io9 "Best of the Week"...

I just peeked into io9.com, one of my favorite sites, and was surprised to see one of my old concept paintings from Jon Favreau's version of John Carter of Mars up as the header picture for the Best of the Week. Nice to see that this unmade dream still lives on...

R.I.P. - John Michael Riva

Mourning my first mentor in the film business, and the man who gave me my big break. Working with Mike was like a window into an Art Department of years past, when making a movie was just a shared good time and everyone was high on the joy of the creative process. Nothing since has matched the sheer fun of making Zathura, when the future of the studio wasn't riding on our shoulders and it seemed only we knew what a gem we were putting together. It felt like everyone in the Art Department was eager to be at work and reluctant to leave, even after Mike called out "Okay kids, pencils down!" promptly at 6:00. And it wasn't just because of the 20 year old scotch he'd have just cracked open to share. That energy came from Riva, a knowing grin that we weren't curing cancer, that if we didn't have a good time making the movie, no one would have a good time watching it either. It's a secret that seems to be lost to the business these days, when everything seems to get more and more squeezed.

Mike protected his crew. He knew the value of having a life and balance, and made sure we all kept ours. Mike's art department was a family, with all of the highs and lows, the love and disfunction, but one thing you knew with Mike, was that it was never just business with him. He cared. About the work, and about everyone who shared that work with him. And those that knew him knew that sometimes he cared maybe a bit too much, for good and for ill. It was always personal to Mike. But that's what I'll miss. Everything is "just business, nothing personal" these days. And it'll get just a bit more so without Mike Riva.

Avengers interview on Comic Book Movie

I got interviewed about the design of the new MK7 suit for Avengers. You can check out the interview HERE.

Cowboys & Aliens

Cowboys and Aliens opened this weekend to somewhat disappointing box office, at least as far as I'm concerned - I personally thought it was great. Strong character work and acting, great dialog and lots of fun. Jon Favreau keeps pulling it off, and if anyone could have made a stronger film given the basic premise promised by the title, I don't know who. Let's face it, it could have been the summer's biggest joke. Instead, the material was taken seriously and treated lovingly, and we got a fine film I'm proud to have contributed to. So congratulations to Jon, writers Alex Kurtzman & Bob Orci and Production Designer Scott Chambliss for a great movie!

Anyway, I'll be posting some of my concept work for the alien "speeder" vehicle in the coming days. For now, here's the image that I was told caught Spielberg's eye and led to the speeder design as we see it in the film.

Avengers Assemble!!

Most of you have probably seen this already as it was one of the most highly publicized images to come out of this year's Comic Con, but here's the Avengers Poster that Marvel released in seven parts to eager fans. Click HERE for the full poster in a larger size.



Illustrated by my good friends and colleagues Ryan Meinerding, Charlie Wen and Andy Park from their costume designs for the movie, it includes the first appearance of the Mk 7 Iron Man suit I designed for Avengers. Thanks, Ryan, for doing it better justice than I ever would!!

Looking forward to posting my own design sketches of the Mk 7 when the movie comes out. And watch out for this one in 2012, people. I don't usually make predictions on movies I've worked on, but if it's half as good as Joss Whedon's script we were working from, it's going to kick some serious ass!! And Joss is directing it himself, so how likely is it he'll screw that up? 2012 is going to be massive.

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. **

Speaking at Otis

Had a great time last night speaking to this year's graduating class in the Digital Media department at Otis. Watch out! A serious batch of talent about to flood the industry and take all our jobs!

With any luck I sabotaged them all with some timely misinformation and crushed their wills with my devastating criticism, so we can all sleep better.

Have to say, I am continually astounded at the level of technical skill and imagination that this generation of artists is entering the workforce with. As I told this lot of future future-builders, this truly is a golden age for conceptual art. The accessibility of the tools and availability of training has really accelerated what seemed for me to be a decades-long learning curve. With such a leg up I can't imagine what all of these artists will be doing two decades into their careers. Hope I'm still around to see it, and not doddering on about how "In MY day, you had to use GOUACHE! And it dried a DIFFERENT COLOR than what you MIXED! UPHILL! BOTH WAYS!!"

...Oh, crap.
That was me last night.

So thanks to Otis for hosting me and to all of the students for giving me their attention and honoring me with their appreciation. My best of luck to all of them.