Spidey 3

Here are a few keyframes I did for Spidey 3 a few years back. I joined the embattled project pretty late in the game, right after the production design regime change from Neil Spisak to Mike Riva a few weeks into principle photography. We were only a few weeks out from shooting the final battle scene and they had already started building a full-sized set of the first few stories of a skyscraper under construction. Unfortunately the actual scene to take place in the set hadn't been written yet.

I was brought in initially to visualize some of the action and also to design how the same set could be dressed to represent several different levels of the building under construction.

I've never been on a movie where the script changed so radically so often. I wouldn't be half-way through a keyframe when someone would look over my shoulder and say "Oh. Didn't you know? It's no longer Venom in that scene, it's Goblin..." This is why we paint in layers...
It was also pretty political with the change-over in art department. Jim Carson and I kept getting asked to do pretty much the same work, which was really demoralizing, particularly for him since he'd been on the project for over a year already doing great work. I felt really bad, it just wasn't a fun environment. The construction site set ended up being struck and rebuilt twice more for re-shoots. Ahh, this is how movies are made these days. And we wonder why they're so expensive... Anyway, on to the art...


The construction site, ground level. The illustration was painted over a photo of a foamcore & plastic maquette by Brent Phillips of the basic structure. I had to make this in an infuriating number of layers so that elements could be removed and added to dress the other levels. The other versions are even more boring than this though, as they consist of even more removed.


The big battle with Sandman. This version is based on the character design by EJ Krisor, but really doesn't do his awesome version justice. This shot owes a lot to Jim Carson's previous version which you can see on his site HERE.


Spidey swinging to the rescue, back when it was Gwen Stacey in her sports car, not MJ in a taxi.


And speak of the devil...


I can't even remember which way this went in the final film. I think it was venom coming out of the shadows and not goblin, but I can't be sure, since I painted it both ways.


This ended up pretty verbatim in the movie, which I was pleased about. Really saccharine colors, but fun to paint, since it was all freehand and not bogged down in a thousand layers of photo-manipulation!

Tripwire Magazine interview

I was recently interviewed for the 2008 Tripwire Annual, a yearly compendium of genre articles and news out of the UK. Worth picking up if you're on the other side of the pond. It's one of those rare articles where they don't try to tell their own story by paraphrasing you beyond recognition, so kudos to Joel Meddows & his crew.

Also features a gorgeous 2-page Dr. Who spread by my buddy Jeff Carlysle & some really sweet storyboards by an english board artist named Martin Asbury who I'm ashamed to admit I'd never heard of.

So pick it up and support good entertainment journalism!