This is one of the first images I did of the inside of Varang’s Yurt. It focuses on Quaritch’s second encounter with Varang in the very heart of Ash country, which turned out to be one of my favorite scenes in the movie & has made me even more of a fan of Quaritch & Stephan Lang. As I made this image I imagined the strong musk of unknown spices & smoke; how the afternoon light would be mostly blotted out by the thick hides that make up the walls of the yurt except for the intricately woven vents. The menacing character of home, full of ritual animal parts, savage-looking hooks, the butchered queue braids of Na’vi enemies & other brutal trophies is punctuated by a very cozy looking bed, which is structurally woven into the yurt itself. The exterior was designed first, which helped inform the unusual space inside. I hope to share that at some point soon if more images are released.
#varang #avatarfireandash #jamescameron #conceptart #avatar
Another few images were released for me to share starting with a key frame of the Windtraders setting off on a journey with their riders fanning out around their gondola to scout. This was an image done earlier in the development of the gondola before much of the weaving & what would be the final textures were completed for the model that was delivered to vfx.
The second & third images are a couple pages from a rigging manual I put together to help the wider team understand how the ship operated & coordinate the actors to perform the actions on deck in the scenes where they navigated the gondola. I was helped a lot in figuring this out by watching a video of a simple physical mockup that was done by someone I believe at @wetaworksop —I don’t know who, but tell me if you do! The extent to which they & the team at @wetaofficial took our designs & resolved absolutely every detail is completely mind-boggling!
#avatarfireandash #avatar3 #windtraders #tlalim #jamescameron
These are the final approved images of the Windtraders Gondola from Avatar: Fire & Ash. The first is a design image done as a key frame exploring the Tlalim clan’s dressing of one of their ships. Being wide ranging travelers & traders, the items they use to decorate the ship are the most eclectic, incorporating everything from the Na’vi cultures we’ve encountered, some from their own & some from others we’ve maybe never seen. The Windtraders are the most technologically advanced of the Na’vi people, still using only materials from their surroundings & the natural craftsmanship methods of the Na’vi, but with the resulting structure capable of a very complex interplay of functions between harnessing two gargantuan animals & directing their strengths into useful motion, controlling buoyancy to achieve their desired altitude, riding the winds, functioning as their village & a mobile trading post.
The model renders show some close ups from the massive model that I created in @gravitysketch VR. The skin of the model consist of a large number of textures painted at up to 25k pixels to achieve the proper scale with the density of weaving that would have been required to cover such a large structure.
Credit for the basic design DNA of the main deck layout & cabin goes to the incredible John Park. Though there are significant design influences from saiful.haque & @nick_gindraux who participated in an early few rounds of throwing spaghetti at the wall for James Cameron (Jim) to see what stuck & had a large hand in developing the graphic language of the reef village & how we made those structures in 3D which carried over to the gondola. @artistdaphneyap also heavily influenced the graphic language of how the Na’vi weave with exhaustive studies. @jacq.i along with many other artists in Lightstorm’s lab ingested & processed wave after wave of gigantic updates from me repeatedly in record time to get it into the virtual space for Jim to shoot.
#avatarfireandash #avatar3 #windtraders #tlalim #jamescameron
I’m very happy to have had the opportunity to contribute to the Avatar universe on this movie in particular with the super talented Avatar team. Countless hours were spent by everyone involved on a myriad of incredibly meticulous designs that were finally revealed in all their glory with the release of Avatar: Fire & Ash last month. Special thanks to production designers @dylancoleart , @ben.procter.design , the late & great producer John Landau & of course director @jamescameronofficial .
The design of this set was the product of the work of a few of us illustrators & I’ll go into the early process of its development in more detail in time. Here is one key frame beauty shot done for this awesome set, along with some raw renders of the model I spent an insane amount of time in weaving the rope & developing textures for. The model had to be repeatedly processed by our virtual art department for use as a digital set with each update I made, which was a huge amount of work for each mesh of this giant model to be used in their system. It was also translated into a physical build for use with the actors in a giant motion capture volume & sent to @wetafxofficial for use in their final vfx model build.
