EXCL: Hellboy II art!!!

Move over Red Hulk. The original gun-totin’, musclebound, cranky, red monster is on his way. HELLBOY II: THE GOLDEN ARMY hits theaters in July and to get you all hot and bothered we’ve got an exclusive look at two brand stinkin new pieces of concept art from the film. But that’s not all. Oh NO, that’s not all. Guillermo del Toro and Visual Designer Francisco Ruiz Velasco were kind enough to provide us with audio commentary on the pieces. OK it’s not so much audio because you can’t actually hear them but if you read it in your best Guillermo accent (and I know you have one), it will feel like audio commentary.

Being a frustrated artist myself, I love this stuff and love that we’re in a place technology-wise where we get to share this stuff with you. Check the goods out below (you can click on each image to see a higher-res version) and you perhaps might want to check the official HELLBOY website on Thursday. Just sayin’….

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This is a sketch by Francisco Ruiz Velasco but it is created around a real existing location. Like in PANS LABYRINTH I decided to go for a crepuscular, warm palette in the Fantasy realm (reds jiving with Hellboy) and leave the real world in blues, greens and greys. I did a quick sketch of the “Throne” that was part of a boiler and asked Francisco to “echo” a halo behind the king’s head, which we introduce in the PROLOGUE. As we scouted locations we found a locomotive cemetery / repair yard and photographed the boiler part of some old engines and lined those up on the walls to create a “hallway” feel. Incongruously, I wanted gold petals to be falling from above- a magical, crazy touch. – Guillermo del Toro

This is one of Wayne Barlowe’s sketches. It is a creature for the Troll Market. – Francisco Ruiz Velasco

Each artist was free to bring forth as many sketches of creatures as they wanted. The only condition was to veer away from “movie monsters” and make the creatures more surreal and exotic, reference things other than film: Engravings from the Middle Ages, Hieronymus
Bosch, The Arabian Tales, etc, etc. Barlowe had the best batting average… 8 out of 10 of his designs made it to the screen. But we treated these creatures like extras. We SELDOM, if ever showcased them- I felt this was crucial to treat the market like you would any other location… to make it real… – Guillermo del Toro