Dermot Power is a concept designer and visual development artist with an impressive list of credits in feature films like Star Wars: Episode II Attack of the Clones, Batman Begins, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, V for Vendetta and three of the Harry Potter films, as well as high-end gaming projects like Bioshock 2.

Since I initially wrote about him in 2006, Power has redesigned his website and added concept art from several new films, including Beowulf, A Christmas Carol and Tim Burton’s Alice in Wonderland.

I’m constantly struck by Power’s masterful use of value in composing his images. This is most evident in his compositions that are monochromatic, or nearly so, which have a dynamic and atmospheric power that make them a visual treat in themselves.

Not that Power doesn’t also do wonderful work in color, he certainly does, but where other concept artists rely on color, often with high-chroma complementary colors laid side by side to exaggerate their intensity, Power creates palpable atmosphere and intense visual drama using value as his major instrument. Even in his full color work, you can tell that value is a primary concern in his handling of the subject.

Of course, it doesn’t hurt the Power is a terrific draftsman, with a snappy, economic style that makes his character designs a visual treat as well.

When viewing the galleries on his website, and flipping through the (unfortunately small) controls above the images, don’t miss the fact that some of the projects have more than one section, accessed on the bar to the right of the title. Also, look for Power’s interesting commentary at lower left of the images.

There is also a biography and interviews on the site, along with a FAQ, links and more. Unfortunately the “Tutorials” section is limited (at least for now) to a single time-lapse digital painting. Power also maintains a blog titled DMOXIA.

It’s easy when viewing concept art for familiar films to unconsciously think of them as after the fact, because they often look like the images you’ve seen on screen, but keep in mind that images like these are what the movie scenes are based on; they facilitate the communication of visual concepts between the director, cinematographer, production designer and other contributors who produce the final look of a feature film or game.

Power’s beautiful concept designs for Alice in Wonderland (images above, top two) and A Christmas Carol (second and third down) are so striking they make me wish the final movies were filmed in black and white and looked as close to his digital paintings as possible.

Kevin Nelson is a visual development artist for the animated film industry, in particular Disney Animation Studios. He has worked on films like The Emperor’s New Groove, Tangled, Bolt and Meet The Robinsons.

What little I know about him is not from any biographical material conspicuously absent from his blog, but simply because he has posted some images there from his work on those films.

In addition you will find work on personal projects and some life sketches.

Nelson has one of those delightful drawing styles that can be at once precise and energetic, with enough “snap” to his lines and angles to suggest motion and vibrancy.

He also has wonderful control over his color palette and uses atmospheric perspective to great effect.

[Via John Nevarez]

Justin Sweet is a concept artist, illustrator and gallery artist who works primarily in the fantasy genre.

He has worked on motion picture projects like Game of Thrones, The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian and Green Lantern and illustration projects like Magic: The Gathering.

Though his gallery art is in oil and watercolor, Sweet works digitally for his concept art, valuing the flexibility and speed of handling inherent to that medium. There is a brief interview with him on the ImagineFX site.

On his own website, you can find concept art, drawings, illustrations and a newly added section of concept art from Narnia: Prince Caspian (images above, 4th & 5th down).

In the illustration section there is an unexpected treat in the form of wonderfully handled pen and ink/scratchboard style illustrations (images above, bottom two) that I’m assuming were drawn digitally, perhaps with the Scratchboard Tool in Corel Painter.

Sweet’s artwork is currently on view in a solo exhibition at Gallery Nucleus in Alhambra, California, that runs until November 28, 2011. You can see examples of work from the show on the Nucleus website (images above, first three). When the exhibition ends, you should still be able to find Sweet’s work on this page of the Gallery Nucleus website.

One of the most renowned and influential French comics artists, Régis Loisel is known in particular for his work in the fantasy genre. Along with Jean Giraud (“Moebius”) and several other pioneers, he helped set the stylistic standards that became the foundation of Franco-Belgian comics (“bandes desinees”) from the mid 20th century to today.

Most comics readers here in the US, despite the fascination with Japanese manga in some circles, aren’t aware of how vibrant (and different) the comics scene is in other parts of the world, like France, Belgium, the UK, Italy and South America.

Loisel is perhaps best known for his work on La Quete de l’Oiseau du Temps (“The Quest for the Time Bird”, published at one point in English as Roxanna and The Quest for the Time Bird), a multi-volume fantasy epic written by Serge Le Tendre.

Loisel worked on numerous short projects, as well as the multi-volume series Le Grand Mort and a striking adaptation of Peter Pan (images above, second from bottom). He also did visual development art for the Disney animated features Mulan (above, bottom) and Atlantis.

