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is is part one of a short video made for heroes villains artists tv telling a little more about tony cipriano and showing some of his sculpting process part two posted by jennifer g oliver at 3 50 pm 291 comments email this blogthis share to x share to facebook share to pinterest labels how to maquettes sculpting sculpture tony cipriano friday october 21 2011 an interview with character and creature designer joseph c pepe i met joseph c pepe in 1990 when he was working as an effects animator and i as a key clean up artist on the walt disney feature animation film the rescuers down under since then joe has created effects for every animated disney feature leading up to home on the range 2004 including aladdin the lion king tarzan and mulan but when joe left the feature animation studio in 2004 he made a career change becoming a sought after conceptual artist and designer on films like avp alien vs predator war of the worlds 2005 fantastic four 2005 skinwalkers and james cameron s avatar joe has generously granted us an interview to give us a peek into his experiences thought processes inspirations and tips for succeeding in a very competitive industry jennifer g oliver what kind of an art education did you receive i grew up in a household of artists my father is a doctor and art is his hobby my mother still creates artistic quilts and wearable art and both my older and younger brothers are in the film industry i ve been around art and artists throughout my childhood my parents took us to all the museums and art galleries in nyc and d c as well as visit family artist friends studios i also participated in local art festivals in central pennsylvania while in high school i started taking formal art classes at a local art studio from there i studied industrial design and received a b i d at pratt institute in brooklyn ny did you always envision yourself in this type of career or did you arrive at it through a series of unplanned events i always loved to draw and i loved film but there were no schools that we knew of that had an education program that taught you how to draw spaceships and creatures my parents did some research on automotive design and that the artists at ilm had degrees in industrial design so i headed in that direction my goal was always to get into live action film design but my career didn t start off that way i was accepted into an internship at disney feature animation in orlando fl in the summer of 1990 and followed a great career in animation for over 10 years then i transferred to the disney animation studio in burbank to be in hollywood hoping that i would start meeting artists that worked in live action and to my surprise two of the effects animators that i worked with both had been long term ilm animators gordon baker and john armstrong animated on willow witches of eastwick terminator 2 and several other live action films could you tell us about some of the artists who have inspired you over the years one of the biggest influences is robert a nelson father of mark nelson my father collected robert s art he is a fantasy illustrator that my father met back in the late 1970 s others include leonardo da vinci michelangelo bernini egon schiele gustav klimnt john auguste dominique ingres jean leon gerome degas hans bellmer arthur rackham heinrick kley h r giger wayne barlowe moebius bernie wrightson nirasawa kathsuhiro otomo syd mead sorayama katsuya terada takayuki takeya mamoru nagano shirow masamune neal adams barry windsor smith john bryne simon bisley joe johnston frank frazetta renzo piano lebbeus woods joel peter witkin peter beard herb ritts what mediums or programs do you use to create your art i use pencil on animation paper or arches watercolor paper and photoshop i have a digital camera to take photos for integration into photoshop also how did you come to work for stan winston studios my older brother louis introduced me to a friend of his named kevin mcturk who is a veteran practical fx artist he liked my portfolio and we kept in contact after being laid off from disney feature animation kevin contacted me to see if i was available to interview with alec gillis and tom woodruff jr at adi because they were looking for a concept artist they hired me on avp back in july of 2003 for three months to design the weapons and armor for the predators once avp was finished a friend named chris grossnickle asked me where are you going next and i said disappointingly home he said that he would introduce me to a friend from stan winston studio that was coming to pick him up and that he could set up an interview to show my work fortunately i carried a portfolio with me every day just in case i showed christopher swift a veteran stan winston artist my work on the spot he liked it and i gave him my info a few weeks later while brushing my teeth i received a call from swift in which he asked how fast can you get over to the studio and i gurgled 15 minutes and that turned into my four year adventure with the gang at stan winston studio pepe s first na vi male and female designs done for james cameron 12 06 2005 avatar how did you come to work on avatar and how far had the creature designs evolved before you began to work with them while i was working at stan winston studio about mid 2005 stan winston brought the entire studio to the display room for a meeting he said he spoke with jim cameron who had already spent a year developing his next film and that we have been given two weeks to show him something new and spectacular for his secret film project 880 winston said that only two artists would be chosen to try and accomplish this daunting task a day later christopher swift and i were called into stan s office for a meeting he said that the two of us better show jim some cool shit we met with jim cameron that week in his santa monica office were given two hours to read the scriptment which was more than a two hour read i didn t get to finish it i m a slow reader then jim gave us the ultimate download of images from ilm neville page yuri bartoli jordu schell and wayne barlowe i was really excited and intimidated all at once i went back to stan winston studio and started a lot of research on the internet once i got to the point of starting my first image i put 150 of my time and energy into doing the best work i possibly could for the next two weeks lucky for me my wife was just as excited that i was working with jim cameron and didn t mind that she didn t see me for two weeks i spent about 20 hours a day for the next 14 days cranking out artwork our first presentation was on my birthday dec 07 2005 it was kind of surreal it was my birthday i was getting to show my artwork to jim for the very first time and both chris swift and john rosengrant our supervisor were telling me horror stories about working with cameron on terminator 2 i was getting real nervous in my mind i was telling myself don t worry if jim yells at me for any reason just think c mon it s jim cameron yelling at me fortunately although with a poker face he really liked my work and the two weeks turned into two months and after cameron s hiatus to finish the script i worked on avatar for over two and a half years left pepe s first version of tsu tay 12 14 2005 right joe s final version of tsu tay 1 15 2007 designed from a photo that he took of actor laz alonzo was a there a character or creature design on avatar which was particularly challenging do you have