These renders of Frank Lloyd Wright’s designs take you to an imaginary world!

Frank Lloyd Wright is an icon in the design and architecture world. His career spans over 70 years during which he had 532 completed structures and more than 1114 designs that continue to inspire creators even today. In fact, it is his unfinished concept designs that spark more imagination and Spanish architect, David Romero, has been influenced by just that.

Romero took the 600 designs that Wright left behind and created ultra-realistic 3D renderings of what they would look like today. He even digitally restored some demolished projects. Romero has showcased his art on his website, Hooked on the Past, where he has taken upon himself to complete most of Wright’s unfinished design dreams like the E.A. Smith house, Trinity Chapel, Butterfly Bridge, and the Larkin Administration Building. He uses existing blueprints, plans, elevations, photographs and perspectives from the Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation to guide him as he models structures in AutoCAD and then completing it with finer details using Autodesk 3ds Max.

It is not easy to capture and recreate Wright’s work because most of the plans are from a high point of view. It is a challenge to imagine it from a perspective of someone standing on the street but Romero has a gift to be able to envision a structure and render it with just bits and pieces of the original blueprint. He added details like picturing the Gordon Strong Automobile Objective at night because it was also meant to serve as a planetarium, so he added stars and electric car trails to the image. His attention to detail is seen in the render as he chose to add era-appropriate cars. Romero successfully creates an emotional connection to a building that the audience has never been to but still relates to because of his precise renderings.

“I would love to model all of Wright’s work, but it is immense,” says architect David Romero, a pure Wright fan. “I do not know if during all my life I will have time.” Romero’s work has gone beyond the architecture community and has become relatable to various digital artists like graphic designers and photographers because his renders are so good that they can be considered as contemporary art. While we are all confined to our homes, Romero’s imaginative skills coupled with Wright’s design visions give us the digital window of escape that we can all use right now.

Designers: David Romero

Phil Saunders, the concept designer behind the Iron Man suits

saunders_1

You may not have heard of Phil Saunders (or conversely you may have if you’re a close follower of his work like I am), but you’ve definitely seen his work. There’s no escaping his brand of concept design that has, to put it mildly, molded my teenagehood. Known as the man behind the Iron Man suit we saw and fell in love with in 2008, Saunders has worked on pretty every Marvel movie since, designing suits, sets, and producing concept art that in itself captures every bit of drama we’d expect from an action movie. Having designed the Iron Man suits from the very first movie to the latest Infinity War Movie, Phil even developed War Machine, Ultron, and HulkBuster suit. You may also be familiar with his work from Tron Legacy in 2010, having worked closely with Daniel Simon to develop every inch of the movie’s visual flavor, as well as work as recent as concept art for Star Wars Episode 9. Scroll down to read what the man himself has to say about how he goes about designing Tony Stark’s incredible superhero suits, and how each design is perceived from the PoV of a concept artist, with the need to create drama, as well as an industrial designer, with the need to make products following a certain visual language, and the honing of an approach that makes them transcend the conceptual realm and look realistic and achievable.


“Tell us about your work in Avengers: Infinity War.”

“I was primarily responsible for designing the Iron Man Mk50 and War Machine Mk4 suits. The challenge this time around was that Tony Stark was going to have the “Bleeding Edge” armor, which is unlike any armor in that it is grown around him with nanotech rather than being built out of stamped, machined and assembled parts. A new manufacturing process and new materials require a completely different form language. If you’re essentially making something out of liquid metal, you’re not going to use it to make traditional nuts and bolts and separate panels. You don’t need traditional cut lines if you can vary the hardness and flexibility of your material at will. But the audience needs something to connect with that telegraphs an understandable functionality, so the Mk 50 was designed around accordion-like semi-rigid joints in the areas that would demand it, so that you didn’t feel like the whole thing was rubber or Terminator T-1000-like.