His comics pages manage to feel detailed and open at the same time, with passages of intense detail balanced by well spotted blacks and flat areas of color, all used to dramatic effect. He has a wonderful command of the environments in which he places his characters, both natural and architectural.

He uses visual texture to great advantage in creating atmosphere, mood and a sense of scale and distance, as well as controlling how long the reader’s eye lingers on a given panel,

Loisel’s website, though in French, is easy enough for non-French speakers to navigate. The major comics series, Peter Pan, La Quete de l’Oiseau du Temps and Le Grand Mort, each have a drop down menu to pages about each volume in the series. These are usually accompanied by a few sample pages that open in pop-ups.

Some of the volumes, in particular La Quete de l’Oiseau du Temps volumes 7 and 5 have more extensive previews. Volume 5 is supplemented with images of pages in their penciled or inked states in addition to finished art.

I find Loisel’s pencil drawings for comics pages particularly appealing; even though they are intended to be finished in ink and printed in color, they have a wonderful quality just as pencil drawings.

You can sometimes find Loisel’s comics albums on Amazon.com, both in English and in French, as well as through importers like Stuart Ng Books.

You can find larger images of some of Loisel’s pages from Peter Pan, along with samples of his visual development drawings for Mulan on Animation Treasures: One1More2time3′s Weblog, the superb blog of Hans Bacher.

Bacher is the production designer who, while working on Mulan, suggested to producer Pam Coats that he bring Loisel in on the project. Bacher has an excellent series of posts on Loisel and his work.

You can also find some larger images of pages from Le Grand Mort on Vincent Mallié’s site (also here, here, here and here)

David Fuhrer is a Swiss concept artist, illustrator and designer based in Bern. His website showcases a range of his illustration, design and other images, both fanciful personal projects and more practical work for clients.

When visiting his site you can choose between Flash or HTML versions, but in either case, open your browser to full screen as the images scale up with the window, and Fuhrer’s digital paintings are intricately detailed and work on an expansive range of scale.

In both his freeform constructions in which fantastic landscape elements seem to melt and grow in wildly sculptural shapes and his glistening space scenes in which the lights of technological elements dot oddly shaped planes and structures, Fuhrer uses detail to convey a dramatic sense of scale.

I’ve tried to show this with detail crops accompanying each of the images above. Viewing them in large size on his site, however, gives a much better effect.

Fuhrer also has a gallery on Behance Network that includes work not currently on his site.

[Via io9]

Into the Pixel is a yearly juried art exhibit showcasing concept and visual development art from the gaming industry.

Sponsored by the Academy of Interactive Arts and Sciences and the Entertainment Software Association, the exhibition is displayed at the E3 Expo.

You can also view the selections from this year, as well as the past several years, in the online galleries. The art selections are linked form the “Collection” sublink under each year in the navigation. Hovering over the thumbnails changes the mid size preview; clicking on the thumbnail opens the image in a pop-up window.

The pop-ups list the artist, the game for which the piece was done and the medium — most often digital painting, as well as some 3D modeling and mixtures of the two. There is a wonderfully diverse array of subjects and illustration styles.

(Images above: David Guertin, Aaron Limonick, Corentin Chevanne & Guillaume Bonnet, Lucas Graciano, Hamzah Kasom Osman, Nick Thornborrow, Tom Robinson, Jonathan Kirtz, Brian Thompson & Hamzah Kasom Osman)

[Via Gurney Journey]

As I mentioned last year, John Nevarez continues to maintain and add to this unofficial blog for the work of the superb visual development artist Paul Felix.

The latest additions are a wonderful series of visual notes on perspective, shading, composition and more that are like a classroom in themselves.

Great stuff.

[Via Scott Altmann (my post here) and Bill Robinson]

Jason Scheier is a visual development artist and concept designer based in Pasadena, California. His clients include DreamWorks Animation SKG, NBC Universal, Anonymous Content, Honda Automotive, General Electric and DreamWorks Feature Films.

The images on his website gallery have names, though they don’t include references to the projects for which they were designed. Scheier’s focus is on environments and landscapes, sometimes realistic, often wildly imaginative.

His digital renderings feature carefully controlled color palettes and richly textured surfaces. His gallery even includes examples of digital plein air painting (images above, third from bottom) which have a nicely painterly look.

Scheier is also in instructor at the Los Angeles Academy of Figurative Art where he is teaching an Imaginative Process Seminar on September 13.