ILM.com is showcasing artwork specially chosen by members of the ILM Art Department. In this installment of a continuing series, three artists from the San Francisco and Sydney studios share insights about their work on the 2025 production from Universal, Wicked: For Good.
Art Director Tyler Scarlet
We wanted to give the bison a whimsical look so I played around with stylizing their fur to give them facial hair as well as to exaggerate the shape of their horns. I also wanted to humanize them a bit so I worked on the shape of their eyes and exaggerated their eyebrows to be more expressive.
Since the Bison were forced to work against their will, we wanted to show some signs of injury. I worked on finding the right amount of scaring, bruising, etc. Some of my early versions went too far and looked a little too sad so I had to pull that back a bit and find the right balance. I really enjoyed exaggerating their different personalities.
Art Director Chris Voy
This image is part of a series for the sequence where we follow the train from the Ozian countryside and see how Glinda’s influence sweeps through the Emerald City, which is represented by her characteristic pink color in flags, streamers, and confetti. This shot shows the banners unfurling from the tall towers with the train crossing the river in the distance. Later the train’s color was switched to pink.
Across both films are several wide establishing shots of the Emerald City. They are usually from different angles and show something new in the story. For each of these we’d design and build out a bit more to fill in the gaps. On the first film I put some time (maybe too much!) into figuring out a layout for the little Ozian gardens and streets, but you never really got a chance to see any of it very well. Fortunately the second film added this epic tower-view shot where we see right down into the surrounding city where all those little details are on display.
This sequence shows several new parts of the city along with areas that the audience would hopefully recognize from the first film. Of course, everything needed to be consistent from shot to shot as we traveled from the countryside up through the center of the city. I did some rough sketches to discuss ideas but it became necessary to keep most of the work in 3D to ensure it all fit together with existing parts of the city and worked from the perspective of each shot. Then I was able to pass that geometry on for use in the shot.
Concept Artist Mathilde Marion
We wanted to offer some visuals for a forest sequence in which Elphaba is being chased by the flying monkeys. We had some plates but were worried that it was not going to look Ozian enough and that we would need to either augment or replace them. So the main point was to build an environment that would feel Ozian, all the while respecting the fast-pace and the tension of a chase sequence.
We used the previs as a base, choosing the shots that seemed to be the most important story-wise and that could best describe the environment. I started painting them as black and white thumbnails to make sure I’d stay visually consistent through the sequence. Once that was done, we picked a couple that we wanted to build up to a fully finished concept. These were to go along with the thumbnails to sell the look and atmosphere to the client. The main challenge was with how fast the chase was. Visually, it had to be striking enough that it would immediately appear as part of the magical land of Oz. In order to do that, we relied on the strange shapes of the twisted Ozian trees, and created a magical atmosphere through color and lighting.
A lot of great production design work had already been done on the first movie. I used that and the sets as a starting point, and then did some more reference gathering. There are many interesting images in landscape photography, with locations like Broceliande’s forest in France, or the goblin forest in New Zealand. Photographs in the morning fog, with a very diffuse bright lighting, were the ones that talked to me the most.
See the complete gallery of concept art from Wicked: For Good here on ILM.com.
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Read more about Wicked: For Good:
“Preparation is the key to success”: Pablo Helman on the complexity of making ‘Wicked: For Good’
Mirrors on the Walls: Reflecting on ‘Wicked: For Good’s’ ‘The Girl in the Bubble’
