Captain America

Going to see Cap tonight, can't wait! So to celebrate I'm posting my small contribution to the project, a couple of designs I did for post production while working on Avengers in the Marvel Visual Development department earlier this year. For a couple of day's side work this was really a milestone for me, since I basically began my passion for this business at the age of 7 when my parents bought me Joe Johnston's Star Wars Sketchbook. I must have copied every drawing in that book a dozen times before the age of ten (when I got the Empire Strikes Back sketchbook and started all over again!) and that's essentially how I learned to draw. So to get to contribute even the smallest bit to one of my idol's movies meant a great deal. And that he turned out to be a friendly, gracious man is just the icing on the cake.

This first design never made it into the movie sadly, and I don't know whether the sequence ended up on the cutting room floor or was ever even produced, but would have shown the early days of Hydra with a squadron of these heavily modified Messerschmitt BF109's. The first pass I added double engines with counter-rotating props and a twin-tail to accomodate a tail gun...


Someone in visual effects thought it needed to be more different, so the cockpit was updated, the nose lengthened and at Joe Johnston's suggested a pusher-prop a la Dornier Do335 was added. Too bad it never saw the light of day.




Lastly I was handed a pencil sketch Joe Johnston had made of this remote-operated bathysphere and asked to detail out the design for production. It was a quick-turnaround job, so I rushed this out so the previs department could model it up and start on the shot.



As far as I've heard this made it into the movie, so I'll have at least one thing to look out for tonight, besides celebrating the amazing work of my friends Ryan Meinerding, Charlie Wen, Andy Park, Nathan Schroeder Jim Martin and Daniel Simon! Hope you all enjoy the movie.

**And yes, the sub was in the movie... for all of about a half-second blurry shot! :) Great movie, though, I had a blast. **