Porthos

For several reasons I started reading 'The Three Musketeers' by Alexandre Dumas. Not only perfect entertainment but a great lesson in storytelling too. The ebook is available here.

"I have always had more dread of a pen, a bottle of ink, and a sheet of paper than of a sword or pistol."

— Alexandre Dumas

Black Death

With all of the remakes, reboots and absurd game & comic adaptions spewing forth from Hollywood lately, Black Death shows a story with some original thought to it. Set in the plague year of 1348, the film is a tale of fundamentalist Christianity, fearful superstition and atavistic paganism.



Ulric (Sean Bean) heads up a group of knights and journeys into the marshes lead by a young monk - Osmund - to discover why one village doesn’t seem to be affected by the wretched disease. What they find is a necromancer called Langvia; but when she reveals her true nature and offers Osmund his heart’s desire, he must choose between the love of his God and the woman he loves. Watch the trailer at Revolver Entertainment

making-of Prince of Persia

I just wanted to mention that my friends at cgheute have posted an article about Prince of Persia. The interview will provide more detail about the making of the film and the images I had done for it.



"…I spent about three weeks painting thousands of houses and hundreds of minarets for The City of Alamut. The size of the painting was about one meter high and 2 meters wide, and provided detail for several shots all in one image. We just wanted to make sure to give all the information to postproduction for the final 3D model…" read more

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.

N⊕TTINGHAM

In Winter 2007 I worked in Shepperton on a film called 'Nottingham'. Only seven weeks later the project was stopped because the script was undergoing major changes and with it most of the locations and sets too. Eventually, filming was continued in 2009 and released under the title 'Robin Hood'.

Below, I posted some of the concepts I had done for medieval London, Nottingham and a castle siege in France.

alchemy |’alkemē

Figurative: a process by which paradoxical results are achieved or incompatible elements combined with no obvious rational explanation

Alchemy isn’t software for creating finished artwork, but rather a sketching environment that focuses on the absolute initial stage of the creation process. Intentionally reduced to a level of functionality there are no undo, no selecting, and no editing features. Interaction focuses instead on the output of a great number of good, bad, strange and beautiful shapes.


Alchemy is an open drawing project aimed at exploring how we can sketch, draw, and create on computers in new ways. Try and download a free version at al.chemy.org

Andrej Delany

My pal Thomy is just about to finish his second graphic novel of "la chronique des immortals". He asked me and a few other guys to contribute some sketches to a gallery section that will be added to the book. So here is my take on Andrej Delany, bloody hell…

another one

Ninja Assassin

Elsewhere...

Heavy Metal

Universal has just debuted the first international trailer for Ridley Scott's Robin Hood (pictures and behind-the-scenes footage can be found on this blog)

The script went through a lot of changes as the title did too. Previously titled as 'Nottingham', Russel Crowe was meant to play the part of the sheriff. This is only the start of a series of period-films due to be released next year. After all the remakes and comic adaptions Hollywood seems to have re-discoverd the medieval times.