One of the last projects I worked before disappearing into Star Wars universe was Tarzan. Long before It got greenlit, about three years ago I worked on a series of images with David Yates to help show Warners what the show may feel like.  Frazetta all the way in these images!

In my humble opinion there really is only one 'art of' book series and its the one that started it all.

I must have read this book a million times back in the late 70's. There have been a huge amount of Concept artist's since these guys started it. Ralph Mcquarrie and Joe johnston were and still are leagues ahead of all the others that followed. What they did through the 70's and 80's still fills me with Awe. I love Ron Cobb and Nilo's work and love the boldness of Syd Mead and appreciate how groundbreaking he was. Nothing else stands up to this body of work done between '74 and '83.

 Now nearly 40 years later..............

Avengers 2 Age of Ultron, Man from Uncle and some old stuff

I've not updated for a while and probably won't be able to in the near future due to the nature of the work I'm currently on.
 Here are just a couple of pieces from Ultron, Uncle and a few others. As an Art Director its my responsibility to make sure the artists that work for me deliver both the right vision for the piece as well the quality. That can mean collaborating on Art. The Uncle 'Checkpoint Charlie' piece was started by Joe Mclamb and I jumped in later.
As I look around the web at the explosion of concept art, I see how most up and coming artists  concern themselves only with technique.  The ideas are usually more important and harder to define as a process.
painting a picture is relatively easy, coming up with a good idea is not. It is very collaborative and usually not one person can claim an idea or that painting was solely theirs.

I recently finished a lecture at the Industry Workshops in London.  It was great to see so many people and I had some great thoughtful questions at the end. I wonder if anyone understood what I was really on about.......

influences .......

Growing up in the 70's meant that Sci-Fi was the poor cousin of other genres. Then Star Wars changed everything. It's hard to explain to those that were not born when it was released that before George Lucas came along Sci-Fi was cheesy and relatively simple. There was nothing in comparison ....literally nothing.... a void. Movies like 2001 made no sense to me so I grew up on Harryhausen and odd movies like Silent Running.  Book jackets was where the cool stuff was for me.  Here are a few of the Artists that influenced me as a kid. I Still love their work today and they inspired me to start using acrylics and an airbrush. Some of the work may look dated but I admire the compositions, designs and use of colour to tell the story. More importantly, before photoshop it all had to be done the hard way. Unless you have tried to paint images like this you have no idea how easy photoshop makes it. Don't get me wrong, there are some fantastic digital artists out there but its the skill of real painting, commitment and no 'undos' that I admire in these works.

I was privileged to have the same agent as this guy and remember being in awe of the originals
not well known now but he was the 'Artists' choice as a space ship designer.

Peter Elson

http://www.peterelson.co.uk/index.php

Chris Moore.

I was introduced to Chris by my good friend Fred Gambino. He probably won't remember but I would just call him up and chat to him on the phone in the early 90's when I was starting out.  The compositions are just incredible.

It was artworks like these that made me get my Devilbiss  super 63 airbrush about 1986.

http://www.chrismooreillustration.co.uk


Images are copyright the respective artists.

Guardians of the Galaxy

Before I joined ILM I contributed  to Guardians of the Galaxy.  Hired by the production at the beginning of the show I developed images For Morag, Xandar and Knowhere.

I designed the Knowhere Robot Head and  have included the image chosen by Marvel that inspired the direction. I also Designed and worked on  the Zbrush sculpt that VFX used in their DMP's using an initial sculpt I did for the concept paintings.  After seven months in pre-production I then hired a team and spent three months creating all the concept assets under my direction while I provided lighting studies for VFX to follow.

Tip of the hat to my old friend Fred Gambino and Chris Cook who joined me designing assets through the summer. Big thanks to all the 70's and 80's book jacket illustrators that inspired me on this show, Chris Foss,  Chris Moore,  Peter Elson and many others.

Once again I managed to get into the Marvel 'Art of Book' which was cool.

Here is a selection of some of the work.

New Challenge

After 12 Years and many films I decided to leave Framestore and the Art Department that  I created for a new challenge.  I have had one ambition for over thirty years and decided to take the opportunity to work with what I regard as some of the most talented Artists and film makers in the Business.

Edge of Tomorrow

Edge of Tomorrow.

I was brought on by Warners Bros at the very early stages of the production. Initially working with Doug and then Oliver when he joined. I led the team that helped concept develop the exosuit which took about six months of work, some of the images had all of the team participating under me due to time constraints . Special mention to Chris and Sam who collaborated on some of the models.

As the suit went into production I then worked with Nick Davis and the VFX crews for nearly a year to work on all things Mimics. Thanks to Ivan who developed some incredible clay sculpts.

all images copyright Warner Bros