I really like pondering cities as whole, self-contained entities. I recently saw Dredd and searched for some art and found a bunch of interesting things I’ll share here. Neil Miller, the film’s VFX director, made these available but unfortunately I don’t know who to credit as the artist(s), sorry. I am not a fan of the original work, graphic novel, or franchise, and I have not seen the earlier film produced, so I went into this knowing very little. I liked it, but I do not know the details of this world as the fans do.
This is the main structure in which most of the story takes place. It is cynically called Peach Trees, as in this bleak city there are no trees let alone orchards or forests to be found. Very large-scale structures like this dot the landscape, creating what are called mega-blocks. You can see this building takes on what I would call a typical (and perhaps overused) futuristic motif for design, in that it has beveled edges and angles and sections like we’ve seen on armor, other buildings, vehicles, countless CG game assets, from all sorts of games from Doom to Halo. You don’t get a sense of scale in this image but in the film there is a long shot that establishes our place in the environment, then the camera tilts up as we move in and you get the sense of this gargantuan, kilometer-tall monolithic dwelling unit looking down on the denizens of the city. It looks great and with the lighting of the later afternoon creating this partial haze and glow, it made me wish I could walk around there and see it for myself.
This image looks like another establishing shot. I like this one in particular because the contrasting look of the environment and the structures with that sort of strained, colorless light really reflects the harsh, bleak reality of living in this place. It is a city that has plenty of character, but most of it is harsh and unpleasant, and this is shown in art such as this. It’s a piercing reality.
As far as I remember we don’t see many shots with the city configured like this. To me, this skyline looks almost like a normal skyline might in reality, whereas the film shows the structures spread out in a very rigid, quantized way, thus illustrating an environment where the development of space is rigidly controlled. Below you can see what I mean.
So here you can see what I mean; it is very dystopian. It makes me think of some hive of insects or even grave markers, both ideas conveying the stark reality of the poor people who endure this unfortunate place.
Above shows the city from within, and I think this is gorgeous. I live for stuff like this. That brutal, late light, the detail fading in the depths. The technology we have now enables us to recreate the images we see in graphic novels where we could not do this before. It’s important because if we can’t recreate the environment then we are losing the soul of the original design. A great of example of this is the film 300, also based on a graphic novel. The environment in the film is beautiful. The images, from Dredd, are concept works and by changing the building materials, textures and lighting you could create an entirely different picture, perhaps inappropriate to the final goal. In this case I can tell you that the concept art for the city really matches what made it to the screen, and I think that defines a really important part of the development process. You need the idea, the foundation, then you need an art director who can define what it is, and then you need the artists who can execute. I think in these images we see all of that successfully pulled together. I love buildings like this, it never gets old for me. I’ve produced similar images, myself, and I will continue to do so.
Apparently this film is flopping at the box office, in spite of good reviews on Rotten Tomatoes. That’s a shame because this is a rare instance where in spite of my total lack of interest in the original work I felt immersed in the gritty environment. To give you some scale, that white sheet surface on the left platform is a skate ramp with some people. So, there you go, some concept art from Dredd. Definitely my kind of stuff. I hope you enjoyed looking at it.
Eric Chamberlain 