So I watched the Days of the future past this year and enjoyed it a lot! After the end credits I was wondering about the next movie, Apocalypse.
As a child I was fascinated by this villain and I started to imagine how they would design him for the big screen.
So after that, my friend called me to do a concept art contest in which we should re-design Marvel or DC characters... Then immediately I thought: I could re-design Apocalypse to a "movie" version!
Instead of waiting until 2016 I decided to do my own version of him.
I started with some sketches trying to keep true to the design that were already established. I know that most of the fans want to see the character look as close as possible to the originals. (Sometimes I have the same feeling towards some adaptations).
Nevertheless, Apocalypse has seen many variations, so I took some liberty... Soon I realized that he needed some major adaptation, because the visuals that may work on Comics or even Games not always works on movies.
If I did it similar to the comics, he could look not as serious as he supposed to be and appear like a real threat. So I decided to focus on the "Alien" side of him.
On the ancient Egypt he finds an alien technology and fuses himself with it, therefore, augmenting his powers.
So I began to aim towards the alien thing... Also one of his powers is "molecular self manipulation" which means he can shape-shift! So I created this stripes and plates that could expand and change to become weapons and stuff.
I wasn't happy with the design so I decided to focus also on his Egyptian origins, making a "Alien High tech + Egypt". So for that I try to use some ideas from Egyptian costumes and also focus on some triangle shapes, which are very remarkable because of the pyramids.
the crossed wings on the chest and also the type of "skirt" were very inspirational
So after that I moved to the illustration piece. On the animated series, Mystique joins apocalypse and I believed that could be a good idea for the movie as well.
The actor I would choose to do the part, as many other fans suggested, would be Dwane Jhonson - the Rock. He has the body type and a good face for the character, I even did a paint-over of a picture of him to convince you! =) Just a little make up and vfx to change some proportions
X-men Apocalypse Dwane Jhonson transformation