a favorite design from the film the most challenging creature to design was what became the thanator it was originally called a manticore and everyone took a stab at the design it was the only design that i know of where jim didn t have a complete vision in his head he had the basic concept toughest carnivore in the known universe it is a black six limbed panther from hell with an armored head a venomous striking tail and massive distensible armored jaws it took months of artists and hundreds of illustrations and still jim didn t like any then late in the production cameron did a sketch neville page fleshed it out and built the zbrush model and it s what you see in the film i did over 50 iterations myself my favorite design in the film is neytiri not because i was a key character designer but because she worked out so well in the film as a character jim cameron really designed her a lot of artists contributed to her overall appearance weta did all the hard work making her look incredible while zoe saldana brought her life it just worked out incredibly well evolution joe pepe s first photo realistic concept of neytiri from james cameron s concepts 12 06 2005 left and pepe s final design based upon a photo he had taken of actress zoe salanda 09 22 2006 right could you tell us about the process you used to create na vi characters who resemble the actors who portrayed them all of the main characters resemble their actor counterpart since no one would see zoe saldana or all the other na vi human actors it was decided to use the lower third of their face as a reference for the performance capture joe letteri from weta cameron and john rosengrant agreed that this was a viable approach cameron john rosengrant and i developed the initial design of neytiri with saldana s photo over a two and a half month period from there i photographed all of the actors as they were cast for the film and took each one of them and put them through the photoshop process after the initial design was locked down with neytiri i was able to do a design for each actor between 2 4 days pepe s final designs for jake eytukan and mo at designed from photos he had taken of actors sam worthington wes studi and cch pounder january 2007 do you have any fun experiences or stories from your time working on avatar that you can share with our readers my favorite experience on avatar was meeting and working with all the talent that came together to make this behemoth of a film working with cameron was a lot of fun watching him work and listening to him think out loud about making a film was amazing pepe s one and only infant na vi design appeared in the final film many of my students consider the use of a lot of reference in creating a character or creature a crutch what s your position on using reference let me start my answer by saying that if h r giger didn t reference the human body i e the penis skeleton and bmw car parts we wouldn t have the original 1979 alien creature if stan winston didn t take jim cameron s crab mandible reference idea we wouldn t have the original predator not using the world around you is disempowering to the creative process there should be no rules or boundaries to creativity and art i don t know of any master artist or contemporary that doesn t or hasn t used reference for inspiration everything that you have imagined is from something you have seen or experienced i believe this is called reference truly creative people break barriers and don t put limitations onto themselves or to their art why would you limit your creativity and art by creating rules what part of designing a new creature or character is the most fun what part is the most difficult the most fun i have in designing is the research i really enjoy it the fun for me is reading about and discovering new things learning and seeing something new with research fascinates me the most difficult part is split into two sections for me the first difficult part is starting the second is getting an approval a lot of the time i find it difficult to start the design unless i m under a tight deadline deadlines force me to start immediately approvals are a whole other matter creature personal concept are there other creature designs that you have done that are favorites either in terms of the design or work experience and why one that stands out for me that was also on avatar was the direhorse it started with wayne barlowe who did the concept of the small jointed head with the rigid neck mane neville page and jordu schell did concepts and sculptures before it was passed to stan winston studio to flesh it out since i began working on avatar i had an ulterior motive which was to see maquettes and sculptures created for the film by some of the top talent in the effects industry the first artist was christopher swift who designed sculpted supervised and puppeteered the velociraptors in all three jurassic park films the second was joey orosco orosco designed and sculpted the triceratops in the first jurassic park and the spinosaurus in jpiii i wanted to see these guys sculpt because i was using photos in my design work and swift wanted to sculpt i asked him to sculpt a small maquette of the direhorse head so that i could photograph it and do color designs on it it was an awesome experience to work with swift on that ultimately he sculpted the final direhorse maquette for the film i did design modifications and color designs in photoshop that were the finals in the movie with orosco it was all about seeing him sculpt all of my character designs on life casts of the actors seeing my designs go from photoshop to 3d clay sculptures was so amazing both are incredible artists and it was such a pleasure to be part of the process and integrate our techniques to develop the avatar designs mariq injured design and an unused concept for conan 2010 who are some of your favorite creature designers working today wayne barlowe takayuki takeya and yasushi nirasawa they still stand out from the rest i see too many creatures looking like they come from the same designer film or videogame even though they don t these three artists still stand apart and have broken visual barriers and set higher standards of creativity influencing a lot of artists personal project phantom what projects are you currently working on i m currently working at technicolor in the 3d conversion unit trying something different and new i m involved in converting a traditional chinese animated film into 3d as for design work most recently i worked on several tom cruise films one shot rock of ages and mission impossible ghost protocol doing makeup hair and prop designs not too long ago i did some creature and character design work on conan the barbarian a live action monkey king film with donnie yen and set prop weapon and armor designs for predators with a busy career in the film industry do you ever find the time to work on personal projects i try i ve been itching to do figure drawing again it s been too long i think the last time i did figure drawing was at disney although i do have a couple of personal film ideas or drawings that i try to keep active so that i can express my own ideas instead of others unused concept what haven t you done yet as an artist that you would still like to do that is what i m trying to figure out i ve been joking around with friends that i have a creative bucket list and i have been able to check some important artistic items off that list but the one that escapes m...