Marvel Studios Announces MCU Concept Art Book

Marvel Studios is bringing out an MCU concept art book this fall. On social media, the company announced Marvel Studios: The Art of Ryan Meinerding. This book will be written by Tara Bennett and Paul Terry, and Kevin Feige will be presenting the foreword. Marvel Studios: The Art of Ryan Meinerding releases on October 1 of this year in a hard cover special edition. The visual artist has been a key factor in the rise of the MCU. From designing the looks for Iron Man to coming up with concept designs for Thor, Ryan Meinerding has had his hands in a bunch of pots over the course of Marvel's run in Hollywood. Here's how the studio describes the upcoming release.

"Ryan Meinerding has been a key creative force in designing the look of the beloved Super Heroes and villains of the Marvel Cinematic Universe since the early stages of Iron Man (2008)," they explained. "Marvel Studios: The Art of Ryan Meinerding showcases the artist's singular and iconic vision, from his work-in-progress sketches to his finished illustrations. This lavish book includes more than 500 illustrations and provides unprecedented insight into Meinerding's creative process, as well as his view on the essential collaborations behind contemporary concept and character design."

Discover over 500 illustrations spanning the MCU from Marvel Studios’ very own Head of Visual Development! ‘Marvel Studios: The Art of Ryan Meinerding’ by @ABRAMSbooks arrives this October: https://t.co/OdMjkiPidZ pic.twitter.com/43YPm9jFPz

— Marvel Entertainment (@Marvel) February 16, 2024

"Working in close collaboration with Ryan Meinerding over more than five years, authors Tara Bennett and Paul Terry (THE STORY OF MARVEL STUDIOS) bring MCU fans inside the visual development studio and reveal through exclusive interviews with the artist the origins of his career, his inspirations, insights into his process, and stories from the making of Marvel Studios' first four phases," Marvel continued. "Bennett and Terry archive Meinerding's work and present a stunning portrait of the dedication, skill, and inventiveness of one of Marvel Studios' key visual architects."

Designing Marvel Characters For The MCU

Ahead of What If…? Season 1, Comicbook.com caught up with the visual artist to talk about the designs for these animated heroes. One of the big selling points for What If…? is these avengers are not exactly the ones we know from the movies. However, they do draw from those designs quite a bit. Ryan Meinerding talked to us about using inspiration from the past.

"No. For every character, as they appear on screen, there are probably 200 or 300 versions of them laying around that weren't used. So there is definitely a wealth of that on the servers of Marvel. But realistically, I mean, because so much of this is about how a character looks like in the MCU. And then there's a very specific what if that's giving you a direction, right?

"So if you start with What If...?, T'Challa with Star-Lord, that's a very specific direction that we don't have any concepts for. I guess what I'm getting at is, the fun of the show is also the super inspiring part of the show, that you get to sit down and think about these things in a fresh context and then do a new drawing."

"So I think, as starting points, we will often show ... if we're going to do things for Doctor Strange, a lot of it is, "Hey, look at these 300 concepts that we didn't use. Is there anything compelling?" And maybe one thing, like a collar or something, will come out of that. But the concept of an evil Doctor Strange is something that we never explored. It becomes almost like a brand new character, right? It's not just like, "Oh, we have this old thing we can repurpose," it's, "This is hugely inspiring and exciting. What can we pull out of the stuff from the MCU, but twist it in a cool and interesting way?""

Will you be picking it up? Let us know in the comments down below!