CONCEPT ART
This is a hub for the art made during production. Storyboards, turnarounds, character designs, background art, and pre-rendered animation. Not every artist involved in the film is able to share their work, due to NDAs and contracts. All the art here has been archived from the artists' websites and portfolios, or from the DVD extras.
This list contains links to the sites and portfolios of the artists featured here.
NatM (2006)
Ellen Freund // Thom Schillinger
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NatM:BotS (2009)
Charmaine Husum // Mike Thomas // Joel Venti // Milena Zdravkovic
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NatM:SotT (2014)
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NatM:KRA (2022)
Rafael Almeida // Natalie Asplund // Laura Bifano // Luke Buxton // João Cardoletto // Laura De Pascale //Grace Heyes-Dineen // Adrián Hurtado // Gabriel Jimenez // Justin Lovell // Joey Mason // Tobi Oyenuga // James Nguyen // Eddy Pedreira // Andre Perlingeiro // Stephanos Shino // Caleb Staker // Rhea Wong // Helene Wu // Green Ghost Studio
- Night at the Museum
Ellen Freund: Prop Master
Thom Schillinger: Print and AV Advertising
Thom Schillinger worked on both NatM and BotS. This dropdown has his work for NatM.
- Battle of the Smithsonian
Charmaine Husum: Prop Design
Thom Schillinger: Print and AV Advertising
Thom Schillinger worked on both NatM and BotS. This dropdown has his work for BotS.
Mike Thomas: Packaging and Displays
Joel Venti: Storyboards
Milena Zdravkovic: Set Design and Preliminaries
- Secret of the Tomb
Michael Cawood: Concept Art, Previs, Postvis
Concept art was archived from the Secret of the Tomb DVD.
"We did some Previsualization for a few sequences in Night at the Museum 3. One of the most interesting challenges was the snake sequence. I rigged the main nine headed snake and created all the custom features to make it work. Overall this was a refreshing change from other projects as we had the opportunity to do comedy. Creature movements didn't have to be too realistic, being funny with some believabilty was the priority."
"After the Previsualisation phase, we moved into Postvis. I animated most of the shots above, rigged the nine headed snake and a few of the other creatures. For the most part I've presented the comped versions of the shots as that's how they were designed to be seen, but most of the compositing was done by a dedicated crew. There are some effects I did, like the stars that form the lion, but most other effects were created by the compositors."
- Kahmunrah Rises Again
Animation Reels
Not concept art, but shows who animated what scenes and sequences. Still important!
Grace Heyes-Dineen 🔦 Gabriel Jimenez
Andre Perlingeiro 🔦 Adrián Hurtado
Natalie Asplund: Character Design, Background Painting
Laura Bifano: Backgrounds
Luke Buxton: Backgrounds
There's commentary on the images on his ArtStation! They'll also be archived here.
"It took a lot of effort to design a Natural History Museum that felt accurate to the real place but didn't infringe on actual architectural copyright. (Yes architecture is under copyright) I also love an opportunity to do half shadows!"
"I had to repaint a few of my approved keys in night lighting, which was actually a really fun exercise, and not as arduous as you might think. This one turned out to be one of my favorite paintings for the film."
"This was an early concept I did for the Lobby redesign from the films, and it ended up being used as the poster in a lot of promotional stuff. I did a 3D proxy first for the whole lobby that I could swivel a camera around in to get composition right."
"Lobby again but repainted with Night lighting."
"Lobby reverse angle."
"Lobby Reverse angle repainted with Night lighting."
"My first design for Joan of Arc's exhibit room."
"The Rome and Wild West miniature exhibits room. Was inspired quite heavily from the film sets for this one."
"The North America exhibit. The perspective on the moose butt was particularly difficult on this one, haha"
"The Tokyo Museum briefly seen in the film needed to feel very different from its American counterpart, so I went with a much more sophisticated feel with cooler tones and darker shadows. All the drawings are based on real artifacts and art found in Japan"
"The Temple of Seth sarcophagus. We chose a poisonous green to represent the evil dudes in this film, and this room was pretty fun to imagine."
"Early thumbs for the lobby trying to find a good perspective to paint."
"The MET Temple of Dendur was another unique challenge of trying very hard to represent the real space while avoiding copyright on the actual architecture."
My very first concepts for the film, these were exploring rendering and lighting styles using a mammoth exhibit as the subject.
João Cardoletto: Animation Lead
Laura De Pascale: Character Design
Justin Lovell: Animation Director
Lovell directed the intro tracking shot through NYC, and the flashlight tracking shot during the Anubis fight. Unfortunately, his videos are only hosted on Squarespace, and unable to be embedded.Joey Mason: Character Design
Stephanos Shino: Character Design
Caleb Staker: Character Design, Prop Design, Turnarounds
Rhea Wong: Background Design & Painting
Helene Wu: Layout, FX Design
Randy Young and Green Ghost Studio: Storyboards
GGS also has a deleted scene from the film available.
SEE THE COMMUNITY
