In a motion picture, when they do concept art, it’s for the design and approval of sets, characters, action scenes and all other elements of the story. The art department will be given the script, or vague/precise descriptions of the scenes in general and they come back to the director with the concept art.
In this case, since I’m the only one putting this together, it’s less about presenting it to me for approval and just for the sake of ironing out the visuals of the story before I go ahead and illustrate the whole thing.
All these shots will be coming from a 120 page script already written, for a graphic novel that will likely come in at considerably longer…
There are no mermaids in Atlantic, but there is a mermaid calendar, a gag gift from Willy to Fish. I wanted to try something a little different, so… mermaid. It also proved to be skin-tone practice for another project, to be displayed in the future.When I first wrote the script, “The Temple”, or the doors at the top of the hill’s stairs, had a pair of knockers, with male and female heads behind them that resembled Zeus and Hera, but weren’t. I abandoned the heads in later drafts, but when I added the Zeus-type head to the third poster, mostly just for visual effect, it sparked some ideas…Once I added the deity carving to the doors, Admiral Ramirez blasting his way in felt far more ominous than when it was just a pair of blank surfaces. It felt more intrusive, bordering on sacrilegious. So I titled the sequence “Tempting the Wrath of Dead Gods”, and I realized that would make a great addition to Ramirez’ actual dialogue in that scene. More arrogant, full of hubris… and it begs the question, if his goons were blown off the stairs, why wasn’t he? Maybe those “dead gods” want him inside…Under the Lilypad at the work site. I love underwater mood shots, and this one fit that vision perfectly. It’s also sparked new ideas for the script itself, which is what concept art is often supposed to do.
