RED ONE: Santa Regal King

Oftentimes as Concept Artists we get to work on projects that are very fun.
Being a father of 2 young children, Christmas and Holiday movies are very fun for me to work on because I get to channel my inner kid and use my imagination from that magical point of view.
This Regal King version of Santa was heavily influenced from an "Old World Kingdom" era and it was important to me to hit that time period, mood and tone.
I did tremendous research on Santa/Kris Kringle from a planetary point of view. I literally dove into the culture and religion of Santa and Christmas spanning every single country in the world that celebrates.
I pinpointed all the common denominators from this variety of cultures and did my best to implement motifs and symbols in subtle ways into the costume.
The direction of this concept was that he is a King and is harnessing the northern light power of the Aurora Borealis to defeat the final threat.

I sketched out ideas in Photoshop.
The whole costume and character was 3D modeled in Zbrush
I handpainted over the model in Photoshop.
I also designed the "Old World Christmas" pattern on the cape.

I originally collaborated with Costume Designer-Jeffrey Kurland on this.
After a few months of doing fun stuff for this project, the majority of the Costume team ended up being replaced.
For that reason, this version was not seen in the final act due to the director having a different direction for his film.