Spider-Man 2 (2004) concept art by James Carson

Check out Spider-Man 2 concept art and storyboards by James Carson!

After finishing Spider-Man Sam Raimi had some thoughts on how to do a sequel. Originally one of the supporting characters was Felicia Hardy (aka the Black Cat) to create a romantic triangle with Mary Jane. Cast notes showed Brooke Adams was cast, and possibly shot some scenes, but Black Cat was cut from the film to focus on Doctor Octopus. Recently, we saw what Doctor Octopus might look like in The Amazing Spider-Man 2 but, back in 2004, Sam Raimi brought the classic Spider-Man villain to the screen with Alfred Molina. One of the artists that helped Raimi visualize the character was James Carson, and he shared some concept art on his site along with some storyboards from the film.

Carson is a professional concept and storyboard artist who's worked on major Hollywood movies like Captain America: The Winter Soldier (2014), Spider-Man (2002) and X-Men: First Class (2011).

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The Avengers: Age of Ultron (2015) concept art poster by Ryan Meinerding, Charlie Wen and Andy Park

Check out the The Avengers: Age of Ultron concept art poster by Ryan Meinerding, Charlie Wen and Andy Park!

Over the weekend Marvel released a series of exclusive posters for Avengers 2 at San Diego Comic Con 2014. Just like in 2012, each stand-alone poster combined together into a single large poster.

Ryan Meinerding is a professional concept storyboard artist who's worked on superhero movies like Captain America: The First Avenger, Thor and Iron Man. Andy Park is a professional concept illustrator who's worked on Thor: The Dark World (2013), Iron Man 3 (2013) and Marvel's the The Avengers (2012). Charlie Wenhas worked on films like The Avengers (2012), Iron Man 3 (2013) and Thor (2011).

Here are some things you may not have noticed

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Dawn of the Planet of the Apes (2014) concept art by Joshua Min

Check out Dawn of the Planet of the Apes concept art by Joshua Min!

Dawn of the Planet of the Apes picks up where Rise of the Planet of the Apes left off and production designer James Chinlund spent a long time trying to figure out where the apes would be in this film. He told MTV, "When I was first approached about the film, my mind immediately began to turn on the evolution of the Apes. As a Production Designer, the greatest challenge and most exciting opportunities are those that allow you to explore worlds that haven’t been visualized before. Trying to imagine how the Apes would take their next evolutionary steps and begin to formulate their civilization was an amazing opportunity for myself and my team." Part of Chinlund's team was concept artist Joshua Min who was there from the beginning. He talked with me a little bit about what it was like working on the film when Rupert Wyatt was working on it and the director changed to Matt Reeves.

Joshua Min is a professional concept and storyboard artist who's worked on major Hollywood movies like The Wolverine (2013), The Amazing Spider-Man 2 (2014) and 300: Rise of an Empire (2014)

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Batman (1989) Joker concept art by Bob Ringwood

Check out Batman costume concept art by Bob Ringwood!

Every Friday I try and feature artwork from a classic of science fiction cinema or television. This week's "Flashback Friday" post is on Batman (1989).

Today's post was from a request on my Facebook page by Yiğit Işık. If you have anything you'd like to see just let me know in the comments, Twitter or Facebook!

When Tim Burton set out to make Batman he was blazing new territory and turned to designer Bob Ringwood to help him create a new vision of the superhero. He admitted, "I had never even read a Batman comic. So I went out and bought about 200 of them from all the different time periods – including the really early ones – and studied them thoroughly… Then I closed the comics and started thinking about why a man would dress up as a bat – the whole idea is absurd – and I decided that to make it work, I had to come up with a bat that was dark and mysterious and sexy."

Bob Ringwood is a British professional Academy Award-winning costume designer who's worked on Hollywood films like Excalibur (1981), Alien³ (1992) and A.I. Artificial Intelligence (2001).

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Check out my review of Rise of the Planet of the Apes and Dawn of Planet of the Apes: The Art of the Films art book by Matt Hurwitz, Sharon Gosling and Adam Newell!

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Iron Man (2008) storyboards by Doug Brode

Check out Iron Man storyboards by Doug Brode!

