FIRST LOOK

Beautiful Na'vi Concept Art from James Cameron's Avatar - Updated!

by Alex Billington
November 22, 2008
Source: MarketSaw

We've been waiting for a real glimpse at James Cameron's Avatar for years now but still haven't seen anything official. However, Jim Dorey over at the 3D blog MarketSaw hit the jackpot yesterday with a batch of concept art photos that reportedly feature the alien creature in the film known as the Na'vi. This isn't the first time we've ran some rumored concept art of the Na'vi, but this time Jim assures us that is "authentic, conceptual art of the Na'vi creature." He says that these images came from a video with artist Jonay Bacallado of the Avatar creative team talking about his work (which you can see here). For a first look at some rough concept art, these are definitely quite beautiful and very interesting to check out.

We really don't know much about these creatures and whether or not they'll actually look like this in the end. However, we can speculate that they'll end up being a very integral part of the film, considering the story is largely about human interaction with these creatures on their own planet named Pandora. There's a lot to still be revealed about the Na'vi, but apparently they have all sorts of interesting features and potentially can even organically combine (somehow) with the plant life on the planet. Who really knows?

Photos removed at the request of artist Jonay Bacallado.

At first glance, these are actually kind of creepy, especially if you're not the biggest fan of aliens. But I guess it's better to start getting used to them now, because by December next year, we'll be getting two full hours of them in glorious 3D. As everyone knows, I've been preaching about James Cameron's Avatar for a while now. As of recent, I've just been kind of holding my breath in hopes that we'd get a teaser trailer or something by the end of the year. Only time will tell and until then we've got concept art like this to mull over for weeks on end. Plus I'm just really not sure what to think about all this yet. What about you?

Update! Apparently these images aren't exactly what we'll see in the movie. Artist Jonay Bacallado contacted MarketSaw and told him that Fox has threatened him and in turn they've removed the photos from all respective websites. At first he claimed that "it has nothing to do with the actual concept art of the film." However, a second e-mail from Jonay says otherwise. "The images were created before anyone at costume department was hired… These pics were my passport, just to prove I could handle the job, they gave me freedom to create." So as far as we can tell, they are real, created by the concept artist who is working on Avatar, but they're not designs that we'll actually be seeing in the film.

Update #2! We've removed the artwork at the request of Jonay. He has been sending an e-mail to a lot of people, including us. "This is Jonay Bacallado, the concept artist of Avatar. The designs on your website are screen captures from a documentary that has been removed from it's original source www.plansiete.com , a program that used my artwork without my permission, creating such a confussion. People from Fox keeps calling my department chiefs to remove the information at your website about Avatar and DragonBall. They are really upset." You can still find them online in a few places if you so wish or can just wait until some footage from Avatar actually hits and we'll get to see them up close and personal!

Avatar is both written and directed by revolutionary filmmaker James Cameron, of everything from Aliens to The Abyss to Terminator to Titanic previously. In the future, Jake, a paraplegic war veteran, is brought to another planet, Pandora, which is inhabited by the Na'vi, a humanoid race with their own language and culture. Those from Earth find themselves at odds with each other and the local culture. Avatar will be presented in full 3D arriving in theaters on December 18th, 2009 late next year.

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