Ryan Meinerding is having a full-circle moment.
When he was in high school, one of his favorite characters was The Thing — so he sketched him. That artwork is featured in “Marvel Studios: The Art of Ryan Meinerding.” Meinerding has been with the Marvel Cinematic Universe from the very beginning, brought on to help Jon Favreau with “Iron Man.”
He is now a character designer, creative director and the head of visual development at Marvel Studios, and has spent the last five years helping bring The Thing to life for Marvel’s latest, “Fantastic Four: First Steps.”
The film stars Pedro Pascal as Reed Richards, aka Mr. Fantastic; Vanessa Kirby as Sue Storm, aka the Invisible Woman; Joseph Quinn as Johnny Storm, aka the Human Torch; and Ebon Moss-Bachrach as Ben Grimm, aka the Thing. The cast also includes Ralph Ineson as the planet-devouring villain Galactus and Julia Garner as the Silver Surfer. The film is set in Earth-828 and takes place in an alternate Marvel Cinematic timeline.
Variety paid a visit to Meinerding’s office in Burbank, Calif. where he and his team work in the dark, lit up by their screens as they conceive environments, action sequences and character designs for the MCU. He shared his design process, which often begins with a pencil sketch “to figure out basic ideas. Or if I’m working on a big story moment, I’ll do it by hand just to get some fast ideas out.” Meinerding also talked about how he found a way to give The Thing emotion, and how this film turned out to be his biggest project to date — with his team, they produced 3,600 pieces of concept art.
Meinerding’s high school sketch of The Thing.
Inside your art book, there’s a drawing you did of the Thing from your high school days. How does it feel coming into this full-circle moment, where you’re bringing that very character to life for the feature film?
I always loved The Thing. I love the Fantastic Four in general, but I also always loved The Thing, and so I did that when I was in high school.
He’s one of those characters that’s so iconic to Marvel. It’s one of the first characters Jack Kirby designed, and the idea of that character having so much life, heart and expression was what drew me to him. Also, as a character designer, the idea of characters that are a little harder to figure out, like a guy made of rocks — to make him lovable, that’s a hard challenge. I can’t quite describe how it feels, because it is one of those things that comes along once in a lifetime.
What was important in bringing The Thing to life?
When Jack Kirby started drawing him, he looked a little bit like a mud man. Jack Kirby drew about 100 or 103 issues of “Fantastic Four.” Over the course of that time, he evolved. He got to draw him so much that he changed and perfected the design. The idea of this weird-looking head shape with the huge brow, the tiny nose, the long, muzzle-like mouth, all those things he made work so well. Artists in the comics have done lots of different and amazing things through the years with him, but for me, it was always looking at what Jack Kirby had done. The idea of that heavy brow and these bright, shining blue eyes, really popping when he looks up at you, was important.
One of the notions going into this film was trying to have as much practical stuff on set as possible, which included a number of things. One of the things was building a stand-in. Alexandra Byrne, our costume designer, built real clothes and giant shoes. So they had all that as a reference. Another thing was going out and finding some actual rock that was going to be used as a reference, and they brought some of that stuff to set. It was just to make sure that when they did visual effects, they would know exactly what the color of the tonality would be.
Where did you find those rocks?
I went out to a few landscaping places and found decorative rocks. We’re always looking for ways to make this stuff feel as real as possible. On “Captain America,” that started with buying World War II stuff from our army surplus stores. This one started with, “How do I find something that’s as grounded as real as possible to be the building blocks for him?”
Time-wise, when do you typically start working on something like this?
Kevin kicks me off on stuff as soon as he’s super excited [about a project] – and he was very excited once the acquisition [of the “Fantastic Four” film rights] happened in 2019. The first thing I got to start working on was The Thing. I started sculpting him on the computer and trying to bring him to life. It was iteration upon iteration and coming to the final design images for him. Around the same time, we were also talking about the overall aesthetic of the film and trying to find something that felt retro-futuristic. Kazra, the production designer, ended up bringing that stuff to life in a way that is so exciting. When we started, it was “Should we look at the ‘60s sci-fi movies?” “Should we be looking at concept artists of that era, such as Syd Mead and Robert McCall, people who worked on ‘2001 and the early ‘Star Trek’ movies?” We were finding inspiration in places from that era of filmmaking.
Going back to The Thing, he manages to have such character depth and emotion, but it’s all rocks. How did you find your way through that?
