Arthur Christmas 3: The Hangar and Mission Control

All images©Sony Pictures Animation.

Arthur Christmas 2: The S-1

My concept on the S-1 stemmed from the TV show Battleship Yamato which I love when I was a kid. But instead of a flying battleship, S-1's an aircraft carrier. Below was my first stab on the concept.

Then we went for something slicker, streamlined and organic like a race car.

An idea that I had was the huge S-1 is being stirred by a tiny control rudder mounted on an arcade-type ride just to be playful and fun for the elves.

The concept below is when Grand Santa goes back to find his old sleigh and reindeer, he passes by museum type rooms where the old sleighs through generations are kept:

This could be his old sleigh used around late 1800's to 1920's

This was used around 1930's till mistaken for a German bomber eventually shot down during Battle of Britain in 1941 :)

Now this one was used during the Cold War in the 80's. Fun.

More to come...

All images ©Sony Pictures Animation.

Arthur Christmas 1: Neighborhood/Bedroom

 THE NEIGHBORHOOD

Above is a rendered concept design for the neighborhood/cul de sac. To achieve this shot, I "cheated" a bit by building the basic architectural elements in 3D using Google Sketch Up and placed the camera on the composition I wanted. Below is the step by step painting process in Photoshop.

Here are some of the preliminary pencil sketches before building the 3D sketch up model.

THE BEDROOM

The bedroom concept art above is based from the idea that Gwen checks her stocking in the middle of the night only to find out its still empty. Below are the thumbnails for the shot. Somehow, I felt like going symmetrical composition on this one.

More to come...

All images ©Sony Pictures Animation.

Arthur Christmas Opens Nov. 23, 2011!

When Sony Pictures Animation partnered with Aardman Animations to work on Arthur Christmas more than three years ago,  the studio assigned me to work with director Sarah Smith for a couple of months and had the privilege of working with Scott Caple, George Hull and Francois Audouy to develop the early concept designs for the film. Above is the earliest drawing I did having Santa and his elves in the mission control. I had a concept where elves come in different breeds, short and tall. More to come next week...

By the way, the art of book is out, too:

Click for Amazon Books.

©Sony Pictures Animation

Arthur Christmas Teaser

The teaser trailer for Arthur Christmas is out. Click on the image above to watch. It's the first collaboration between Sony Pictures Animation and Aardman Production and I worked on the early development of this film. Below is my own "teaser" image, an early concept of the ship you just saw on the trailer. Enjoy.

All images ©Aardman/Sony Pictures Animation.