Here’s my “the Dweller in Darkness” creaturedesign for Shang Chi. I had an incredible time working on this film with the amazing team over at Marvel Visual Development. The project was led by my buddy Andy Park . He is a very good project leader. I don’t know how he does it. He keeps everyone on track while producing tons of his own exceptional artwork at the same time. Working on this design was really fun. My biggest hurtle with my work at marvel is that I tend to lean too scary. I often get that note and have to dial things back a bit. Surprisingly, this time not so much. I still can’t believe this guy got on screen. He was actually pretty terrifying. My favorite element of the design are the many tales/tendrils coming off of his back and wings. I knew that the creature would be too large to have any real interaction with the human characters if he didn’t have something that he could actually used to fight them. I was looking at a lot of Chinese Kites for inspiration there, trying to tie in some cultural element to the design.

In a few of these pieces you can see the dweller in the darkness fighting the hero dragon. My good friend Tully Summers designed the dragon and lent me his model so that we could figure out scale. I worked with Tully on a lot of projects. There is nothing this man cannot do! Working on these marvel projects can be incredibly challenging, but it is such an honor to work with so many talented artists that I consider dear friends.