Photography & Digital ArtMAR 3, 2020

Incredibly Satisfying Timelapse Of Creating Thanos Gives Rare Look Into What It Takes To Make The Characters You See In Films (17 Pics + Video)

We all love to see our favorite villains and superheroes battle on the big screen, but do we know just how much work it takes to create these characters? Former VFX artist, Morten Jaeger, took it upon himself to recreate Thanos and The Infinity Gauntlet to gives us a rare look into what is required to make a Hollywood standard supervillain.

The 45-hour long process has been edited down to just 11 minutes, and yet, it can best be described as "only a 3D concept" when compared to the massive amount of additional work it would take to prepare the sculpture to be used in film production. For an iconic character like Thanos, it can easily take upwards of a year and 15+ people working full time to get him ready for action.

So why does it take so long? What we see as the end result on the big screen is just the tip of the iceberg. Behind the scenes, several specialists have been working hard to design the character, give it a digital skeleton so it can move around, define what the materials should look like (clothing, skin, armor) and create the special FX for those epic moments. And this is just the VFX portion alone. There's also the actors on set, makeup artists, camera crew, music, voice actors, and so on. In short, there's a ton of work that goes into film and TV which is often invisible to the public.

Morten is now Co-founder of Flippednormals.com - a curated CG marketplace for creatives that brings better and cheaper education to aspiring artists and professionals around the world.

"The 45-hour long process has been edited down to just 11 minutes"

"A huge amount of work goes into prepping a digital character for film"

"It can easily take upwards of a year and 15+ people working full time"

"Even the most iconic supervillains starts off looking less impressive"

"Creating the gauntlet was a big challenge that required lots of patience"

"What we see as the end result on the big screen is just the tip of the iceberg"

"Concept artists have been working hard to design the character"

"Shading artists define what the materials should look like (clothing, skin, armour)"

"Special FX gets added for those epic moments; explosions, portals, superpowers, you name it"

"Animators bring the character to life"

"Riggers give the character a digital skeleton so it can move"

"And this is just the VFX portion alone"

"There's also the actors on set, makeup artists, camera crew, music, voice actors, and so on"

"Motion capture is also being used a lot to capture the actors movements for animation"

"There's ton of work that goes into film and TV which is often invisible to the public"

Would you like to see more art timelapses like this? Let us know in the comments!