More early Helicarrier...

A few more Helicarrier designs, drawing more from the idea of a massive amphibious transport aircraft with a carrier deck on its back.

Helicarrier development

Before working on the Mk 7 suit with the Visual Development team, I was initially brought into the Art Department to work on the Helicarrier. While ultimately the Production Designer James Chinlund's direction was pursued by Nathan Schroeder to the version you see on screen, I was tasked with providing some alternative approaches. Below is a sampling of some initial sketches pursuing a combination of naval and stealth-inspired forms. In a more radical departure from the concept of 'Heli-' carrier I was exploring some form of vertical jet engine clusters to lift the massive hull rather than the traditional ducted fans.

Remember Avengers?

Yeah. Been awhile. And Avengers is old news.
But as anyone who... ahem...'follows'... my blog, it's not something that focuses on timeliness.

Better late than never, eh?

I do have a big dump to put up, as I spent a little time on almost every aspect of the movie, including the Helicarrier, Quinjet, Aliens and Alien craft.

So, prompted by special request, I'm putting up a selection of my work on Avengers.
So lets begin with a few bits of what you've come to expect from me and the one design of mine that made it into the film untouched... the MK 7. 

Below are the initial 3 sketches I did early on before we knew what the Mk 7 should be. The first was actually a revision of a design I had been thinking of initially for Iron Man 2 before ultimately choosing another project. It was a lighter, more streamlined version of what had come before, trying to integrate a flowing theme wrapping around the "RT" on the chest and mirroring that fast line through the body. This was more of the evolutionary design, and ultimately was approved pretty much immediately as a starting point for the Mk 7.

The next design was playing around with the stance  of the suit toward more of a brawler attitude, somewhat beefier and less aircraft-like.

Lastly was a more extreme departure, trying to create a very different silhouette, sort of the Stark Industries answer to a more heavily militarized suit like War Machine, but drawing from Air Force form language instead of Army.

Further discussion of the function of the suit in the script lead to the idea of having a more armored suit that over the course of battle would shed its ammo packs and additional armor. Styling elements from the first and third concepts were integrated and the design was revised as below...

The final design would incorporate a thruster backpack for the pivotal final battle, which wrapped around the "lats" and "serratus" areas under the arm to form flush mounted adjustable intake vanes. Much of the approach was based on the mantra of the "wearable Ferrari" so a lot of attention was spent on creating flowing lines from chest though the torso, pelvis, arms and legs. 

Final design detailing was painted over turnarounds of the Mk 4 suit, to keep proportions consistent and realistic.

Lastly elevations were painted at an extreme level of detail to make sure lines would resolve all the way around the surface, giving our modeler Josh Herman a solid foundation to build from. Even still a lot was resolved in the modeling process.

The final model below, digitally sculpted by Josh Herman, reflects a very tight collaborative process to create the final form. 

Tony Stark's house design...

Here are some of the original sketches for Tony Stark's house. Production Designer Michael Riva mandated a Malibu cliffside home in the vein of John Lautner's really organic cast concrete & glass homes. The first designs were for set extensions of existing homes, but nothing we scouted looked like a billionaire's home. A few multi-millionaires homes but...

So I came up with this design and perched it in the most decadent location I could think of, right on top of Point Dume, a California State Park. Who else but a billionaire could get those building permits?


The garage under the cantilevered livingroom I really liked, looking out over the ocean between the buttresses. Since that's where Tony really lives, it should still have a nice view. The actual garage set is three times the size of the livingroom and would never fit in that space below, but thanks to the magic of movie geography, it's never apparent.

Master set designer Kevin Cross took these along with some loose elevations and built a beautiful model in Maya which the VFX companies used for reference. While the interiors were fully realized sets on stage, only the exterior of the living room balcony was practical, the rest of the exterior of the house is a CG model composited into plates of Point Dume.

I'll put up some of the interior designs next.