The Parliament of Ghosts

Spacklecube is pleased to have a guest post from one of the talented visual artists of Thor, Roderick Halfmansson, who offers an exclusive insight into the concept and design process of Jotunheim, home to the hulking frost giants.  Enjoy this behind the scenes look at the film Entertainment Weekly called “not art”!

Hello everyone, I’m Roderick Halfmansson, a concept illustrator for Thor, and I’m quite pleased to be able to offer you a breakdown of the creative process behind the creation of Jotunheim.  I was given very complex directions by director Kenneth Branagh, who had a distinct visual design in mind for the entire film.  He said to me, “Rod’rick, my beloved wool-sack, what mutter you?  ’Tis surely time we sat ‘pon these leather-bound seats and spoke of that grand design, that Jotunheim, that it might be splash’d ‘cross the screen to the astonishment of those lovers of thou work, O cinema!  This land you create, my sky-minded flax-worshipper, shall be a world in death, lying ’bout shrouded in darkness and haunted by such wretched monsters, the giants of frost.  Now to work with you, bottle-ale rascal!  I am off to create that which shall be held in regard by all!”

With these instructions I set to the task of fulfilling the director’s grand authorial vision by thinking, “If I were a Frost Giant, where would I live?”  The answer quickly came to me: “In any first person shooter made in the 1990s.”  So I immediately set to work on a concept render of the grand hall of the Frost Giants:

The word "QUAKE" is written on the central arch, as a warning to all those who enter the Frost Giants' presence

Then, using the 3d model as a reference, I created a concept illustration for Mr. Branagh:

I sketch out the design freehand, and then scan and digitally render the image in Photoshop.

Armed with this early concept, I went to Mr. Branagh for immediate feedback, and got it.  ”Alas, thy design is great yet flawed.  These earthy tones, nature’s browns and grays and grayish-browns, they are not the colors of the Frost Giants, whose Jotunheim is a land of ice.  Get thee to a nunnery, Rod’rick, and return when you have something to offer me with that grand palette of the frigid,” he said.

After clarifying that this meant he wanted it bluer, I took the concept illustration back to Photoshop and began playing with the palette until I got a more satisfying color scheme:

The blue tones used in this redesign were inspired by the color blue.

I returned to Mr. Branagh, who once again had further advice on how to achieve his directorial vision.

“This brightly-lit land is not dying, you wench-trodden bakery-smith!  ’Tis a rainbow of light and song compar’d to the shadows in which the monstrous giants lurk.  Begone from my sight, and return not until thou hast created shadows within which can lurk the hulking Frost Giants of Jotunheim, a worthy opponent for the Mighty Thor!”

I took the Great Thespian’s (at this point we were legally obligated to refer to Mr. Branagh by this title) criticisms to heart, and worked on an entirely new design, one that could adequately conceal the menace of the mighty Frost Giants.  Within the week, I returned to Mr. Branagh with this:

For this design, I took another artist's work as inspiration and, using Photoshop, blurred out the part of the image where he signed it.

Mr. Branagh was furious when he saw this design.  ”You pusillanimous lager-headed bat-swine!  What knave art thou to come before me with this brightly-lit playground for children?  I ask for but a small change, and you shift the very earth ‘neath my feet!  Return thy idiocy to its original form, and bring unto me what I have asked: that brilliant Jotunheim that sprang forth from thine head fully-formed like ‘Thena from ‘Eus, but contain’d of more shadows that the sinister forms of the Frost Giants might conceal themselves within!”

So I did this:

I didn't feel like taking out the light on the left side so I just hoped Sir (the new contract specified he was to be referred to by this title) Kenneth Branagh wouldn't notice it.

He loved it, saying, “Belov’d Rod’rick, thine ‘ye strik’s tru’ w’th th’s cr’ation.  ’Tis ‘n art’fice l’ke n’one oth’r.  ”””””’ ”” ” ””’.”  At this point he was so excited he was removing every letter he said and replacing it with an apostrophe, so I just left the design on his desk and took off, figuring he could have an assistant email me.  It turned out he was actually having a stroke and I had left him to die, so I was pretty well fired at that point.  He may have removed my name from the credits and ensured I will never work again, but he did use my concept design for Jotunheim!

For some time now, Spacklecube has been one of Wikileaks’ “media partners.”  This is due to a combination of a dyslexic wikileaks staffer, my brief ownership of the domain gaurdian.co.uk a couple of years ago, and my uncanny ability to fake a British accent through email.  Unfortunately, I haven’t been able to take advantage of this special relationship because I really need my paypal account, UNCIEF@paypal.com, to continue working.  However, thanks to the release of Obama’s long-form birth certificate (which Ozzie has a thorough dissection of over at his Muggsy Bogues fansite), nobody is paying a single bit of attention to Wikileaks, so I can release whatever documents I want without having to worry about Joe Lieberman calling up Reginald J. Paypal and shutting down my only source of cash.

Unfortunately, by the time I emailed Wikileaks to get in on some of this sweet Gitmo Files action, they had given out all the good memos (your pathological liars, your Khalid Sheik Mohameds, your mentally disabled senior citizens) to their other media partners.  Fortunately, after a bit of whining, they found a file they had forgotten to send to anyone: ISN 1242, which concerned a detainee identified only as Ahmed.  So it is with great pleasure I present to you, the Spacklecube readers, a Spacklecube exclusive: Gitmo File US9AF-0001242DP

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