Check out Avengers: Age of Ultron concept art by Phil Saunders!
Click on the images to enlarge
"Avengers: Infinity War" is lighting up the box office, but it follows in the success of the last Avengers film "Avengers: Age of Ultron". I recently got in touch with one of the talented artists who designed for the movie and he kindly agreed to answer a few questions. He talks about the final climactic battle cut from the film and the biggest change working on the movies for Marvel Studios.
Phil Saunders is a professional concept artist who's worked on major motion films like Captain America: The First Avenger, Iron Man, and Spider-Man 3.
1) What’s it like working on Marvel movies today versus when you first started?
Well, there’s certainly a lot more scrutiny to what we do, and a lot more awareness of the exposure we will get. When we first started on Iron Man it was just another movie, albeit with some of the coolest characters to design, but we had no idea it would have the impact it did. Now that we’re ten years in, we’re ready for the onslaught of attention.
We always do our concept art with one eye to the design of the movie and one eye to the “Art of” books, knowing each illustration will be scrutinized by fans rather than staying behind the scenes. It’s really forced us to hone our crafts as artists as well as designers.
It’s nice that Marvel is one of the unique studios that’s aware of the value of good art beyond the expedience of getting the movie done and gives us the time to do art we can be proud of.
2) You’ve designed many Iron Man suits. What’s the key to giving them a cohesive look?
As with all of my design, I’m always striving for simplicity. That may seem oxymoronic as each iteration of the Iron Man suit has gotten more visually complex.
But the goal is to find a simple, singular design theme and form language and allow it to flow across the suit, tying all of the areas of concentrated detail together. I spend a lot of time just working a cutline to make sure it flows well from any angle and ties into other lines across the suit.
The other major goal is to create an abstract sculpture of idealized human anatomy disguised within the recognizable artifacts of the technology. So you get the sense of a heroic figure without being hit over the head with blatant pecs, abs, and biceps, but instead panels, intakes, foils and sleeves that feel natural to the function of the machine.
3) Do you have a favorite piece of artwork from the MCU that may or may not have been used?
I’m always focussed on the suit designs, so I rarely have the opportunity to do a keyframe illustration. I did on Age of Ultron, for a climactic battle in one of the early versions of the script that would feature thousands of the Ultron “bots” interlocking to form a giant “MegaUltron.”
Josh Nizzi did the early concepts for it and I took it a bit further in this illustration suggesting more structure to the way they would be linked.
Ultimately the idea was axed before I even finished the shot, but I liked it so much I completed it on my own time.
Click on the links if you want to see more of Phil Saunders's work or Avengers: Age of Ultron artwork on my blog.
What do you think of the concept art? If you've seen Avengers: Age of Ultron what do you think of the look?
© Copyright 2015 Marvel Studios. All rights reserved.
Follow @filmsketchr
Comments
Post a Comment