Art Direction

Jul 31

Written By Safari

Ive been Art Directing officially since The Mandalorian Season 1 in 2018, helping design the virtual sets for the LED screens. Over the next several years I would go onto other Star Wars projects to Art Direct in the Virtual Art Department and on other films, cinematics and indie short films.

Below are some highlight examples on various projects:

Godforge

For several months in 2024-2025 I was CG Supervisor and Art Director for a trailer cinematic for the game Godforge by Fateless Games.

I had a team of digital artists ranging from character, environment, FX, and animation, all of which I managed schedule and delineated notes to from the client.

The examples show:

Concept art for character and environment, which I photobashed and painted over in Photoshop, drawing over renders from the blockout in Unreal Engine and creatively upscaling.
FX plans, in order for the FX artists to execute in a timely manner, I created comps of the look of the effect and a video showing the timing.
Paintovers or 3D posing, I would make 2D comps or pose 3D characters to communicate to the animators the desired direction.

Ashoka

From mid 2021 through early 2022 I was Art Director for the Virtual Art Department under the Production Designer, Andrew Jones.

The aim for this project, and other Star Wars projects, was to design the LED screen virtual sets with the key creatives, helping them visualize the scenes with character stand-in assets and get the lighting planned.

From there we would hand off the environments to ILM, who would prepare the asset for the LED screen shoot.

The examples show: