Conceptual Art for Films

[spacemonkey]

I thought you guys would find it interesting if I posted concept art from different films. You know conceptual art is often times what defines how a movie is going to look, how a certain character is going to dress, how a certain spaceship will be like, how a certain effect will be developed.

Its sort of like the blue prints for how the movie will look. They are fun to look at for me because they show us what a movie could have ended up looking like, and at the same time we can see which art work actually truly influenced the look of the film.

So anyhows, heres some concept art from a few films, hope you guys like it. If anybody finds any cool conceptual art for any film, place it here as well, make sure the images show up on the post.

Masters of the Universe (1988):

On this one William Stout himself did some artwork for the film check it out:

He-Man





Skeletor



Skeletors Troops



Beastman



Castle Grayskull



Man at Arms;



Saurod:



Blade:

[spacemonkey]

Heres some concept art for Ron Howard's Willow (1988). This particular concept art for Willow was done by Moebius:

Madmartigan:



Bavmordas Castle:



The island on which Fin Raziel's is trapped:



On the way back from Raziels island, Willow and his crew were supposed to encounter a boy that transforms into a gigantic water creature referred to as "fishboy", this was never filmed. But heres the concept art for it:



The Nelwyns




Bavmorda



Bavmordas thrown room



King of the Nelwyns

[spacemonkey]

More Concept Art for Willow:

The Demon Dogs:



Sorsha:




One of Bavmordas seers:



The Two Headed Dragon in Willow is called an 'Eborsisk'. Heres some design for this creature. This one has only one head!



Bavmorda doing some of her Black Magic:




The Battle at Tir Asleen:

[spacemonkey]

Concept art for Tron (1982) by Moebius:

[spacemonkey]

Some more Moebius Concept Art, this time for Ridley Scotts Alien. On these pieces we can see just how much Moebius's art did influence the final film. The spacesuits and the ships look almost exactly the way the artist imagined them!

H.R. Giger was the one in charged of creating the look of the aliens themselves, while Moebius took control over the look of the ships and the spacesuits.

[spacemonkey]

Conceptual art by Moebius for James Cameron's The Abyss:

[spacemonkey]

More Jean Giraud artwork, this time for The Fifth Element. Interesting to see that most of his designs did finally make it onto the final film:

City Landscape:



Police Men (I always thought these looked cool in the film, now I know why!):





Plava Laguna, the opera singer:




The alien spaceships at the beginning of the film:

[spacemonkey]

Conceptual artwork for Blade Runner by Syd Mead:

[spacemonkey]

Artwork for various films by William Stout:

Conan the Destroyer:

Conan meets the princess:



Conan fights Bombata:






Tobe Hoopers Invaders from Mars:



Martian Spaceship



Inside of Martian Spaceship:



Dan O Bannon's Return of the Living Dead:



Hey, it looks like William Stout created the famous Tar Man!



"Bring more....paramedics"

[spacemonkey]

I wonder if this bit of conceptual art was deemed a bit too "scary" by del Toro for Pans Labyrinth, though I recognize some elements from the final design of the creature:



A creature designed by Stout that never made it to the film, looks interesting though!

[spacemonkey]

Heres some concept art from Brian Froud, for the film Labyrinth:

[spacemonkey]

And Brian Froud for The Dark Crystal:



The Gelflins:



The Skeksis:



Ougra:

[floydtheater07]

Awesome stuff. Thanks for sharing!

Makes me think we could really use some good animated fantasy films...some of this art looks more impressive here than on the screen.

[spacemonkey]

Some scenes from Return of the Jedi that never made it past the conceptual design phase. This artwork was done by one of the greatest conceptual artists ever, Ralph McQuarrie:

These is a scene for Return of the Jedi in which the village gets attacked by a giant creature, looks freaking cool!



An unused design for the emperors throne room. Notice Vader and Luke in front of him.





Notice theres two Deathstars on this design!



Vader taking Luke into the Imperial Palace.



The Emperor forces Luke to learn a thing or two about the dark side of the force.



Another part of the Ewok village:

[spacemonkey]

And heres some scenes by McQuarrie for Empire Strikes Back:

These are some swamp creatures that we never got to see in Dagobah:




Notice how different the Taums taums look on these drawings:



The carbonite freezing machine looks a bit different:



This scene never made it on to the film either:



Landscapes and vistas for the city in the clouds:





Lando Calrissian meets the good guys:

[spacemonkey]

Some concept art for the upcoming Terminator 4: Salvation.

[FireCaptain4]

Originally Posted by spacemonkey

Some scenes from Return of the Jedi that never made it past the conceptual design phase. This artwork was done by one of the greatest conceptual artists ever, Ralph McQuarrie:

These is a scene for Return of the Jedi in which the village gets attacked by a giant creature, looks freaking cool!

Wasn't that thing later used in the first Ewok Adventures film?! It looks a lot like it.

[spacemonkey]

Yup, they sure did. Lucas used a lot of these old designs on some of the newer films as well, like for example thos flying stingray things seen in the concept art for the cloud city in Empire Strikes Back, made it onto Episode II, only they used them on those scenes that take place in that water planet where they build the clones.

[spacemonkey]

Conceptual art for Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark by Jim Steranko:

[FireCaptain4]

space, it's really cool that you resurrected this thread-- I think it's superbly awesome. I, personally, don't have any concept art to share, but everything you've posted looks fantastic.

About the creatures from The Abyss: It's been a long time since I've seen the movie, so that may be the problem, but I don't remember the creatures resembles the concept art all that much. I've seen it maybe... four times, and everytime I found it very hard to even make out what the creatures looked like. Obviously a good movie, though. I need to pop in my DVD and give it another viewing.

