Check out this video interview with artist Josh Nizzi!

Nizzi is a professional concept artist who's worked on Hollywood films like The Wolverine (2013), The Amazing Spider-Man (2012) and Battleship (2012).

Artist Josh Nizzi was at Comic-Con a few years ago and did a get interview. In the video he talks about what a concept illustrator does, an what it was like working on Amazing Spider-Man and G.I. Joe: Retaliation.


See more of Josh Nizzi's astonishing portfolio at http://joshnizzi.com

Click on the links if you want to see more of Josh Nizzi's work on my blog.

What do you think of the interview? What do you think it's like working as a concept artist?


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Logan's Run (2008) concept art by Ed Natividad

Check out Logan's Run concept art and storyboards by Trevor Goring, Ed Natividad and Ben Procter!

A remake of the 1970s classic film Logan's Run has been in "development hell" since the mid-1990s. The movie follows the plot of the 1967 book by William F. Nolan and George Clayton Johnson about a future dystopia where everyone over the age of 21 kills themselves and are supposedly "reborn" in new bodies. The movie follows two "runners" who try to escape their fate. Bryan Singer was passionate about making the film telling Ain't It Cool News, "My desire to do that film is so much so that I'm already pre-vizing [pre-visualizing] LOGAN'S RUN simultaneously while we're making SUPERMAN, so that by the time I'm done making SUPERMAN, I'll have LOGAN'S RUN completely pre-vized. I've already got five major sequences pre-vized, including Carousel. It's extraordinary, things you've never seen before. I'm usually that excited about something this far out, but if I showed you the pre-viz, I think you'd get a big kick out of it." But, after filming Superman Returns he dropped the project.

Last year Ken Levine, creator of the Bioshock video game franchise, was hired to write the script for the remake. So, it could still happen. Till then, let's look at some concept art and storyboards that show what it could have looked like.

Trevor Goring, Ed Natividad and Ben Procter are all professional concept and storyboard artists who've worked on big budget films like Thor: The Dark World (2013), The Amazing Spider-Man (2012) and Tron: Legacy (2010). They shared concept art and storyboards on their sites. Some images are from the French magazine L’Ecran Fantastique. I don't read French, so your guess is as good as mine what the article says.


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Transcendence (2014) concept art by Scott Lukowski

Check out my interview with Transcendence concept artist Scott Lukowski and see exclusive concept art!

Last weekend was the release of Transcendence, Academy Award winning cinematographer Wally Pfister's first directorial effort. He worked with Christopher Nolan on many films including Memento, The Dark Knight and Inception. Reviews are mixed, but everyone agrees that it looks amazing. One of the artists that helped to bring Pfister's vision to life is Scott Lukowski. I got to have a brief interview with him.

Lukowski is a professional concept illustrator who's worked on Hollywood movies like Transformers (2007), Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines (2003) and Spider-Man (2002).

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Check out Star Trek: The First Adventure concept art!

Every Friday I try and feature artwork from a classic of science fiction cinema or television. This week's "Flashback Friday" post is on the unproduced Star Trek: The First Adventure (1991)

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Check out Superman Returns concept art by Jeff Julian!

Superman Returns was a box office bomb. It made $391 million worldwide, but is still considered a bomb because of it's huge $200 budget and mixed reviews. That said, there are some beautiful scenes in the movie. Notably when Superman saves the plane from crashing into the stadium and the look of Lex Luthor's "New Krypton." One of the many talented artists that helped shape the look and feel of the movie is Jeff Julian and he shared concept art for the film on his site.

Julian is a professional concept artist who's worked on big budget movies like I Am Legend (2007), X-Men: The Last Stand (2006) and Cloud Atlas (2012)

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It's hard to believe, but CGHub is gone. On April 13, Shakuro announced that CGHub.com is closed down.

No more CGHUB.

Sad day. Project CGHUB is officially closed.

The reason behind this extremely tough decision is personal and will remain private. It’s absolutely not connected with business or any kind of technical difficulties.
On behalf of development team I would like to apologize to CGHUB users and fans for abrupt project closure and delay with its announcement.
If you have any kind of questions please send them to cghub@shakuro.com . Can’t promise replies to everyone though.

