When you try to imaginewhat the future looks like, the chances are it’s got Colie Wertz’s fingerprints all over it. That’s because for the last 20 years he’s been shaping the look and feel of some of the biggest science fiction franchises around.
Outer space is a long way from his beginnings as an aspiring architect however, so we caught up with Colie to learn more about the path of his impressive career as an industryleading concept artist and modeller.
Tell us about your background as an artist. How did you get started and what has your career been like so far?
I was educated as an architect in the Southeastern US. I loved doing the drawings and practical models in and out of school. I had an out-of-left-field opportunity to train on Photoshop for a project in LA early in my career, and that pulled me away from architecture. I got into modelling, painting, animation, and shaders while there.
I went to a lot of movies in Hollywood, and maybe the motion picture industry being there fostered my interest in the underlying process and art form of building a film. Industrial Light & Magic (ILM) VFX supervisor John Knoll noticed my work, as we were using
