept art before an outline was even fully done, so they were just coming up with plot ideas on their own. But then, after Abrams took over the script, he would adopt stuff the artists came up with, and the book mentions how a lot of stuff from the later part of the movie come from Abrams just pulling from the concept art because they didn't have a lot of time left to finish the script. I don't think TFA was the most amazing movie ever but the fact it was a solid, decent movie is kind of a surprise after how big a mess the script apparently was. Also, there is a ton of concept art in the movie for things a lot more interesting than what was eventually chosen for the movie, in terms of stormtrooper, alien, TIE fighter, star destroyer, etc. designs.
|
|
#
?
Aug 6, 2016 21:59
|
|
|
Fantastic Thread. I love seeing all of these cool concept arts  ThePlague-Daemon posted:I like the designs for Doomsday by Kerry Gammill they came up with for Superman Lives a lot better than what ended up in BvS. I like it a lot better than the design from the comics, for that matter. I mean I guess it's more or less a different creature, but I think it's cool. (edit: Actually, go to this post for more Superman Lives Doomsday) I can't see those designs without thinking of the Cloverfield monster.
|
|
#
?
Aug 7, 2016 07:21
|
|
|
Crossquoting from fury road thread. Most of these drawn ~15 years before the film was shot and are pretty close (in most cases) to what you see on screen.Blind Sally posted:also, here's some concept art that's been released recently-- Blind Sally posted:really diggin' the shots of the different factions:
|
|
#
?
Aug 7, 2016 11:10
|
|
|
How about some (sort of) unused Star Wars art? These might all be things people knew about or have seen before, but here they are. All by Ralph McQuarrie. Originally, Han was going to have a Sergio Leone duel with Greedo in the cantina. Very different-looking Greedo here.  A different concept for the Ewok village.  Return of the Jedi was originally going to feature Coruscant but then it didn't. The first one was used in a movie but I don't remember when or which one, but there's clearly pictures of it. The other two I'm not sure if I've seen before and I don't see McQuarrie's name so I hope I'm right that these are his for ROTJ. The architecture is more Gothic-inspired than in the prequels or the end of Return of the Jedi.    The emperor's throne room.  And here's some concepts that DID make it into their intended movies. This is the Gorax. This concept art is for Caravan of Courage: The Ewok Adventure.  Kashyyyk the Wookie planet. This was gonna be in Return of the Jedi instead of the Ewok planet, but this is concept art for the Star Wars Holiday Special.  They even had it repainted as a matte painting: 
|
|
#
?
Aug 8, 2016 22:30
|
|
|
ThePlague-Daemon posted:Return of the Jedi was originally going to feature Coruscant but then it didn't. The first one was used in a movie but I don't remember when or which one, but there's clearly pictures of it. The other two I'm not sure if I've seen before and I don't see McQuarrie's name so I hope I'm right that these are his for ROTJ. The architecture is more Gothic-inspired than in the prequels or the end of Return of the Jedi. Coruscant when it appeared in proto-ROTJ was going to be called Had Abbadon, which later got reused in the EU as a Sith planet (and ironically the name Coruscant came from the EU which then got incorporated into The Phantom Menace when Lucas finally decided to use the planet). The second Death Star was going to be built in orbit around it, I think there's concept art of that also out there. The other two images show what was going to be the Imperial Palace, which also got reused in the EU. Notably, the opening of the TIE Fighter video game uses it, and there are at least two of the old Dark Horse comics that directly adapt that third image. Actually speaking of Star Wars art, both TFA and now Rebels did a lot with reusing old McQuarrie art, and Rebels also using at least one unused piece of art for TFA. It's a strange but telling loop where all these new movies keep going back to discarded art from 30 years ago.
|
|
#
?
Aug 9, 2016 01:02
|
|
|
I love the two death stars because it feels like Lucas struggling to one-up himself when he didn't really need to.
|
|
#
?
Aug 9, 2016 02:04
|
|
|
Saul Bass' storyboard for Psycho's shower scene.
|
|
#
?
Aug 9, 2016 04:49
|
|
|
those tent things rock and should be a thing irl.
|
|
#
?
Aug 9, 2016 11:49
|
|
|
Dark_Tzitzimine posted:Fantastic Thread. I love seeing all of these cool concept arts I can understand your rancor.
|
|
#
?
Aug 9, 2016 17:26
|
|
|
Egbert Souse posted:Saul Bass' storyboard for Psycho's shower scene. Almost looks like a page out of From Hell.
|
|
#
?
Aug 9, 2016 20:04
|
|
|
Surprise Giraffe posted:those tent things rock and should be a thing irl. Go to an EDM festival
|
|
#
?
Aug 9, 2016 20:11
|
|
|
|
| # ? Jun 4, 2024 12:25 |
|
|
I still think this thread is cool.  This post popped up in my Tumblr feed. It's some more pictures of Coruscant, but there's also a lot more in there if you look around the hashtags, such as a less swampy Dagobah. Concept art for an unproduced version of War of the Worlds with special effects by Ray Harryhausen. Concept art by Mentor Huebner again for Planet of the Apes where the apes have a modern human society and technology like in the book. There's also this cool Lord of the Rings concept art by Mentor Huebner for Ralph Bakshi's movie. It's got that sort of out-there use of color that Bakshi's movie has, but it seems like it works a little better here. The recommended posts there have the saddest piece of concept art I've ever seen. Barry Jackson's take on the Balrog for the film:  The actual Balrog from the movie:  edit: These are really nice. Wikipedia says these are well known but I've never seen them before. ThePlague-Daemon fucked around with this message at 08:11 on Sep 9, 2016 |
|
#
?
Sep 9, 2016 07:52
|
|