Castle Forecourt, Plan. This was never built but served as the template for our exterior process plates. I was still drawing in pencil at that time, Layout had not been invented and the Production Designer didn't like digital drawings.
Castle Forecourt, Elevations.
Castle Forecourt, VFX maquette.
Castle Forecourt, VFX shot from the film.
Exterior Castle, ornament studies. Ultimately the director wanted something minimal, so these never saw the light of day.
Exterior Castle, more ornament studies. Our production designer like the interlaced border on the right.
Exterior Castle, Ornament studies. I rendered the selected rough in Photoshop to match our material selections for the castle.
Tower Dome Studies. Modeled in Sketchup and Silo, Rendered in Vue 10, and post-processed in Photoshop.
More Tower Dome Studies. Modeled in Sketchup and Silo, Rendered in Vue 10, post-processed in Photoshop
Tower Dome Studies. Yes, I know they look like turds, my wife mentioned that. Maybe that's why nobody chose this one. Modeled in Sketchup and Silo, Rendered in Vue 10, post-processed in Photoshop
Studies for the Queen's Tower. The director wanted us to use Gaudi's Casa Batlo as a model but everything anyone did looked like a frozen desert so we went with a smoother option. Modeled in SketchUp and Silo, rendered in Vue, post-processed in Photoshop.
Exterior Castle, VFX Marquette. Side view. Modeled in SketchUp.
Exterior Castle. Side. VFX plate.
Exterior Castle, VFX Maquette, End. Modeled in SketchUp.
Exterior Castle, End. VFX plate.
Exterior Castle. VFX maquette top. Modeled in SketchUp.
Exterior Castle. Top, VFX plate.
Mirror Mirror was odd. Yes, most of the films directed by Tarsem Singh are, but this was odd in other ways. We prepped in Los Angeles and Canada at the same time, and the two departments did not communicate, except through the production designer and supervising art director. My job was to design the exterior of the palace, which turned out to be entirely a CG build. Initially, we anticipated that the palace forecourt would be built physically, but after all was said and done it was omitted as a physical set. I had done preliminary pencil drawings for the forecourt and the sunken gardens to each side of the space and those informed my models of the palace. As the queen’s bedchamber was both open to, and integrated with, the palace exterior I wound up inheriting that as well. The rough models I generated went both to VFX and to Canada, where they were drawn and built (or rendered). I also spent a lot of time designing ornament for various sets, the roughs for which I include. If a design was received well, I went on to render the ornament in 3 and 2d. An unfortunate side effect of this international collaboration was that screen credit got scrambled. In order to simplify fringe calculations when we signed our contract, Relativity Media made me a set designer. So, this credit is in my IMDB page as “Set Designer”. Don’t be fooled, I was one of the art directors. The same happened for Immortals, which was made shortly afterwards, by the same crew. Conspiracy? Maybe…
