Talking to io9, concept artist Ryan Meinerding has commented on his role in designing Loki's army in Marvel's The Avengers. If you've so far managed to avoid finding out their identity, don't panic, as that particular piece of information isn't revealed here. "Designing the alien army was a new challenge for those of us that have worked at Marvel for awhile," he revealed. "Since most of the characters we design for have a storied history and very strong visual language, the chance to come up with a look for a set of comic villains that were relatively new is a great challenge. Joss told us the basic attack plan for the army, how they would deploy and the tone he was going for with the characters."
He adds,
"We put our whole team on it, and I believe we had 45 different looks in 4 days. It was a wide range of images, and it gave Joss and the producers quite a few options for where to take the designs. They picked 3 or 4 images that inspired them, and from there Justin Sweet worked hard to develop and refine those looks, and Iain McCaig designed the creature's face. We were initially going for a strong sense of arrogance and regality in the characters, considering their origin. Their skin was meant to be a opalescent snowy white, and they wore golden army—almost as if they arrived assuming they could conquer Earth easily. Over the course of the film production, that concept was altered and they ended up feeling more like a battle hardened, rough and ready army." As for the Leviathan, he reveals that ILM eventually came up with their final look after director Joss Whedon specified that he wanted,
"a creature that was used by the aliens as a transport but also as a fierce attacking animal."
Production designer James Chinlund reveals the exact location of Stark Tower, an interesting titbit which both grounds the film in reality and serves as a neat little easter egg for fans of Tony Stark's trademark attitude.
"Tony Stark bought the iconic MetLife Building (formerly the PanAm Building) and ripped off the top adding his own piece of parasitic architecture to the top. The height of arrogance, and the essence of Stark! As a production designer, this was the most fun set by far for me having grown up in New York and looking at that building everyday for my whole life, to be able to effect it's history, forever, was an amazing opportunity. In choosing the MetLife location we were also recognizing the rich topography of the streets below which is a unique arrangement in New York, with the viaduct over 42nd St and the tunnels behind Grand Central Station, not to mention Grand Central itself, the ultimate conflagration of rich histories and futuristic ideas." To read the rest of the interview in which the duo talk more about redesigning Captain America's costume and bringing the Helicarrier to the big screen, be sure to click on the link below.
STARRING:
Chris Evans as Steve Rogers/Captain America
Robert Downey Jr. as Tony Stark/Iron Man
Chris Hemsworth as Thor
Jeremy Renner as Clint Barton/Hawkeye
Scarlett Johansson as Natasha Ramanoff/Black Widow
Mark Ruffalo as Bruce Banner/Hulk
Samuel L. Jackson as Nick Fury
Clark Gregg as Agent Coulson
Cobie Smulders as Maria Hill
Tom Hiddleston as Loki
RELEASE DATE: April 26th, 2012. (UK) May 4th, 2012. (US)
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