When they were filming the blockbuster movie Iron Man they focused on the story and planning the action. So, the script wasn't done when they began filming. "They had no script, man... They had an outline." Jeff Bridges, who played Obadiah Stane, told In Contention, "We would show up for big scenes every day and we wouldn't know what we were going to say. We would have to go into our trailer and work on this scene and call up writers on the phone, 'You got any ideas?' Meanwhile the crew is tapping their foot on the stage waiting for us to come on."

Lots of scenes probably ended up on the cutting room floor. One scene that was cut was a longer version of the surgery scene to implant the arc reactor in Tony Stark's (Robert Downey, Jr) chest. In the movie it was a brief over-the-shoulder shot. But, in this storyboard by Doug Brode, it's a lot more intense.

Brode is a professional concept and storyboard artist who's worked on major films like Looper (2012), Planet of the Apes (2001) and Van Helsing (2004).

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Transformers: Age of Extinction (2014) concept art by Steve Jung

Check out Transformers: Age of Extinction concept art by Steve Jung!

With the runaway success of Transformers: Age of Extinction it's inevitable that there will be a Transformers 5. It's been rumored that the title will be Transformers: Galvatron Rising (2016), but Michael Bay says, "I wanted you to hear from me directly that we have not yet chosen a title and anything being reported is absolutely not true." So, we'll have to wait and see. We'll also have to wait and see what robots will be in the next film, but here's one that didn't make the cut last time. A female robot named "Widow maker." Artist Steve Jung recently updated his Facebook page with concept art from the film and shared the design. It would have been interesting since we've only seen one other female Transformer in the movie.

Steve Jung is a professional concept artist who's worked on major films like Marvel's the Avengers (2012), Man of Steel (2013) and Thor (2011).

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Check out Dawn of the Planet of the Apes concept art by the Aaron Sims Company!

One of the premiere design firms is the Aaron Sims Company and they worked with Weta Digital to create the CGI apes for Dawn of the Planet of the Apes. Gino Acevedo, Creative Art Director at New Zealand effects house Weta Digital said he had to give a lot of credit to "a very good friend, a very talented artist Aaron Sims." Aaron's team helped to bring the digital apes to life and he told Under the Radar, "There’s still a lot of heartache because digital is sadly putting a lot of the practical stuff away, but at the same time there’s still a lot of the physical stuff that we still need to do. Aaron and his company actually sculpted some busts of Caesar, so we had those as practical things to look at and scan for reference."

Recently I had the chance to talk with one of the art directors from the Aaron Sims Company and he told me a little about how the team tackles these kind of blockbuster films. Steffen Reichstadt is a professional concept artist and art director for the Aaron Sims Company who's worked on Hollywood blockbusters like Sucker Punch (2011), X-Men: First Class (2011) and Edge of Tomorrow (2014). 

He shared illustrations from various artists that worked for the Aaron Sims Company (ASC) on this project.

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Jurassic World (2015) concept art

Check out leaked Jurassic World concept art!

I didn't want to do it. There's been a lot of concept art for the upcoming Jurassic World bouncing around online. I swore I wouldn't post any of it for fear the studios would demand a Jihad on my blog. But, everyone else in the world has posted it, so here goes. Here's every rumored leaked concept art from the upcoming Jurassic Park sequel called Jurassic World. I have a good idea who some of the artists are, but I'm going to protect their names to prevent further reprisals.


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Captain America: The Winter Soldier (2014) concept art by Rodney Fuentebella

The sequel to Captain America: The First Avenger is a blockbuster hit thanks to directors Anthony and Joe Russo. The two are huge comic book fans and Marvel sought them out to work on the film. They told New York Times being life-long comic book fans helped. Anthony said, "We absolutely love comic books, so that helped." Joe added, "I’ve been collecting comics since I was 10 years old. One of the first books I ever got my hands on was a Captain America-Falcon team-up." Marvel loves them so much, they're already signed up for Captain America 2. One of the big scenes in the film was a huge battle on the freeway. It was so huge that Chicago let them shut down the West Shoreway for two straight weeks. Anthony said, "I’m pretty sure people there hate us after that." One of the artists that helped visualize that scene for the directors was Rodney Fuentebella. I've already shared Fuentabella's amazing Captain America 2 concept art before, but here are some more that he updated to his website.

Fuentebella is a Senior Visual Development Illustrator at Marvel Studios who's worked on blockbuster comic book movies like The Avengers (2012), Iron Man 3 (2013) and the upcoming Guardians of the Galaxy (2014).

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