Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse: The Art of the Movie

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Much like The Matrix, which caused a ripple through the film industry because of innovative storytelling, Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse had the same impact, with its creative influence going beyond its Oscar win for Best Animated Feature to inspire several imitations. Upping the ante is the first of two proposed sequels, Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse, by showcasing not only the world inhabited by a slightly older Miles Morales but those serving as the homes of Spider-Gwen, Spider-Man 2099 and Spider-Man: India. And let’s not forget that the cast of Spider-People has been multiplied by 10, and Miles finds himself clashing with them on how to handle the portal-empowered villain known as the Spot.

Definitely. It’s a film that’s complex with its visual language, and the environment itself is extremely rich in terms of its detailing. It was a challenge to keep the character in the forefront, and to keep the action moving. Robh Ruppel, early on in production, described it as ‘a master class in graphic design.’ We talked about this all the time. In terms of the frame, there needs to be a very clean hierarchy of information. That’s where a lot of the graphic simplification comes in. However, when the heroes clash on how to handle a new threat, Miles finds himself pitted against the other Spiders and must redefine what it means to be a hero so he can save the people he loves most. And the film preserves the most important part: To create something different from what we generally see in mainstream animation. In a comic book, there’s no lens. So there’s no lens blur. To stay true to the medium, we decided to go with a CMYK offsetting as our blur. The film actually has no motion blur in it, but, instead, borrows from certain anime techniques to replicate the feeling of motion with a frame. At first it was a real problem because you’d get a lot of [visual] chatter. Despite our best intentions, you still need a “lens” that can focus. So we decided, all the [sense of] focus is done with a CMYK offsetting like you’d get off a four-pass printing press. Then we were bringing in the halftones, because that’s old school comic book DNA, as well, where you would have these halftone patterns that you’d rub on that would become your grades. Our lighting is actually rendering in these halftones. It was a major undertaking by our incredible team at Imagework, who deserve all the praise in the world for their hard work. This artwork was earlier released as a still in Empire Magazine’s May 2023 spread for the film. ‘Across The Spider-Verse’ Concept Art Showcases Mumbattan and The Spot

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Art of Across the Spider-Verse continued… Miguel’s new suit being worked on in a corner of his lab. Suit design was by Kristafer Anka but I stole it and destroyed it lol" PC & Peripheral All you need to know on the latest PC releases and whether they’re worth their dime. To handle the expanding multimedia aesthetic of the franchise, Sony Pictures Imageworks created a new department called Look of Picture. “On this one, there are so many technical hurdles and different looks that I’ve spent 80% of my time developing tools,” states Bret St. Clair, Senior Look Development and Lighting TD at Sony Pictures Imageworks. “We saw a lot of art that depicted paint being thrown around in-frame in ways where strokes aren’t specifically connected to a character or to anything. They’re floating in space. The problem for us is we try to approach everything rendering in a traditional way. Then we try to have all of our tools handle the rest in compositing. When it comes to positioning brushes in 3D, we needed to be able to reconstruct where those positions are, even when they don’t lie specifically on the surface that you’re applying the brush to, and the rendering tools, especially in 2D, don’t give you that information for free.”

Car Our revheads bring you all you need to know on the coolest electric vehicles and sports cars available on the market. years ago ( or a bit more? ) I was hired by Sony as the Production Designer / Art Director ( I always much prefer the sound of Art Direction than Production Design, despite the status or hierarchy ) and I was also contracted to direct a little clip that will ended up been called: "the animation test". Sorry I was long. I just wanted to explain about this weird Visual Consultant credit that I ended up having in the film. People keep asking. Oh, and that big “visual development” on each piece of art should make it clear but these are not final images. But the fact that these three characters are not in the new trailer, a trailer absolutely filled with Spider-People, speaks to just how many are going to be in the new movie.Below, O’Keefe discusses his graphics-laden trip through the multiverse, and presents six exclusive concept art images from the Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse production. First up is Pavitr Prabhaka, a.k.a. Spider-Man: India. Introduced in 2004, the hero has since shown up a few times as part of various crossover events, but is a very underrated character. The costume below is quite a departure from his comic book counterpart, though we'd also argue it's a massive improvement and a visually stunning take on this Spider-Man. Miguel may have a different look in Beyond The Spider-Verse, as newly released concept art reveals a potential suit upgrade he could be receiving in the next installment. I’m grateful that I had the chance to contribute to this project and meet some seriously talented, inspirational people. Congrats to the entire team for all the hard work. Felicia Chen

In the upgrade of Miles from a young teen to an older teen, his growing up a little was one of those where when the new shapes came into play, we handled it wrong; he no longer looked like himself,” Hawkins reveals. “Miles has a particular cheekbone structure and eye-corner shaping; his silhouette from the side and the way his mouth in the first movie had a bit of an overbite, and as they aged him up a little bit, you want to give someone a more pronounced jawline. That stuff did affect the way Miles looked, and he became a little unfamiliar. We had to make adjustments to how the rig would behave and how we handled the posing to make him look like a grownup version of that same Miles everybody loves.” A lot of the textures that you have in there feel very hand-hewn, but it looks like you’re bringing in the printed comic book roots in other visual ways. Let’s start with one we already knew about: Hobie Brown, aka Spider-Punk. He’ll be voiced by none other than Oscar winner Daniel Kaluuya, and while the character was first revealed in some merchandising for the film, this is our best look at him yet. Image: Sony Pictures These costumes are all pretty amazing in very different ways, though we'd say the design which was ultimately chosen is by far the best one.A complex battle that takes place in the Guggenheim Museum. “It’s in Gwen’s World, but the Guggenheim is actually filled with photorealistic artwork created by Jeff Koons,” Cornute-Sutton states. “It was one of the only times in the movie where we actually did go into Substance 3D Painter. We had photorealism, an architecturally significant building that we had to recreate, but in Gwen’s World style, and there is a helicopter bursting through the skylight in the ceiling. Vulture is in this sequence, and he’s from the Leonardo Da Vinci Verse, so he’s in a completely different sepia tone style. Then Spider-Man 2099 comes in with this digital suit that comes on in bits and bytes; his righthand gal Lyla pops in and she’s a hologram. Jessica Drew hops in on her motorcycle. And there’s Gwen and her father. They’re all in their styles.” As soon as I got hired I worked super hard 7 days a week and hell of hours per day from day one. Painting, Drawing, Designing and Story Boarding. SONY responded amazingly with the first images and animatics.They were real happy. I felt powerful, super confident partially because I was doing good hard work but also partially because Sony made me feel that way.