10 Hollywood Designers To Watch Out For

Charlie Jane Anders — Tue, 10 Jun 2008 17:57:00 PDT

Science fiction is all about creating strange and incredible worlds, whether they're the future of Earth or a far-off planet. And the key to the most breathtaking science fictional worlds always starts with the work of production designers and concept artists who create brilliant and freaktastic worlds, like James Clyne's concept art for Transformers, above. Or Warren Manser's original art for Stanley Kubrick's version of A.I.: Artificial Intelligence, below the fold. Here's our roundup of the 10 designers whose work is exciting us the most right now — and whose forthcoming projects you should watch out for.

Everybody worships Syd (Blade Runner) Mead, or Ralph McQuarrie, who gave the original Star Wars trilogy much of its eyepopping vastness. But some of the designers and artists working today are doing work that's every bit as mindblowing and sensational. (We had a list of about 20 designers we wanted to feature in this post, and had to end up whittling it down. But maybe we'll feature some of the others soon.) A million, million thanks to Lauren Davis for the incredible research help.

Warren Manser (A.I., Spider-Man, Army Of Darkness, Serenity, Speed Racer)

James Clyne (A.I., Minority Report, Galaxy Quest, X-Men 3, Titan A.E., The Fountain, Transformers, Star Trek, Avatar, Battle Angel)

Miles Teves (Men In Black, Terminator III and IV, Iron Man, Outlander)

Nathan Crowley (Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, Mystery Men, Batman Begins, The Dark Knight)

Guy Hendrix Dyas (Indiana Jones IV, Superman Returns, Galaxy Quest, X-2: X-Men United, Brave New World)

Ryan Church (Star Wars Episode II and III, Avatar, Outlander, Star Trek, John Carter Of Mars)

Alex McDowell (Minority Report, Watchmen)

Jeannine C. Oppewall (Cat People, Pleasantville, The Happening, Neon Genesis Evangelion)

Richard Hudolin (Battlestar Galactica, Stargate: SG-1, Doctor Who)

Daren Dochterman (X-Men 3, Chronicles Of Riddick, Sky High, Get Smart, Dragonball, The Day The Earth Stood Still, Creature From The Black Lagoon)

Miles Teves, Robot/Monster Sculptor

Charlie Jane Anders — Tue, 10 Jun 2008 16:30:00 PDT

Why he rules: Miles Teves got his start working as a concept illustrator with Rob Bottin Productions, helping to design the unique look of Paul Weller's cyborg body in RoboCop. Since then, he's done everything from masks to makeup to concept design to storyboarding. A sculptor since he made dinosaurs as a child, Teves has been credited as "sculptor" for a few movies, including Iron Man, King Kong and Bicentennial Man. He helped design the visual effects for the Men In Black films and Mission To Mars, and helped design some of MIB's distinctive-looking aliens. And he helped to storyboard Terminator 3 (see below for a few frames, and see his site for way more.)

What he's working on: He did concept art for the Jim Caviezel Vikings-vs-aliens movie Outlander (which looks amazing). And he's working on Terminator 4, the Christian Bale-robot-apocalypse movie that just started shooting.

io9: miles teves

10 Hollywood Designers To Watch Out For

Miles Teves, Robot/Monster Sculptor