As well, the form language reflects the flow of liquid metal as it forms the suit. It was tough getting the right balance of organic to mechanical to keep the feel of an Iron Man suit. It’s bound to be his most controversial suit design, because it’s such a departure from what people are used to. Another challenge was developing weapons that also felt like they grew organically out of the suit. I took advantage of that to render them up in keyframes, something I don’t often get to illustrate on Marvel projects. I’m looking forward to showing that artwork when Marvel gives us the green light.”

saunders_2
Phil’s visualization of the Mark 46 suit for Captain America: Civil War

“War Machine Mk4 was a much more classic design problem, but the challenge was advancing that design as well to keep up but in a completely different direction. I always try to contrast the two as much as possible in both form language and silhouette, so this time I went with a more faceted armor look that feels more futuristic to what Rhodey’s worn in the past. I also focussed on developing massive advanced weapons systems that fold up seamlessly into his back but totally change his silhouette when all deployed at once.”

saunders_3
A War Machine suit render for Civil War


“What experiences brought you to where you are today?”

“Well, I always knew since I saw Star Wars as a kid that I wanted to be a concept designer for movies, but along the way I took a lot of detours, into automotive and product design, into theme park ride design and as the creative director of a computer game company. I think the diversity of design experience has helped make me a more well-rounded designer than if I had just jumped directly into concept art. Understanding how things work and how they are really manufactured I think lends a lot of believability to even fantasy design. If every line is placed with a thought to it’s theoretical function I think designs just feel “right” to the viewer. We absorb far more than we realize in our day-to-day experience, and even the layman knows instinctively when something is off, even if they don’t know why.”

saunders_4
The technical detailing behind the Iron Man suit’s assembly was detailed out by Saunders too


“What is your advice for aspiring concept designers?”

“We live at a time when tools and techniques are readily available that let you bypass the fundamentals of both design and image creation. And with the volume, pace and realism expected by the state of the art in games and movies, these tools are essential in the work environment to keep up with demands. But I would caution young artists not to be tempted to bypass learning and applying the fundamentals of perspective, color theory, composition, material indication, lighting, anatomy, by jumping straight into 3D and photo bashing.

Software can do all of the aforementioned jobs for you, but unless you understand them and have mastered them from the inside out, without any tricks crutches, your images will be driven not by your singular vision, but by what you’ve been able to find on Google images, or the kinds of forms that are easiest to make in your 3D software of choice, or simply the path of least resistance to creating an image. Worst of all, it won’t be what you don’t know that limits you, but what you don’t know that you don’t know.”

saunders_6
Hulkbuster and Black Widow from Avengers: Age of Ultron

“As an example I am most commonly asked how I am able to render such realistic metallic surfaces freehand without 3D. All of that experience comes from, as an automotive designer, sculpting surfaces into clay, covering them with shiny material and observing how minute changes in the cross-section of a surface affected where the reflections fell, and how they travelled over that surface as I shifted my point of view. So with that experience, I am never satisfied with what comes out of Keyshot, for example, and I always have to paint it over in Photoshop to make it match what I see in my head. 3D may do a great job of imitating reality, but our job as artists is to give clarity, to simplify, to idealize.

We make choices of where a reflection should be simple, in order to communicate how a form is turning or to complete a graphic composition, or where it should be complex to give texture, granularity and realism. But without a fundamental understanding of what’s under the hood and therefore what it should look like, you will just accept the miracle of what your renderer gives you and not even know the opportunity you are missing to elevate it to the next level.”

saunders_5
An Iron Man 3 suit design with a more gold-heavy approach

“Knowledge is control. I am constantly grateful that I came of age at a time when design was created in gouache and marker, pencil and paper, cardboard and clay, but I’m also constantly lamenting that even with that background I didn’t have more training in traditional painting and art. I know enough to recognize my own limitations, and they don’t come from lack of experience in any software, they come from my own headlong rush 30 years ago to become a concept designer without becoming a solid artist first.”

saunders_7
The development of the concept art from Age of Ultron


The original interview with Phil Saunders was conducted by ArtStation Magazine and can be found here.

