CONTENT

ABOUT ME II MY INSPIRATION III THE PROJECT V LESTAT VI MACBETH VI GRENDEL VIII AHAB IX FINAL THOUGHT XII CONCEPT SAMPLES XIII-XVIII RESUME XIX BIBLIOGRAPHY XX

I

first arrived at the Academy I had a very limited knowledge of the art world and all its players. I have come far since that day and learned a lot more about great past illustrators like Howard Pyle, N.C. Wyeth, and Dean Cornwell, or more current illustrators like Bernie Wrightson, Drew Struzan, Donato Giancola, and Greg Manchess. All of these artists, including teachers at the Academy, like Bill Maughan, Stephen Player, Lisa Berrett, Zhoaming Wu, and many more, have helped me mature as an illustrator. Each of them has brought me to where I am today, and each has contributed a little bit of their knowledge in helping me execute my thesis project.

MY INSPIRATION I have always been an avid film buff. For as long as I can remember I have been fascinated by movies. When I was younger I was just interested in the story, but as I grew up, I became en-thralled by the special effects involved in film making. Intricately detailed creatures made into believable char-acters soon became the number one factor in my decision to watch certain films. Naturally, science fiction and fan-tasy became my favorite genres. Rid-ley Scott films such as Alien, Legend, and Blade Runner, as well as John Mctiernan’s Predator and James Cam-eron’s Aliens and Terminator opened up the possibilities in the world of special effects to me. I became interested in how it all worked and soon realized that I wanted to be part of the process, instead of simply viewing the final product. In my subsequent

III

The Predator

The Terminator

1

2

explorations of the special effects industry I discovered that Stan Win-ston and the Stan Winston Studio had been responsible for the effects in two of my favorite movies, Predator and Terminator, as well as in countless other films. From that moment on, I knew I wanted to be a professional il-lustrator. To be responsible for the design of all those amazing crea-tures and characters that appear in the films I love, and to make that movie magic is my dream. I do not want to build sets or make models; instead I want to design and illustrate the characters before they ever reach the third dimension. Being an illustrator is the best way for me to fulfill my dream of creating new and amazing characters, as well as exciting original interpretations of moments from countless stories. A number of artists inspired me down this road, such as Drew Struzan and Alex Ross. Struzan’s poster work, and Richard Amsel before him, related directly to my interest in film and Ross clearly showed how character design was invaluable in storytelling. In addition, the recent work of Weta Workshop with the amazing Alan Lee and John Howe on the Lord of the Rings trilogy has only fueled my ambition. The Masters Program at the Academy of Art University has pre-pared me in many ways to achieve my dreams of becoming a suc-cessful illustrator. With this experience I plan to move forward in my ever continuing art education and spend my life making pictures that everyone can enjoy.

IV

Work by Drew Struzan Work by Alex Ross3 4

V

THE PROJECT From the start, my thesis has been about tragic characters and their hubris. As my project will show, the sadness and misfortune of these characters is a subject of great interest for me. The tragic flaw is the major theme for each character in my work. Originally, I began with an idea to build illustrations for a long list of characters. However, the project has evolved to focus more on a small number of charac-ters. I wanted to pay closer attention to each character, and found my energy flowed better with three or four characters rather than six or seven. I felt I should be more concerned with quality rather than quantity. That being said, the changes to the overall project were not many. Originally I had planned on fifteen paintings as well as a small sketchbook containing designs for each character. The thesis I am presenting today contains ten paintings and a large amount of con-ceptual development materials for each character. I have focused the bulk of my conceptual development and paintings on my favor-ite character of the four, Captain Ahab from Herman Melville’s Moby Dick. Because my ultimate goal is to become a conceptual artist working on motion pictures, I found that simply doing illustrations for my thesis was not enough to really develop and convey my passion for movies and character design. It became a project which not only focused on creating multiple illustrations of different subjects, but also the development of characters and their universes. My portfolio will be a showcase of all these skills and is dual formatted for freelance illustra-tion and visual development for video games and film. My thesis focuses on four differ-ent characters in literature that are each flawed in their own unique ways: the vampire Lestat (Anne Rice’s Inter-view with the Vampire), Le Theatre de Vampire

Macbeth (Shakespeare’s Macbeth), Grendel (John Gardner’s Gren-del), Captain Ahab (Herman Melville’s Moby Dick).

LESTAT

Early on in my thesis project I did a single Illustration for the vampire Lestat from Anne Rice’s novel. I found his excessive pride and arrogant, along with his extravagance, made him a wonderfully tragic character to work on. Along with that, I painted a portrait of Lestat. The project took a turn from that point on. After having done mini-mal conceptual development for Lestat, I decided to focus more heavily on the design of the other characters.

MACBETH My exploration of Macbeth was short because I already had a fairly clear picture of the character in my mind. I wanted to place him directly in the time period the play is set, which is something I have

not really seen on stage or in film. I dressed him in traditional medieval Scottish armor and clothing, wanting him to remain fairly realistic and not overly stylized. I chose Macbeth for his ambition which eventually led to his death. The first illustration, and the subject matter for all three illustrations, is Macbeth’s encounters with the Three Witches that predicted his fu-ture and brought his downfall. The first paint-ing in this series that I completed was of Mac-beth standing over the witches’ cauldron, his hand soaked in blood. As you will see, blood became a strong element in a number of my paintings. I initially did this first Macbeth illus-tration digitally and later painted it in oils for the finish. I painted it with the intent of it being

VI

Lestat de Lioncourt

Macbeth

a possible book cover for the play. The two following illustrations were produced with the intent that they could be interior illustrations for a fully illustrated book. With both of these illustrations I explored the use of atmosphere for depth as well as temperature for composition. In addition, I produced a detailed environment for the Witches’ Tower with the intention of bring to detail the main set for all three illustra-tions.

