Concept Art

Emerson Tung's Tankhead

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From the Illustrators Division

Kindred spirit and formidable hard surface artist Emerson Tung has just launched his new book: TANKHEAD.

I've been watching Emerosn post these tank mech designs for close to a decasde now and it's exciting to see them collected in a world building book.

You can order the book here: LINK​

Check out the rest of Emerson's work here:

Website: LINK​

Instagram: LINK​

Twitter: LINK​

Artstation: LINK

-Jake

The World of Calpan

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From the Concept Art Division

Over the past year or so I've been watching Chinese VisDev artist Claude Z build up a portfolio of images that flesh out his world of Calpan.

I don't know what the story is, or what he's planning on doing with this, but I just think it's a fascinating peak into what seems like a fully realized world that Claude Z visits from time to time.

I'm anxious for more, and if he's ever able to collect these into a book, I'll be first in line to get one.

See the rest of his work here: LINK

-Jake​

Polychromatic Motorbikes by Mikee Atendido

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From the Concept Art Division

I think these colorful motorbikes by Philipino artist Mikee Atendido are pretty fun. Got a nice Moebius vibe to them.

More of Atendido's art here: LINK

-Jake

Wayne Barlowe's Aliens

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From the Concept Art Division

Those first two images are of the first art book I ever owned. My dad was always on the look out for interesting books to get my young imagination fired up. He found Wayne Barlowe's Guide to Extraterrestrials at a used book store and gave it to me when I was about 10. It was an instant treasure. I flipped through that book so much it fell apart. My solution was to punch holes in it and put it in a 3 ring binder. Even then, the book was loved to near death. (I have no idea what happened to the cover).

A few years later I discovered a second alien book called Expedition which blew my teenage mind away again and altered the way I think about creative projects. If you were to sequence and map my creative genome you'd find a strand of Barlow in my DNA.

Recently I discovered Barlowe worked on one of my favorite films: Avatar.​

I'm not sure how 12 years went by without me knowing this. I guess I never checked out the Art of Avatar book, which is a terrible oversight on my part. Won't happen again, I promise you that.

All of this to say, Barlowe is one of the greats, he's a bottomless well of inspiration, and you should familiarize yourself with his trippy, beautiful/ugly, and otherworldly art if you haven't already.

More on his website: LINK​

(Also, he helped design the Kaiju in Pacific Rim!)

-Jake

A little dwarf and her dragon family

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From the Concept Art Division

I wish I could tell you that these are stills from a new animated fantasy film about a little dwarf and her dragon family. But it's just a concept done by Vietnamese artist Ngan Pham for the Artstation's latest art challenge Dragon's Rise. It's the second highest rated submission in the Keyframe Design section.

It's Ghibli meets Tolkien and I'd love to see this developed further.

See more of Ngan Pham's work:

Artstation: LINK​

Instagram: LINK​

-Jake

WW0

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From the Concept Art Division

If you mashed a medieval aesthetic with WWI technology and threw in a dash of fantasy you'd get WW0. This is the part time project of concept artist and illustrator Andrius Matijosius and it rules.

Not sure what this will end up being exactly...a film? a game? an art book? a comic? Whatever it becomes it's sure to be some solid escapism.

See all the art here: LINK​

Updates posted on his Artstation as well: LINK

-Jake

A world of dinosauroids (with Simon Roy)

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From the Concept Art Division

Simon Roy (previously) answers the question "What would the world look like if dinosaurs had not gone extinct and instead evolved into intelligent species comparable to humans?" in his unique and imaginative way with a comprehesive exploration of a new species of animal he calls Avisapiens.

In this world Avisapiens look like large crows with weapons, art, and culture.

I absolutely love this stuff. Much much more to look at here: LINK​

Be sure to scroll down to see the avisapien knight, moon landing, and astronaut evolution of these guys.

-Jake

The BEST part of Sonic 2

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From the Concept Art Division

Earlier this year I went to see Sonic 2 with my kid and I was absolutely blown away by the quality tech and robot designs in the film. The show stealer though was the Robotnik Mecha at the end of the movie. It saved the film, if you ask me.

I was delighted to see this concept art for the robot posted on Artstation by one of my favorite artists Michal Kus.

You can see more Robotnik Mecha concept art here and here.

Watch the final battle here: LINK​

-Jake

Concept Art from Finch

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From the Concept Art Division

I mentioned Finch earlier and I want to add that it's a good, quiet, small movie, that's not based on any existing IP. It's the kind of film I want more of. It's a pos-apocalytic survival film with a cast of three: Robot scientist Finch, and his robot creation, and his dog.

Concept artist David Levy did the design for the robot, and I really love it. There's a TON of images here: LINK​

David's Website: LINK​

Instagram: LINK​

-Jake

OlliOlli World Concept Art

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From the Concept Art Division

I guess I'm late to the game with OlliOlli World since this marks the THIRD installment in the Olli Olli franchise from Roll7 games.

I love this neo-adventure time style and how they applied it to a game. Solid world building work here by Spanish concept artist Germán Reina Carmona.

He's posting all of his concept art over on Art Station, in what looks like will be 12 installments.

Installment 1: LINK​

Installment 2: LINK​

Installment 3: LINK​

Installment 4: LINK​

-Jake

VR Workstations

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From the Concept Art Division

Every so often I talk to people who think that AR or VR aren't ever going to really catch on. They laugh at the goofiness of headsets and how helpless people look with them on. There's not a lot of virtual infrastructure or mass adoption yet leading some people to wonder what they'd even use a headset for. To play what? To meet up with who? BUT I can see a future where we are wearing these things all day.

Now, it mortifies me think that my kids and grandkids are going to spend a good part of their lives in a metaverse type situation. That they might be spending their days without seeing actual trees or sunlight. And if you think that's not going to happen, just go check your screentime from last week and multiply that.

However, I'm trying to see the silver lining here and one good thing about this is VR headsets are going to democratize workstations for people. Imagine not needing a laptop, or an ipad, or a big screen to work off of, or a synthesizer, or a mixing station. All you need is a headset. These tools are all barriers of entry for creators and removing them means so many more people are going to be able to create things.
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Greg Madison has caught this vision and decided to make a mock up of what that could look like. You can see his short demo here: LINK​

-Jake

Dashboard Gallery

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From the Office of Wheels

Found this great gallery of old dashboards on Flickr. I'm always paying attention to this kind of stuff because A) I love industrial design and B) I never know when I might need to design a dashboard for a comic or concept art job. I love industrial design because I think it's pretty cool to see how 100 different designers decided to solve the same problem. Some of these are really spartan with just the essentials (LINK). While others have every gauge, knob, dial, and lever available at arms length (LINK).

Also find it fascinating where some car companies will spend money on interior design, and others look like the interior was an afterthought...something for the engineers to handle.

You can see many many more dashboards here: LINK​

-Jake