CGHUB wasn’t ideal, but we loved it SO MUCH! :*(

Team Shakuro

So now what? The site was the premiere networking tool of countless artists and professionals. It will be heard to replace. Shakura is working on a new art community, but in the meanwhile you can get your artwork of the site with these simple steps.

1. Go to the Internet Wayback Machine archive.org/web

2. Put the URL in the Web section and push the button "Browse History."

3. Click on the most recent highlighted date and open the "snapshot."

4. Click on the "View All" and browse through the listing. Not all the images are archived unfortunately. You can use the timeline at the top to browse to different captures.

So do you have to download all the images one at a time? No. The key is a FireFox add-on called "DownThemAll!" After you install it you can right-click and download all the images on your page.

So that's it. Right now there's no way to recover the followers or contact lists. If we find another way to recover those then I'll share it.

Will you miss CGHub? What will you do to replace it?

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The Hunger Games: Catching Fire (2013) Katniss Wedding Dress concept art by Phillip Boutte Jr.

Check out The Hunger Games: Catching Fire concept art by Phillip Boutte Jr.!

This week, The Hunger Games: Catching Fire won big at the MTV Movie awards winning top honors, but the movie has already gotten prestigious awards. The costumes for The Hunger Games: Catching Fire were even more elaborate than the first film. Costume designer Trish Summerville worked closely with concept artist Phillip Boutte Jr. to bring them to life. From designing a 30 pound wedding dress for Katniss (Jennifer Lawrence), a dress made out of Monarch Butterflies for Effie (Elizabeth Banks) and the regal garb of President Snow (Donald Sutherland) the two worked hard and won big at the 2014 Costume Designers Guild Awards.

Phillip Boutte Jr. is a professional costume concept artist who's worked on Hollywood projects like Man of Steel (2013), The Wolverine (2013) and Marvel's Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D (2013).

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Check out Real Steel storyboards by Trevor Goring!

Real Steel has some amazing robot boxing scenes, but one of the most memorable fights is actually with a bull. In this scene, Charlie Kenton (Hugh Jackman) has a boxing match with a bull named "Black Thunder" at the county fair. Trevor Goring is one of the storyboard artists and he recently shared some boards that show a slightly different take on the scene. Among other things, the robot was named Supernova and the bull was named Zeus. The scene was highly controversial with some, like Crave Online, calling it "degrading."

Trevor Goring is a professional storyboard artist who's worked on major movies like Thor: The Dark World (2013), Independence Day (1996) and Watchmen (2009).


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Silent Running Drone Concept Art

Check out vintage Silent Running concept art by Doug Trumbull, Don Trumbull, Paul Kraus & James Dow!

Every Friday I try and feature artwork from a classic of science fiction cinema or television. This week's "Flashback Friday" post is on Silent Running (1972)

Douglas Trumbull worked on special effects for Stanley Kubrick on 2001: A Space Odyssey and this was his directorial debut. He wrote a treatment for the film about a man trying to save the last of humanity's plant and animal life. He was frustrated by the cold look of Kubrick's vision of the future and wanted to make something more human. The film was shot in 32 days, aboard an aircraft carrier and inside an airplane hangar in California. One bit of controversy was the use of amputees in the film. The challenge was to create robot Drones that acted human and would be fool-proof on the set with only a budget of $1 million. Inspired by the movie 1932 film Freaks they hired bilateral amputees to wear the suits. Some at the time called it exploitative which Doug Trumbull called "cold." Using people in the suits instead of robots led to some wonderful moments like when the drone Huey taps his foot waiting outside and Dern tapping the drones on the shoulder.

While we don't know exactly who created the drawings we do know that Doug Trumbull, his father Don Trumbull, Paul Kraus and James Dow designed and built the drone suits. The suits are now in Douglas Trumbull's personal collection.

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Captain America: The Winter Soldier (2014) concept art James Carson

Check out my interview with Captain America: The Winter Soldier concept artist James Carson!

I'm back with another interview with a concept artist for Captain America: The Winter Soldier! Find out how much they took from the comics, what's up with Steve Roger's apartment and how Nazis inspired the artwork.

Recently, I had a wonderful interview with one of the concept artists of Captain America 2. A self-proclaimed "art geek" James Carson is a professional concept artist who's worked on Hollywood films like Tim Burton's Superman Lives, Spider-Man (2002) and X-Men: First Class (2011).

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