| ART |
| Click here for the CARTOON ART, PROPS and FAN ART sections |
| Production Art |
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Production art is used in the planning phases of a movie to help the filmmakers
develop an appropriate look for costumes, sets and special effects. The look seen in
the movie is often quite different than the early ideas, and this is reflected in
many of the pictures below.
The first pictures shown here are from Industrial Light and Magic: Into the Digital Realm (available at Amazon.com.) The Articles section has additional information on this book. A few comments on the pictures: the Nelwyn Village concept drawing was reworked and used in the Riven PC game. The standing stones are an area near the Nelwyn Village that served as the departure point for the expedition to the Daikini crossroads; this location looks different in the movie and is not particularly noticeable. In the early draft of the script, Kael was married to Bavmorda, and apparently wasn't human. And no, that doesn't look like Bavmorda sitting on that throne. |
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| The pictures below are from Moebius' art book Fusion, which I am unable to find on Amazon.com. The first four pictures were provided by Jeff C. and the remaining three were provided by Shanth. In the early version of the script Willow was accompanied by Madmartigan, Elora, and the brownies on his trip to Fin Raziel's island, and that's apparently what the first drawing represents. I'm not sure who that is standing on the shore; maybe the picture shows the return to the mainland, and that's a Nockmaar soldier waiting for the heroes. The second picture appears to be Franjean the Elf King, from an early draft of the script in which Elora Danan and Willow were captured by elves and then saved by the brownies, Rool and Teemo. Note the rat on the king's headgear. The fourth picture is of the famous deleted-scene fight on the lake; once again, Willow has companions in the boat at this early stage. The Seer is apparently one of Bavmorda's minions, and the last two pictures are some strange Sorsha concepts. Madmartigan would have a had a hard time falling in love with that! |
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And now the picture turns murky. The book Monsters and Aliens from George
Lucas by Bob Carrau (available from
Amazon.com) presents a
humorous look at some Lucasfilm production art.
Apparently this artwork is all from the Star Wars series and Willow, but it's hard to
be sure because the book never puts a proper identification on anything. The text
is very fanciful, and invents names and situations to go with the
pictures. There's entertainment value in this, but it makes life difficult for anyone
with more serious interests - the book doesn't say which movie the artwork
was created for, or tell the original purpose of the sketches.
Fortunately they do name the artist who created each picture. The movie credits list two Willow artists (Richard Van Der Wende and John Bell) who also have art credits in the book, and the book had eight of their pictures that I'd never seen before. Apparently neither artist worked on the Star Wars series or any other Lucasfilm production that would have needed the type of artwork shown below. So it seems probable that all of these pictures were created for Willow, although some of them look pretty far removed from the film. The Early Death Dog caption came from the book and is the only reasonable identification that the book gave for the pictures that appear to be Willow-related. The other captions are my attempt to identify each picture. The sketch that I've called Nockmaar Throne has obvious similarities to the Throne Room scene near the top of the page, and I'm confident that I've identified it appropriately although maybe that's supposed to be an early version of Kael sitting there rather than Bavmorda. The other pictures require some degree of guesswork, and some are harder than others. I've done my best to put an accurate label on them, and the number of question marks after each description indicates my uncertainty level. |
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| Production art made an appearance in several magazine articles. Some of these articles are available in the Articles section. |
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The late version of the Willow script that I bought on eBay included a number of
black and white production sketches. Unfortunately, these were poor-quality photocopies,
and most were so blurry that it was difficult to tell what the picture was about. The seven
that were reasonably clear are displayed below.
The last seven pictures are black and white production sketches that came with the early version of the Willow script. Some of the pictures are of creatures who did not appear in the late script or in the movie - you can read about them in the early script in the Scripts section. |
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| ILM Photos | ||||
Many photographs were made for ILM, who used them to plan
the special effects work. Shown here are a reference shot of Willow and Meegosh
in Cherlindrea's forest, and a shot of Willow pretending to hold the baby that
was used for work involving the hand-rotoscoping of light effects.
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| Cover Art |
| Here's a wonderful, clear image of the Shadow Star cover art by Ciruelo Cabral, with no printed words or corners of the book to get in the way! Displayed with permission; the cover art for Shadow Moon and Shadow Dawn can be viewed here on Ciruelo's official website. |
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| In 2004, Ciruelo released limited-edition prints of the Shadow Moon and Shadow Star artwork. Nothing was released for Shadow Dawn, I don't know why. 1500 24 x 36" fine-art posters were released for each title at a price of $75, as well as 750 31 x 30" canvas prints at a price of $195. They're available for viewing and sale on the Pixibilities website. Check it out, they look gorgeous! |
