Christian Alzmann
Christian Alzmann
Personal Life
Christian Alzmann first got into art when he was only five years old.
His father was a director and producer who had studied film at the University of California, Los Angeles. He invented a slide chart called a "2 in 1 cropper" that photographers used in darkrooms to crop photos. Sadly he passed away when Christian was only 8.
Christian recalls a time in kindergarten when he was compelled to finger paint Darth Vader as a prophetic moment in his life. From then on he was drawn to science fiction and fantasy concepts. He lives in Sausalito, California.
Inspiration
Alzmann was inspired to go to the Art Center College of Design by two of his heroes, Ralph McQuarrie and Syd Mead. Early on, he wanted to walk in the footsteps of Joe Johnston, and Disney's Nine Old Men. Christian got into sci-fi artists like Boris Vallejo, and Michael Whelan in his teens. later finding inspiration from artists he learned about in school like Sargent, Mucha, NC Wyeth, Howard Pyle and Norman Rockwell. Nowadays he finds inspiration in everything, from Russian painters to comic book artists. [2]
Alzmann had the chance to meet Ralph McQuarrie and when he passed away, Christian contributed a drawing that he'd dedicated to Ralph when he was 10 years old to the memorial. [666666]
Comic Con
Christian Alzmann has attended Comic Con on most years since 2007. He normally sets up a booth and sells merchandise while meet-and-greeting fans. [1]
Education
Christian almost didn't pursue art.
He was originally detered by the cost: [2]
"During my final year in high school, I took a tour of Cal Arts in Valencia, the Disney school.
The person giving the tour said that some of the students were plucked out of school before graduating.
I thought, “Sign me up.”
He gave us a catalog.
I looked in the back at the tuition, and my whole world came apart.
I put art out of my mind.
"
He wound up going to Pierce College in Woodland Hills and lived in a Volkswagon bus while he figured things out. He ended up graduating with distinction from the Art Center College of Design in Pasadena, California. [666666]
Alzmann is able to work in many mediums, but he shared his preferred methods of creation: [2]
"Most of my work is digital, but I I often, 90 percent of the time, sketch on post-its or in my sketchbook.
I have tons of those little drawings, tons of post-it drawings around my desk.
They’re stuck everywhere.
3D is not a very quick, intuitive process to get to something.
It’s a limiting place to start from scratch.
The ILM art department pretty much uses Modo, Zbrush, and Photoshop.
For my personal work, I use Corel’s Painter."
Career
Before pursuing art, Christian had several odd jobs, even working as a personal trainer for a period. Shortly after graduating from Art Center College of Design, Christian snagged a job as a production assistant at Industrial Light & Magic in the art department. He spent more than two decades working with them on numerous big-budget projects, eventually becoming senior VFX art director. He also developed a working relationship with George Lucas along the way and serves as concept design supervisor for Lucasfilm. The first film he worked on was A. I. Artificial Intelligence. [1][2]
Lectures And Demonstrations
Christian has given several lectures and demonstrations such as the Concept Design Academy Workshop Demo in 2012 where he taught about creature design workflow, which consisted of a Photoshop sketch, modeling in Sculptris, rendering in Modo and paint in Photoshop. He's also lectured at other places including YooBee Design school in Auckland.[1]
Book
In 2013, Christian Alzmann released his first book called Tales; The Art of Christian Alzmann. Not only does the book showcase sketches and drawing Christians made over the years, but it also provides a step-by-step tutorial on the painting process from sketch to finished piece. The book was published by Design Studio Press. The foreword was written by Aaron McBride and the afterword came from Iain McCaig. [666666]
Standout Creations
BB8
Christian Alzmann designed the popular helper droid from Star Wars: The Force Awakens with a little help from J. J. Abrams: [2]
"I started with a little two-circle sketch that J. J. Abrams did.
Literally two circles.
I wanted to go back and get that feeling I had from my childhood and hopefully have that come through in the design.
I was five or six when I saw Star Wars.
So, I looked at R2-D2 and thought about what we could use.
I wanted to keep the same language, so BB8 would feel familiar.
We spent a fair amount of time trying to figure out what the patterns would be on his drive ball on the bottom.
I looked at a lot of soccer balls."
Star Trek: Into Darkness
In a piece with Creative Talent Network, Christian Alzmann described the process of bringing to life a scene from Star Trek Into Darkness: [3]
"I started with a very rough sketch.
Usually some thumbnails on post it notes or scribbles in a sketchbook to get a rough idea of composition and an idea for the pieces I'll need to build the image.
I built the temple in 3d using Modo.
What's helpful about designing in 3d is figuring out how your design will work at many angles.
Also in the VFX world I can then pass my model off to ILM's CG artists to get them started on the real thing, where if time permits, they'll improve upon it.
In the grand scheme of things it can be a good time saver for the project if you end up doing multiple pieces with a particular design element in them.
A lot of the work is done for you once you've built that model."
"I then built some really rough terrain and pick an angle using a camera in modo.
I may or may not use one of my thumbnails for the final composition.
I use pretty simple textures, materials and lighting to render the rough scene.
Lighting being the most important part of that.
Even when you're hand painting something it's important to plan your lighting direction and stick with it.
Once I have the render it's a matter of using bits of photo reference and paint to bring it together.
I think I made a leaf brush in Photoshop for the foreground bamboo leaves and cobbled the alien natives together with bits of reference photos spliced over poses that I painted in Photoshop.
The last part of the process contains color and exposure balancing and of the little paint adjustments that bring it to a final image."
Baby Yoda
The original concept for Baby Yoda came from Dave Filoni, the co-creator of several Star Wars animated shows. He doodled an image of Baby Yoda on some cocktail napkins. After multiple artists refined the image, Christian Alzmann put the finishing touches on it, designing the makeshift garment he's known for wearing. Baby Yoda went on to have unprecedented success, becoming one of hte biggest memes of 2019. [4]
Filmography
| Year | Title | Role |
|---|---|---|
| 2014 | Noah | Concept Artist |
| 2013 | Star Trek 2: Into Darkness | Concept Artist |
| 2011 | Cowboys & Aliens | VFX Art Director |
| 2011 | Rango | Concept Artist |
| 2010 | The Last Airbender | VFX Art Director |
| 2009 | Terminator Salvation | VFX Art Director |
| 2008 | Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull | VFX Art Director |
| 2007 | The Spiderwick Chronicles | VFX Art Director |
| 2006 | Eragon | VFX Art Director |
| 2005 | Munich | Digital Artist |
| 2005 | Jarhead | VFX Art Director |
| 2005 | War Of The Worlds | VFX Art Director |
| 2004 | The Village | VFX Art Director |
| 2004 | Talisman | Concept Artist |
| 2004 | Van Helsing | VFX Art Director |
| 2003 | Pirates of the Caribbean | Concept Artist |
| 2003 | The Hulk | Concept Artist |
| 2003 | Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines | Concept Artist |
| 2002 | Star Wars Episode 2: Attack Of The Clones | Concept Artist |
| 2002 | Men in Black II | Concept Artist |
| 2001 | The Mummy Returns | Concept Artist |
| 2001 | Artificial Intelligence | Storyboard/Concept Artist |