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)

Richard Hudolin, Battlestar's Design Genius

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

Why he rules: Richard Hudolin has put his design stamp on no fewer than three iconic science fiction TV series. He worked on the 1996 TV movie of time-travel space opera Doctor Who, and he designed the best ever control room for the Doctor's time machine, the TARDIS. It's elegant Victorian (I'm not going to say "steampunk," but it sort of is) lines had a huge influence on the version currently on air — just check out those huge curvy bulkheads and the nice big open space. And then he went on to design the sets for Stargate SG-1, including two different versions of the Stargate and a whole host of sets for the main silo. And then he went on to design the sets and concepts for the new version of robot holocaust show Battlestar Galactica, including the new Vipers.

Hudolin won the 2001 Leo Award, Best Production Design of a Dramatic Series for "Stargate: SG-1" and the 2001 Gemini Award, Best Production Design in a Dramatic Series for "Stargate." Here's a video of him talking about designing Stargate SG-1's iconic Stargate set and some of the fantastic alien worlds featured on the show every week (from ADG Wiki):

What he's working on: The BSG prequel show Caprica.

BSG set pics from Hollywood North Report. Doctor Who pics from Doctor Who's Tragical History Tour.

io9: richard hudolin

10 Hollywood Designers To Watch Out For

Richard Hudolin, Battlestar's Design Genius