Black Panther Wakanda Forever: Ironheart vs. Namor Keyframe (2020)

Problem-solving how a shot or sequence might work is often a part of designing a keyframe image. In this instance, from the climactic Talokan attack on the Royal Sea Leopard, we needed to visualize the maneuver where Ironheart blasts Namor into the belly hatch of the Royal Talon Fighter. Composing an image like this can be tricky since you have to capture each element's relationship to each other in one frame in such a way that you can anticipate the action without the benefit of movement or time. Beyond that it has to be clear, dynamic and exciting. I'll usually work it out with 3 or 4 thumbnails and get Marvel VisDev head honcho Ryan Meinerding's expert eyes on them before pursuing a direction.

This image was done fairly late in the production, but while Ironheart was wearing the original approved bronze color palette. The final image was rendered using my zBrush sculpt of Ironheart, but it turned out to be such a detailed model that Transpose Master would crash any time I tried to pose it, and I couldn't import it into Keyshot. So I had to rotate the zBrush view for each individual piece to match my sketch, screen-grab it separately, and reassemble it all in Photoshop. That's why all of my other Ironheart keyframes are painted rather than using the model!! The Royal Talon Fighter was rendered from a VFX model, from the original design by Joe Hiura. The Royal Sea Leopard I believe is credited to Josh Viers and Ed Natividad.