Wednesday, November 14, 2007

Planet Krypton concept art

So we had a flashback sequence in Smallville to the city of Kandor on planet Krypton which I had to design for Entity FX. I referenced mainly the original 1978 movie for the natural formations, but tried to innovate somewhat with the design of the city. The first thing we knew we wanted a reddish cast to the the thing, reflecting the red sun of Krypton.
I had this idea about the building having a glassy look, which would catch and reflect the red sunlight and do some interesting things with it. I figured maybe the towers were grown, just as the fortress of solitude is an organic, crystalline structure, but that the towers were also carved and polished by human effort, and not as chaotic as the fortress.


I had this idea in mind of a cathedral-like structure, out in the middle of a vast wasteland.

And the final sketch...

I refined the landscape into a hi-res matte painting, while Kaz Yoshida built and rendered the structure in Maya and Metal Ray. I then assembled all the elements into a final composite in After Effects.
Click here to see the final shot and layer breakdown.

11 comments:

Jeff said...

Jason - your stuff is badass. Love it. Keep 'em coming. Much more fun to look at than my usually RSS feeds. Except for the porn ones. ;)

gemini82 said...

Man Just found your blog via Cgtalk. Im loving your man.

andrea said...

Kaz and Jason blowin up krypton! awesome.

Brendan Gill said...

It's amazing, and nice job on the shot breakdown. You're the McQuarrie of Krypton!

Anonymous said...

Amazing work mate! Krypton looked so breathtaking in the episode, your designs were awesome. I can only hope to see more of your Krypton in later eps

El Magni said...

Incredible work.

I'd like to post it in my blog, which is about comics, series, movies, and i write about Smallville every week.

Please tell me what you think.
http://elblogazodelcomic.blogspot.com/

Anonymous said...

Jason your desgin of Krypton is simply AMAZING . I hope we get to see more flashback's of your version of Krypton on smallville i the ear future .

andrea said...

I hope you don't mind I tagged you on my blog littledrawings.blogspot.com! Participate if you want, if not it's cool it's just for fun. Thanks!

mordicai said...

Hey, I think I may have seen your work a while ago on io9? Re-stumbled across you today; really very nice.

Anonymous said...
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Anonymous said...

Hi - I am really happy to discover this. Good job!