[Badbird]

I always loved this piece of art for the first AVP. I just wish I could find a bigger version of the picture itself.

[Tagia_Romero]

Originally Posted by spacemonkey

Conceptual art by Moebius for James Cameron's The Abyss:

Utterly gorgeous.

[Tagia_Romero]

Originally Posted by spacemonkey

Conceptual art for Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark by Jim Steranko:

Indy looks mega-fierce.

[Monotreme]

I have a whole book filled with Ralph McQuarrie conceptual art for the Star Wars original trilogy - I've always been fascinated with that stuff, and his work is absolutely phenomenal. There are so many ideas and stuff that didn't make it in to the films; stuff that looks really, really great. Awesome thread, man!

[spacemonkey]

Originally Posted by FireCaptain4

space, it's really cool that you resurrected this thread-- I think it's superbly awesome. I, personally, don't have any concept art to share, but everything you've posted looks fantastic.

About the creatures from The Abyss: It's been a long time since I've seen the movie, so that may be the problem, but I don't remember the creatures resembles the concept art all that much. I've seen it maybe... four times, and everytime I found it very hard to even make out what the creatures looked like. Obviously a good movie, though. I need to pop in my DVD and give it another viewing.

Thanks Firecaptain and Monotreme, glad you guys are enjoying the thread. Thing about concept art is that many of the sketches dont make it to the final film, but the ideas and images they generate in a directors mind will sometimes lead them in another direction. Theyll go like, "I like that idea of the transluscent beings...we could play around with that!" And then theyll take it some place similar visually, but not entirely the same as the concept art.

[spacemonkey]

Originally Posted by Monotreme

I have a whole book filled with Ralph McQuarrie conceptual art for the Star Wars original trilogy - I've always been fascinated with that stuff, and his work is absolutely phenomenal. There are so many ideas and stuff that didn't make it in to the films; stuff that looks really, really great. Awesome thread, man!

Conceptual art is such an important part of science fiction and fantasy films. These artists practically decide how a film will end up looking! So much rests on their vision alone, they deserve a lot of credit for their artwork. Ultimately, what we see in a movie, and the images that come to life and that we'll remember for years to come, come from their minds!

I bow down to these guys, I really do.

[spacemonkey]

Some concept art by the great Mile Steve for Joe Dantes Explorers:

[outsyder]

Originally Posted by Tagia_Romero

Indy looks mega-fierce.

He looks an awful lot like Cary Grant.

[rilocay]

Awesome thread guys!

Here's some for Hellboy 2:

[rilocay]

Rick Baker's Concept for the new Wolf Man Movie.

[God of War]

I like it too. Here's a dodgy enlarged version.

http://i42.tinypic.com/k96mj9.png

[God of War]

Sandworm for Dune by Giger.

[spacemonkey]

H.R. Giger, one of the gems in the conceptual artwork world.

[spacemonkey]

These are production sketches for what would have been Alejandro Jodorowskys (fame director of El Topo, Holy Mountain, Fando and Liz, Santa Sangre) version of Dune. He started production on it, wrote a script, got sketches and storyboards made by some of the best science fiction artists (and conceptual artist) around. Moebius, HR Giger are two of the great names involved in this production which never went further.

Now...heres some sketches done by Moebius which give us a glimpse at what could have been a rather unique take on the whole Dune universe. I personally would have really dug seeing this one...

Heres what the Baron Harkonen would have been like:



Feyd Rautha (played by Sting on Lynchs version)



Rabban the Beast



Piter (played by Brad Dourif in Lynchs version)



Duke Leto Atreides (played by Jurgen Prochnow in Lynchs version)



Lady Jessica



Paul Atreides (played by Kyle Machlachlan in Lynchs version)



Duncan Idaho

[spacemonkey]

Doctor Yueh



The Emperor of the Universe Padishah Saddam the IV (played by Jose Ferrer in Lynchs version)



The Emperors Sadukar Warriors (pretty cool looking designs if you ask me)




The Bene Gesserit Witch Mother Gaius Helen Mohiam



And heres some designs for the spaceships in the Jodorowsky version, these were done by fantasy artist Chris Foss:

Spaceships to transport the spice:



Duke Letos personal dessert transportation:



The Emperors Fortress:



The Guild Merchant Ship:

[drc5145]

One book that has some great concept art is with Watchmen. I bought The Art of The Film book and it's loaded with some great concept art. It lends itself pretty well, with both the book and film being very art-heavy.

Silk Spectre Concept by Adam Hughes


Ozymandias & The Comedian by Adam Hughes


Nite Owl & The Comedian Concept by John Cassaday

[spacemonkey]

Originally Posted by outsyder

He looks an awful lot like Cary Grant.

Hey Outsyder, you know Magnum P.I. himself (Tom Selleck) was almost going to end up being Indiana Jones? Heres a couple of pics of him doing some screen tests with the whole Indiana Jones get up on!

thank God this never materialized!

[spacemonkey]

Originally Posted by drc5145

One book that has some great concept art is with Watchmen. I bought The Art of The Film book and it's loaded with some great concept art. It lends itself pretty well, with both the book and film being very art-heavy.

John Hughes is one of the greatest comic book artists to walk the face of the earth. He specializes in super hero women (but draws anything else as well) as we can see in those sketches of Silk Spectre for Watchmen.

[spacemonkey]

And now for some Tim Burton conceptual art....sketchy, but they all convey exactly what is needed to understand the films mood and tone. I love em!

Nightmare Before Christmas:

[spacemonkey]

Large Marge from Pee Wees Big Adventure:




Mars Attacks: