3DTotal
- Tell us a little about yourself. Miles
- I was
born and raised in Salinas California,
a little slice of middle-America located
on the foggy central coast that was
culturally about 20 years behind the
rest of the Golden State. There I spent
a childhood drawing and sculpting and
making super-8 movies, seeking out movie
magazines and praying that one day I
could escape to Los Angeles and somehow
work on monster movies. After surviving
the formalized torture that is High
School I made my escape to LA and want
to Art College and started my new life
in the endless cities of scorching heat
and smog. After many small adventures,
triumphs and heartbreaks I still find
myself here.
3DTotal
- You
studied at the Art Center College
of Design in Pasadena where you ran
out of money and went to work for
Rob Bottin as a concept illustrator
for the hugely popular film ‘Legend’.
That must have been a huge step from
college life can you tell us about
it? Miles
- That was of course my big
break into the business, for which
I will always be grateful. Though
I was worked like a dog for very little
money it was an eye-opener. I found
out that I grew at a much, much faster
rate getting paid to draw for 12 hours
every day than shelling out absurd
amounts of money to an overrated College
for them to allegedly ‘teach’
me how to draw and paint. I knew I
was working on a film that I knew
was a real landmark,and I at last
felt like I was where I belonged.
It was a huge step, but one that I
has been chomping at the bit for.
I never went back to that College
again and I don’t regret it
a moment.
.
3DTotal
- You have done concept illustration,
creature design and sculptures, but
which area do you prefer to work on?
.
Miles
- That
is always a conundrum. When I am doing
one I long to do the others. They all
have their virtues and drawbacks, though
I must admit that sculpture is getting
hard on the body as I get older
3DTotal
- You worked for a company called
Dinamation making dinosaur sculptures
was this job that stemmed your
interested in sculpture?
Miles
- I had always loved sculpting
and always did it- even in college I
found ways as an illustration major
the incorporate sculpting into my assignments.
Dinamation was just a gig that looked
like fun, it paid enough to live on,
and sounded like the thing to do at
the moment I was 22, full of energy
and health and loved the idea of working
on giant Dinosaur sculptures. It kind
of rekindled my childhood love of Dinosaurs
actually. The work environment was a
toxic chemical bath, and I inhaled enough
carcinogens to get cancer 12 times over
in this lifetime alone, but I made some
good friends there.
3DTotal
- What’s your favourite
part of the design process? The
concept part or the final
outcome
Miles
- It is soooooo rare that
the final outcome resembles anything
cool about the design process due
to the nature of this business. There
are a hundred people, all with massive
egos sticking their greedy little
fingers into the pie trying to put
their mark on the idea that it almost
becomes impossible for a good idea
to make it to the screen undiluted,
especially these days. So I guess
what I am saying is that the design
phase is ultimately the most satisfying
3DTotal
- What
was it like to work on such a idolised
character such as Spiderman? Miles
- Spiderman at first seemed
like it was going to be challenging
and fun. I thought that it might be
possible to come up with a new twist
on the suit that wouldn’t look
so silly on the screen and might be
reflect contemporary tastes in superhero
design, but this was not to be the case.
The director was a big Spiderman fan
so there was no real tampering with
the old red and blue tights. My only
surviving contribution was that the
webbing on the suit had dimensionality.
The Green Goblin started out with a
lot of potential and there were a lot
of ideas being thrown around that would
have been very inventive and cool, but
once again the director’s taste
reigned supreme and we got a big green
kabuki mask. Nice!! I guess I would
rather work on a character that is much
less established because there would
be much less preconceived ‘baggage’
brought to the tables by the powers
that be
