The Sands of Time

Concept art for Prince of Persia
I had done several illustrations for the King's funeral but this is my favorite in terms of scale and atmosphere. It was done in a very early stage of production and I wish I would have had more reference then for the final costume designs.

The 'City of Alamut' was my first task when I arrived in Marrakech. The design was based on original Indian architecture and then extended into a fantastic superstructure. We designed the city on different levels, from poor to more wealthy areas up to the palaces on top, cascading into a massive tower reaching into the clouds. Finding a good measure between fantasy and history was the main concern of the production designer. Which wasn't that easy because the story was set in a period that can only be researched by paintings, scrolls and hieroglyphics...



...until I got my hands on a book called 'Orientalists', containing more than 300 of the finest paintings of the genre. Most of them created by artists of the nineteenth-century - some of them I hadn't even heard of until that day - it soon became my bible and main source of inspiration. The book ran out of print years ago but a few copies are still around for horrendous prices starting from $1,699 at Amazon.

Temple of Water
The cave was entirely built on stage and designed around the stunt-fighting taking place in there. Hundreds of miles away from Morocco the set was build in London but had to tangentially match the exterior shots in Oukaimden. This and more illustrations of my fellow artists can be found in the book 'Behind the Scenes of Prince of Persia' from Disney Publishing.