#avatarfireandash #avatar3 #jamescameron #windtraders #tlalim
Here are more early sketches in ink & pencil exploring Reef Marui architecture & aesthetics. I’ve also included a few photos from the office I shared with @johnjpark & @messingart of the reference models we put together made from wire coat hangers, pantyhose & hot glue. Concept model maker @jeffmfrost helped John & I out by constructing some mangrove roots out of tubing for us to build into. If you pay close attention, you might be able to see where on the model some of these sketches were referenced from. Good times!!
#avatar #avatarsequels #avatar2 #avatarthewayofwater #jamescameron #metkayina #conceptart #movieart #art #digitalart #digitalsketch #digitalillustration
This is an illustration that started as another early ink sketch studying Marui design & construction & it’s one of my favorites. At this point I was getting pretty comfortable with the philosophy the Na’vi used in perching these Marui among the giant coastal Mangrove roots under tension. Initially they were conceived as hanging baskets, but Jim—always focusing on the real world performance of a design—determined that they’d be destroyed after getting dashed against the roots during any storm. So we kept pushing. :)
#avatar #avatarsequels #avatar2 #avatarthewayofwater #jamescameron #metkayina #conceptart #movieart #art #digitalart #digitalsketch #digitalillustration
Neteyam & Lo’ak take some time to learn the ways of the reef people in this image I did a while back to help get a sense of daily life on the water. They use different colored soaked plant fibers to weave a textile that might become a basket or part of a Marui. The images we did of the village were so fun & full of life with old & young Na’vi riding Ilu, casting fishing nets or cruising around the mangrove roots in canoes.
#avatar #avatarsequels #avatar2 #avatarthewayofwater #jamescameron #metkayina #conceptart #movieart #art #digitalart #digitalsketch #digitalillustration
This was a painting of a cluster of Marui that started out as a loose ink sketch. There were many studies done to figure out how the structures strapped and wrapped the mangrove roots & how each home became part of a complex, in this case one cascading into another.
#avatar #avatarsequels #avatar2 #avatarthewayofwater #jamescameron #metkayina #conceptart #movieart #art #digitalart #digitalsketch #digitalillustration
These are early ink sketches studying Marui design & construction. The first was done in one of the fevered late night sessions with John Park trying to figure out what the Metkayina Village was, what it looked like & how it was put together. We had had some conversations at this point with Jim about how the structures were tautly held in place under tension & I tried to capture that here along with how ties wrapping the mangrove roots meant to help Navi travel up and down in their neighborhood could double as decoration. The team did a TON of work on walkway engineering & the next couple sketches were early explorations.
#avatar #avatarsequels #avatar2 #avatarthewayofwater #jamescameron #metkayina #conceptart #movieart #art #digitalart #digitalsketch #digitalillustration
The Sully family are reluctantly welcomed to their new home in the reef village & encounter novel surroundings & unfamiliar reef people along the way. Some look on with suspicion, while others go about their business. This image was done after many individual marui studies to help capture the overall feeling of the this environment from the electric color of the water to the weaves of the walkways.
#avatar #avatarsequels #avatar2 #avatarthewayofwater #jamescameron #metkayina #conceptart #movieart #art #digitalart #digitalsketch #digitalillustration
This is a shot exploring another view of the Metkayina Sully Marui incorporating some of the stunning practical work done by @wetaworkshop into the textures & the beautiful mangrove root designs meticulously sculpted by @ianjoynerart . This shot also allowed me to resolve some of the other Marui in the neighborhood focusing on different types of weaves & root attachments.
#avatar #avatarsequels #avatar2 #avatarthewayofwater #jamescameron #metkayina #conceptart #movieart #art #digitalart #digitalsketch #digitalillustration
I’m very happy to have had the opportunity to contribute to the Avatar universe & on this movie in particular with the super talented Avatar team. Countless hours were spent by everyone involved on a myriad of incredibly meticulous designs & shots that I’m excited will be shared this December in theaters. Special thanks to production designers Dylan Cole, Ben Procter, producer John Landau & of course director James Cameron for their incredible creativity & tireless leadership.
#avatar #avatarfireandash #avatar3 #jamescameron
