Above is Mike Mignola’s drawing from when he departed Hellboy II in preproduction. He left me this little illustration saying, “Good luck!”
Initially green like the elemental, the Troll Market took on more diverse colors in this keyframe by Francisco Ruiz Velasco (ABOVE), eventually becoming a riot of saturated colors in the final film.
General view of the Troll Market
MSZ: The market and the elemental [opposite] share the same palette. Originally, was there supposed to be a strong visual link between the two?
GDT: The original idea was that the other world was life, so I wanted to make it green, like nature, or red, like blood. But this is a very early idea. We still have a lot of green, but we eventually made it very lively with a lot of colors. What I did is I started evolving the movie toward a more controlled palette in the human world and an incredibly colorful palette in the fantasy world.
So Hellboy lives in the BPRD, which is essentially steel and concrete, straight lines. When you’re out on the street, everything is blue, greenish but with really cold lines. Then he sees the Troll Market and he goes, “Holy shit, you should see this.” He starts to understand where he belongs. Hellboy’s real life and his true nature are in these places.
NOTEBOOK 4, PAGE 29B
What are you? No, better yet—What am I NOT??
Elemental
Blind
Soft Xenon spotlights at half power, sweeping past the stone columns in the T.M. the whole time.
–ETCHED plaques inscribed with “TROLL” letters on the walls in the T.M. tunnel for the FACELESS CAVE BERSERKER with a lantern.
–A scene in which the victim wakes up with the vampire sucking at his arm, suddenly, without prior warning, like a hold, blind leech.
–Window from Polanski’s The Tenant in the T.M.
–Scene in which the corpse is identified: When you look at it—him, Please forgive me but—have you ever assembled a J. Puzzle? You concentrate on a piece. A finger, lip, brow, beauty mark, Anything you can. Avoid looking at anything else. Concentrate in the particular things, ignore the rest.
–King Balor has a crown of antlers coming out of his own skin.
–The prosthesis should be limited to the upper part.
GDT: We ended up discarding it [opposite page, top right]. But it was actually a great design for the guards who were guarding the king in Hellboy II.
And then here [opposite, bottom left] is an idea for layering the helmet for Johann to be invisible. Both Michael Elizalde, who was makeup designer on the film, and I are amateur magicians. I’m a terrible amateur magician. He is a great amateur magician. We were talking about creating the helmet as an optical illusion, so we slanted the helmet, creating a lid, raising the shoulders. It’s a really great illusion. It really is a very nice design.
MSZ: It’s amazing how much care you put into these things.
GDT: As you are making a movie, the easiest thing to forget is that it’s going to be viewed at a different speed. Like, the thing that you’ve labored on for months, which you’ve designed and constructed, is in the movie for two seconds. But sometimes an understanding develops, like with Star Wars. For a generation of kids, it takes Greedo nothing but a few minutes to live, enter, and die. Or my favorite creature, Hammerhead. He’s in one shot.
People talk about fantasy movies, and they say, “Well, this movie of yours was not loved by the critics,” or “It didn’t make money.” And I go, “It doesn’t matter.” It doesn’t matter. I assure you, there will be an eight-year-old kid in Milan, or Peru, or Mexico, who cherishes it as his favorite movie in the world because he saw it at age eight. Our generation worships movies that were critically savaged when they came out, and we enthrone people from Lucio Fulci to Mario Bava who were critically not well received or regarded at all.
MSZ: As you said, this appreciation all stems from love. Because, when you’re talking about Hammerhead, that was Ron Cobb who designed him. When he was drawing political cartoons, where he didn’t have to do it that well, he would really put thought and effort into it because he loved it. And George Lucas saw his illustrations and said, “Okay, I want to work with him.” I think there are kindred spirits within the arts—both behind the scenes and in the audience. The moment you connect, you just get it instantly.
GDT: Yes, there’s an imprint.
Del Toro’s early idea for King Balor’s royal guards gave them owl-like helmets. This idea was developed by Francisco Ruiz Velasco but eventually discarded in favor of the “butcher” design seen in the final film. (TOP) Del Toro, like many other filmmakers before him obsessed with their creatures, has a deep affection for his monsters.
NOTEBOOK 4, PAGE 23B
GREEN LIQUID. GIANT
That your girlfriend left you, that bombs fell in Iraq, with a door in his/her/ my chest.
–Robby Scott: Miniature UK builder.
–Exploding tooth fairies for DDT
–DRAIN the miniature
–Fairies: EAT, POOP, REPRODUCE.
–Lordimar’s “r’s” have not been very good for PL. Unexpected. Painful.
–Neither loneliness nor love knows any bounds. Pain and pleasure are fleeting but intense.
–Judging a movie after only one viewing seems strange to me. The conscious mind absorbs every image, which took hours of work to create, in a matter of seconds. But if the image is powerful, if it speaks to the viewer’s soul in some deep way, then those few seconds are enough for love to take shape. Image transcends dramaturgy. Dramaturgy is Demagogy in the cinema
Jaw made of bone
IMPERIAL OWL GUARD.
–Human hair
The prince’s and princess’s clothes have a slightly oriental look to them. Chinese-style spear w/ shaft
WINK’S BOX.
Polished acrylic glass lens. 3 inches
Painted prosthesis with nylon over the foam
J’s helmet needs to be sculpted small so that the character doesn’t have a “BIG HEAD”—shoulder pads
Johan’s helmet HB II
–Why do we look for peace in consensus? Is there any peace to be found in the approval of others that doesn’t leave us feeling more helpless? Anything that is new either unsettles or seduces, a flautist nobody wants to pay.