Guy Davis's Blog, page 3

"who's the most remarkable, extra-or-di-nary fellow....."

"Popeye the sailor!" A couple 2012 drawings from my personal sketchbook, blue pencil and marker. A bag of Smarties candy and the old black shirt Popeye cartoons from Fleischer Studios were a favorite afternoon combo as a kiddo!

I always wished we woulda got to see a Fleischer Sea Hag too!

Kaiju interior decorating!

My new website redesign is up and running, be sure to check back to the main news page for more updates and new galleries coming soon. In the meantime I’m going to try and catch up with the Sketch Macabre tumblr a bit, so here’s some PACIFIC RIM concept art for the interior of the fallen Otachi and the second brain sequence.
The first designs were like an organic cavern with neural electricity jumping off the mountaineer-like scavengers rubber suits. The entrance to the kaiju’s second brain also incorporated a large angular heart valve like opening based on a concept by the talented Allen Williams.
The original suits were just place holders and a quick idea I sketched up for scale, with the amazing costume designer Once Guillermo approved these keyframes, concept artist Stephen Schirle did an incredible paint over for color and lighting, which you can see (along with more of his great Pacific Rim work over at his website)!

An Otachi evolution ~ making a PACIFIC RIM kaiju!

This week Guillermo del Toro’s PACIFIC RIM came out on DVD/Blu-Ray, so now you can have kaiju alerts anytime you want! I had a great time getting to be part of Guillermo’s core concept team along with designing some of the film’s kaiju, Otachi and Slattern! Here’s a look at some of the early concept I did for Otachi and the evolution of the kaiju from sketch to screen.

All the kaiju designs I did started out with a blank piece of paper and few ideas for forms and character. Above (top), is the first quick sketch for a possible kaiju that would become “Otachi”, based loosely on a crawling bat with the twin blade horns inspired by the prehistoric skull of a Brontotherium. Guillermo liked the direction of that form and I worked it up to a cleaner design (center), fleshing out the details and character. With Guillermo’s input we worked up the bottom design, getting rid of her multiple side eyes and adding the glowing “eye spots” to the front of the horns and split chisel lower jaw. The hammer tail in the early drawings also became a snake like spear.

After that, the next pass at the designs tightened all those ideas into the final concept drawings above.

Guillermo also wanted the kaiju to have 2 silhouettes, standing and crawling so a rearing Otachi was also worked out (above). Along with a flying pose with her wings extended (below). 

The final details of Otachi’s head were also tightened, but the tendons connecting her jaws were dropped in the final model.

Once all these concepts were finalized and Guillermo approved, the drawings were passed to concept artist Francisco Ruiz Velasco who did a final rendered painting of the design and fleshed out more details like the glowing spots along her neck. Otachi’s attacking tail was also added in Francisco’s pass at the character, taken from the unused kaiju “Meathead”, an earlier character that I designed with concept sculptor Simon Lee.

From there the designs and rendering were given to concept artist/ sculptor David Meng who created the final maquette that brought everything together into the final Otachi that would end up in the film! And I’ll admit it’s still a big thrill to see her come to life on the screen. You can check out more of the all the concept that went into making the film with the official art book “PACIFIC RIM: MAN, MACHINES and MONSTERS”. And be sure to check out all the featurettes and extras included in the new PACIFIC RIM DVD release!

Guillermo's THE DEVIL'S BACKBONE Criterion release!

Guillermo del Toro’s wonderful and haunting film, THE DEVIL’S BACKBONE was released on DVD/Blu-Ray through Criterion today (with the fitting spine #666)! When I was finishing up concept for Guillermo’s THE STRAIN, he asked if I wanted to provide the cover and booklet artwork for The Devil’s Backbone DVD~ and that was a question that was easy to answer with a loud “Yes!” Here’s a peek behind the scenes at some of the early design sketches me and Guillermo worked out for the cover below.

From there we worked up some color sketches for another round of cover ideas~ we eventually went with something that combined ideas #2 and #3 with Criterions input. The Criterion special edition is a beautifully restored transfer filled with tons of extras, featurettes and deleted scenes~ and of course Guillermo’s amazing film!

Guillermo del Toro's PACIFIC RIM!

PACIFIC RIM is finally out on the big screen and aside from an incredible and fun Guillermo del Toro movie, this is the giant monster movie we’ve all been hoping for! I was thrilled to have gotten to be part of Guillermo’s core concept team on the film, working for 11 months on creature and prop concept and then later helping out with storyboards. To coincide with the film’s release is the "PACIFIC RIM: Man, Machines and Monsters" art book from Insight Editions which prints tons of concept art and photos from everyone involved in the production, including designs I did for the kaiju’s Otachi and Slattern! I’ll try to show more concept I did for the film in the coming weeks, but for now here’s a couple from the book~ (might be SPOILERS for anyone who hasn’t seen it yet)

more ugly mugs to go with an empty coffee mug~ quick marker...

more ugly mugs to go with an empty coffee mug~ quick marker sketches off the top of my head for practice, no under drawing.