One of the great things about The Thing is that eyes, eyebrows and a mouth are the most expressive features on a face, and he’s all that. And he’s all eyebrows, eyes and mouth. That eyebrow does everything. It makes him surprised, angry or happy. And his mouth can turn from this grouchy-looking, sad mouth to something that’s a full smile. As long as we find a way of not making all the rocks get in the way of seeing those things, you can use those tools of expression to really communicate. The challenge with him is that, because there are so many rocks, sometimes the lines between them can make the viewer not quite see the expression. So there’s a balancing act there. I always thought the brow was this tremendous challenge, because it casts so much shadow in his eyes. But it’s also such a possibility for expression that I’m glad we were able to get it in film.
You’ve got an incredible team working with you. What is that collaborative process?
I’ve been here a long time. We hired a team for the first “Avengers” movie. So, Andy Park and Rodney Fuentebella have been around for 15 years. Sometimes our team grows depending on the productions. But I’ve been fortunate enough to have the most talented people around me who go from designing characters to doing key frames for big story moments.
We worked to figure out Reed’s stretching powers or Sue’s powers, and how Surfer is going to look cool surging the wave of a neutron star. The team brings a wealth of experience, and each one of them brings what they love about the characters and tries to solve those problems in different ways. A number of artists will try out different things and will present all of that to the filmmakers, so it really creates a conversation amongst the filmmakers. It feels like there’s been an exploration.
There’s a lot to get correct, right down to their suits, given how iconic these characters are. What was the idea there?
With the look of their suits, Alexandra and I were looking through different iterations of the comics. The initiative came to lean into the blue and white suits more than the other iterations from the comics. It was meant to feel a little bit friendlier and more earnest and not quite so contemporary in its coolness. We landed with something that felt like it was from the past, as if it was designed for a 1960s sci-fi movie.
The Fantastic Four has been done many times. What is it like creating this world, say, versus something like ‘Thor’ that hadn’t been done previously?
Working on “Thor” was a very interesting experience because up until then, everything had been on Earth. The idea of creating a new Asgard for Thor to exist in required a lot of artistic input and a lot of research into the comics. Any of this starts with what the needs of the story are. We’re trying to look at making something that feels like something you haven’t seen before, but grounded enough that you’re going to buy the pushed idea of science driving it, even if it’s not going to look like the science we understand. Charlie Wen, the concept artist, cracked the look of the Asgardian costumes by referencing stuff from the comics, but found a way of making those characters feel regal, grand and theatrical in some ways, but there was a purpose to them.
Which is harder, creating a character like The Thing, a digital character, or creating something like Sue’s powers?
They’re all the same challenge. The Thing is a challenge for reasons that you have a lot of comic book fans who have very strong ideas, and you want to deliver for them. But you also want the character to feel real. It’s synthesizing all of that into something that the director responds to and that Kevin responds to. Working on stuff for Reed and Sue is a different balancing act. The Fantastic Four costumes are not, strictly speaking, grounded in as much reality as something like what we did with Captain America, where we’re trying to make him feel like a legitimate soldier that’s tough and hardened. These are going to have this earnestness, making people believe that those suits actually accomplish something, and that they are based in their version of science as well, and that the simplicity actually helps the project.
What were the challenges in bringing Galactus to the big screen?
There was a lot of work on Galactus, trying to figure out the appropriate scale and how he’s going to be experienced for the first time, and we did key frames surrounding that.
But Galactus was a complete joy to work on. He was challenging to try to get as much detail on. He was meant to be one of those cosmic characters that you almost can’t fully appreciate how big he is. We also stayed close to the Kirby design. So I’d say that out of the designs I worked on, Galactus and The Thing are probably two of the most Kirby-inspired characters I’ve ever been able to work.
And what about Surfer?
Matt brought this notion that she would have this tarnished mirror surface. So, trying to figure out how to represent that without it detracting from her reflectivity was a lot of fun. Julia’s face is so compelling and interesting, trying to capture that. I was trying to find something that felt haunting, that she’s staring into your soul.
She’s a challenge because she reflects whatever environment she’s in. It was finding ways for her to have that common tone that would also be affected by other things. In the film, they play that up a lot, where they try to find ways of making her feel real in the environment, by really reflecting what’s there.
How did you land on getting the logo for this correct?
In trying to find something that fit the retro-esthetic, we were trying to get into something that felt like a science fiction movie, or maybe that feels a little bit older than the 60s. We ended up sitting pretty well on the tech suits, it was like, “Okay, I think we got something.” We did present quite a few different sets of character design illustrations to see what Matt and Kevin were responding to.
This interview has been edited and condensed.
See Ryan’s concept art below.
