ILM Art Department Challenge

Hello there, it's time to show something new in here. There happened some cool things in the last time. For example I finalized my master thesis project for university, it's an animated short. More about this later.

At the same time I participated in some challenges, including the Industrial Light and Magic Department challenge powered by Artstation. It was a great opportunity to show some works to the team which made so many of the beloved movies I have been influenced by since I was a child.

The challenge was splitted into three rounds of hard work. Thousends of very creative people jumped into this adventure with an uncertain ending. After every round the team of ILM judged about the contributions and gave a few of them the chance to enter the next phase.

I made it to the second round, but not to the final one.

These are my contributions:

Round 1 - The Moment

'Creating Keyframes Challenge: Brief

Create two (2) keyframes (minimum) – an emotive still image that tells a cinematic story – within the world of Star Wars Episodes IV – VI. Use only existing Star Wars worlds, vehicles, creatures and characters to create a new story moment.'

Title: 'B'omarr Monk's last Pilgrimage'

A 'bodyless' B'omarr monk on a pilgrimage on Tatooine. He is being hunted by some nasty Jawas. The scene reminds of cowboys catching a wild horse.

Title: 'Yoda feels a great disturbance in the Force'

My second image is a reference to the great disturbance in the Force Obi Wan feels on board of the Millenium Falcon in the moment when Alderaan is blasted by the Empire. So I wanted to show how Yoda reacts at this moment.

Title: 'The Severed Arm'

The idea was to show the moment a Jedi lost his prosthetic arm with his (or maybe her's) Lightsaber.

Title: 'Probe Droid on Dagobah'

The idea for my fourth and probably last contribution is a scene on Dagobah. A vagilant probe droid searches for rebels or maybe for Luke Skywalker in person.

I love the mood and atmosphere on Dagobah. It fascinated me since I was a kid.

Round 2 - The Ride

'Vehicle Challenge: Brief

Design two (2) new Star Wars vehicles within the aesthetic of Episodes IV - VI. They can be Rebel, Imperial, or utilitarian — your choice; anything from a giant starship to a land speeder. Be sure to finish your images by placing the vehicles within the context of an environment. We want to see the story — not the blueprints.'

Title: 'Coruscant Sewer Cleaners'

The idea is that a team of specialized workers clean the normalised tubes of the sewer system with their cleaning machine. Four seats and a lot of cleaning tools (circular vibro-blades, scraper-robot-arms and rotating shovels) are mounted on one cylindrical shaped vehicle. The job is hard but they have to do it. Sometimes they can find great things in the nearly infinite deepness of the sewer system. In my scene they killed a straying Dianoga critter and showcase it in the light of the machine's headlights.

Title: 'Cargo Delivery on Kuat'

I started to think about interesting places in the Star Wars galaxy where I would love to create a vehicle for. Kuat was definitely one of these locations. A terraformed planet in the center of the galaxy surrounded by a huge circular orbital shipyard. Whenever someone wants to build such a huge flotilla like the imperials need, he needs resources from outside the system. These ressources need to be transported to keep the machines of the industry running. Besides the sophisticated matriarchy of Kuat has a hunger of exotic luxury goods. Most of the planet's surface is described as an artificial park-like habitat but I think they run some scattered industry on it too. Anyway, they would need cargo transportation ships. My idea was to show one of these ships at the moment of delivering cargo to a planetary site.