VII

Macbeth Climbs

Macbeth and Banquo Macbeth and the Witches

GRENDEL Grendel was my next character/creature. I chose this specific char-acter because he is unique and also pro-vided me with the opportunity to de-velop a non-human entity. The monster originally comes from the epic poem Be-owulf but I chose to illustrate the name-sake of John Gard-ner’s novel Grendel because it is the Be-owulf story from the monster’s point of view. The story de-scribes Grendel as a sad and childlike beast, alone in the wild and irritated by the intrusion of the men in his country. His tragedy is that of ignorance and rage. I developed the creature as a massive hairless bear with somewhat human-like forelimbs and the look of a fighting dog or scarred hyena. Two illustrations were painted for this character; the first being the moment he meets the hero Beowulf, in the Viking Mead Hall and the second is the aftermath of that meeting, Grendel’s death, alone in the snow. With the first painting I wanted to establish a sense of scale as well as the moment of reveal of the monster. Grendel’s

VIII

Grendel and Beowulf

death was an idea completely based on an abstract shape which was formed by the blood, giving the image a strong dramatic feel. I designed it as a wrap around book cover. I also provided some stud-ies of the monster along with the creature design sheet in order to establish a clear understanding of how Grendel appears.

AHAB The greatest attention in my thesis went to Captain Ahab and

the story of Moby Dick. In my second to last se-mester at the academy I worked directly with Randy Berrett at Pixar Animation Studios during a directed study. We both decided to push the visual development of Ahab because he was a character many had seen before and would be perfect for reinvention. Before any illustrations were started, I really fleshed out the look and feel-ing of Captain Ahab, developing three distinct looks for the character, as well as the many itera-tions that brought me to my final design. After deciding which character look to go with, my first illustration was a showcase for that look. I wanted

IX

Death of the Beast

Captain Ahab

to give the image an N.C Wyeth feeling and ended up really push-ing the atmosphere in order to sil-houette Ahab on the deck of his ship. In my final semester I have been working with Tim Evatt, also at Pixar, and he has guided me through more development of not only Ahab, but also his ship the Pequod and the white whale himself, Moby Dick. I really want-ed to develop the Pequod as if it too were a character and vessel for Ahab’s vengeance. The final two illustrations for the Captain consisted of the moment when he is hunting the whale that crippled him, and the final moments of his life when he throws himself and his wrath onto Moby Dick, becoming entangled in the ropes from his har-poons. With The Hunt painting, I wanted to develop a strong compo-sition and convey the intensity of rowing a small boat on the high seas

X

Captain Ahab on the Pequod

The Hunt

after a violent and angry whale. The center of focus is Ahab at the very edge of sanity, reaching after the white whale. In the last illustra-tion the focus is Ahab in a maelstrom of waves, blood and insanity. I wanted the focus to be on only Ahab, so I worked loosely with the rest of the image, keeping the contrast low and the chaotic atmosphere high. The only true secondary read I wanted was the eye of Moby Dick for a sense of scale in comparison to Ahab. The white whale is a mighty leviathan and Ahab meets his death while trapped in his own ropes, spitting his last breath at his one hate while it drags him into the deep. His undoing is the result of vengeance and hate.

XI

“...for hate’s sake, I spit my last breath at thee.”

FINAL THOUGHT The process of creating this body of work for my thesis has been an incredible learning experience as well as a whole lot of fun. While exploring these characters I ended up learning a lot more about them, as well as more about my abilities as an artist. I had many failures and struggles with mediums and techniques, but I learned from every trip and stumble. I pushed very hard to make these visions truly match up with what I saw in my mind’s eye. That can be a very difficult journey, but in the end it pays off tremendously. Ultimately, I have created a portfolio from this work that I strongly believe will help me find a job as both a professional illustrator and a conceptual artist. I know now that I can handle any new challenge that comes my way and from this moment on, the sky is the limit.

Thank you

XII

Business Card

XIII

CONCEPT WORK SAMPLES

XIV

CONCEPT WORK SAMPLES

MACBETH

CONCEPT WORK SAMPLES

XV

XVI

CONCEPT WORK SAMPLES

XVII

CONCEPT WORK SAMPLES

XVIII

CONCEPT WORK SAMPLES

XX

BIBLIOGRAPHY

1- Image from Predator (1987). Property of 20th Century Fox Film Cor-poration

2 - Image from Terminator 2: Judgment Day (1991). Property of Carlco Productions and Artisan Entertainment. Created by James Cameron

3- Movie Poster for Blade Runner - The Final Cut (2007). Poster art by Drew Struzan. www.drewstruzan.com Property of Warner Bros. Pic-tures.

4- Original Artwork by Alex Ross. Alex Ross Art, Inc. www.alexrossart.com Property of DC Comics and Warner Brothers Entertainment.

All other images are original artworks created by Tyler Jacobson. All rights reserved 2009.

XXI