All images are the property of Phil Saunders

19 Beautiful Works of Video Game Fan Art

Five Night's at Freddy's

Video games are a beautiful medium in itself, but sometimes, the fan art born thanks to the gaming creation can be just as good.

Five Nights at Freddy’s

 

Art by TsaoShin

Witcher 3: The Wild Hunt

Art by Exileden

The Legend of Zelda

Art by Ry-Spirit

GTA V

Art by PatrickBrown

Super Mario Series

Art by Zombie-Graves

The Last of Us

Art by felitomkinson

World of Warcraft

Art by Ketka

Uncharted

Art by Ungapants

Street Fighter Series

Art by UdonCrew

Fallout New Vegas

Art by balvarin

Kingdom Hearts II

Art by Risachantag

The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim

Art by MLeth

Dragon Age 2

Art by sandara

Bioshock Infinite

Art by Xerovas

Metroid

Art by Mr–Jack

Mass Effect Series

Art by virak

Devil May Cry

Art by Unodu

Pokemon

Art by Quirkilicious

Assassin’s Creed

Art by kerembeyit

People sometimes are inspired by video games so much they get tattoos of them. Like these, without focusing on a certain franchise. If you want to be more specific, check out people who can’t get enough of Tetris, or these fans of Nintendo.

Concept Art for a Very Different Toy Story 3

Buzz meeting new friends

Anyone with a shred of emotion and/or love for animated films has seen Toy Story 3. But the story we all know and love, considered by many to be the best animated film of all time? It could have been very different.

Below, you can find key frame and concept art, as well as character designs from Circle 7′s Toy Story 3 that were created by Jim Martin and Shane Zalvin. In that version, written by Jim Herzfeld (“Meet The Parents”) the other toys become concerned when Buzz Lightyear starts to malfunction and decide to ship him to the Taiwanese that originally built him in the hopes they they could repair him.

Soon after, Woody and the rest toys are shocked to learn that there has been a massive recall on all Buzz Lightyear toys. Fearing that Buzz will be destroyed Woody and his gang (Rex, Slinky, Mr. Potato Head, Hamm, Jessie, and Bullseye) head off on a rescue mission. Over in Taiwan, Buzz is making new friends with other toys that have been recalled.

 

 

Images via Imgur

For a bit more alternative art with a take on the wonderful universe Pixar has created, check out these Minimalist posters or these Star Trek characters in Pixar style.

Incredible Concept Art From Thor: The Dark World & X-Men: Days of Future Past

All of Asgard

Concept art is often the visual basis for plenty of the comic book films you see each summer, including X-Men: Days of Future Past and Thor: The Dark World, with the work of Jonny McCoy making it look quite brilliant.

McCoy released a lot of the work he did on both movies (he also did some of the concept art on Edge of Tomorrow) through his website, where there’s more of his work to be scene, on this movies and other projects.

Thor: The Dark World

For the second installment in the Thor film series, McCoy did a brilliant work on creating a beautiful Asgard.

X-Men: Days of Future Past

For X-Men, his designs focused on how the unbeatable Sentinels will look like.

 Via: i09 & Katharine Trendacosta

For more concept art you’d like to check out, here are some brilliant artworks that were the basis of some visuals on classic Disney films.

Amazing Concept Art From Classic Disney Films

attachment

Animated pictures, now and 60-70-80 years ago, back when Disney was just getting started, always come from somewhere. Of course, classical stories and fairy tales most of the time, but the look of the movie has to come from somewhere.

Sometimes its concept art, many times unrelated to the actual creation of the ...
Continue Reading on Walyou

9 Minimalist Posters of Pixar Films

attachment

Pixar changed animated film history and pretty much cinema history, taking the quality of content and obviously visuals into another level, being the first to take advantage of technology moving ...
Continue Reading on Walyou