I had the honor to work as Concept Art Director on the Avatar Sequels starting in 2014. Here are some of my contributions to this amazing universe seeing on the released Avatar- The Way of Water movie, under the guidance of Director James Cameron, Producer Jon Landau and Production Designers Ben Procter and Dylan Cole. To see more of my designs and other incredible work done by the avatar Art Team, check out the Avatar- The Way of Water Art Book:
MAG LEV TRAIN
A heavily armored vehicle, the Mag Lev Train is used to haul essential materials and supplies to the RDA new base. Cameron wanted a larger train compared to the ones we use today, so the challenge was to figure out how to create a believable yet interesting design at this scale.
SEA WASP
The Sea Wasp is a more advanced aircraft designed to operate in land missions but specially the water. It carries the Pingers which are the locators used to track the Tulkuns and guide the Sea Dragons.
CRAB SUIT
Cameron wanted to create some vehicles designed to operate exclusively in water. The Crab Suit is a robotic unit that can be used in robotic mode standing on the deck of the Sea Dragon or underwater as a submarine. The concept artist David Levy did a series of initial concepts and Zbrush models, which established the beautiful shape of the body. I came in and used his initial Zbrush model and did a detailed 3d version of the body and also produced a series of designs for the arms and legs. After a few animation tests we were able to lock on the design you see in the movie. I also did the exterior shader and textures look development.
MAKO SUBMARINE
The Mako submarine is used as support vehicle for capturing the Tulkuns. For the creation of the design, the Production Designer Ben Procter and myself did a round of concepts, and the version Cameron picked was based on a ZBrush model I did with Ben’s paint over on it. I did a temporary 3d version of the design and Joe Hiura built a beautiful CAD version which was used as a base for the VFX model and fabrication of some parts of it
CONSTRUCTION ROBOTS
Bridgehead is packed with a variety of construction heavy machinery and smaller construction robots. I was given the task to design some of the larger Mobile Cranes and also the Swarm Robots, that can be seeing assembling multiple areas of the base.
