I get that it is easier to go wild and draw something on a computer than it is to recreate the same thing in 9 hours in a make up chair, I also understand that in a lot of cases they will hire a high profile actor or actress and try to not to conceal their face so less make up or effects is applied, so I am not totally oblivious to why this happens.

Then there is cases like Ultron, who they wanted to give more humanistic features to than he has in the comics so James Spader could emote better and he wasn't just voice acting, That wound up making him look goofy IMO.

I just feel like a lot this art is way more comic accurate and just overall better looking and more creative and interesting and would just help characters stand out more, and it apparently gets turned down for much less provoking, bland, designs.

This was conceptual art for Abomination, who, in the comics, looks like a lizard man. I don't know why he looks like that, Kirby just drew him that way. In this piece he looks more reptile like, which better resembles his comic counterpart

Instead, we got this...

He just looks like a human scab, which might have been the idea. The issue is that there is nothing distinct about him. In no way would you think that he is the Abomination character and you would just think he is some villain they made up.

Next is everyone's favorite villain, Malekith, who originally looked very close to his comic counterpart.

Instead, we got this...

I don't even understand how you look at an image of the character and wind up with what he had in the film. Who gets the final decision on this stuff?? How does one see the bottom image and ultimately get the image above??

Korath the Pursuer is a minor character that is basically a Kree bounty hunter. The Kree are usually a species of blue people, so naturally, this guy is blue, and the wire crap on his face is probably because Korath in the comics was "technologically augmented", so, pretty accurate here...he doesn't have the helmet, but still...

Instead we get a black guy with contacts....riveting.

I am not sure which film this Loki design is from, but it sort of looks like Hiddleston is the likeness for the image. The Loki in this image definitely looks more like what you would perceive a viking God would look like, the God of Mischief indeed.

What we get instead is a pretty man with lovely hair who fits seamlessly into homoerotic fanart...

This is concept art for a very accurate Baron Zemo..

Now, I understand that the Zemo they depicted in "Civil War" was very different, almost to the point where he is a different character, I don't get why they didn't just didn't take a much lesser known Captain America villain (it was his movie) or Avengers villain like Protocide or someone and have him be the antagonist. I guess they figured people would recognize the name Zemo.

Instead of everyone's favorite Neo Nazi we got this though, just some dude who wears glasses sometimes...

This was the concept art for Nebula. Now, I don't have an issue really with the way Nebula looks in the films, and I do think Nebula was actually bald with the robotic eye in the 90s so, her movie appearance is pretty accurate from a certain time, however, Nebula had also spent a large part of her history as more of an attractive looking woman, and I feel like this design better demonstrates that she is an alien daughter of a powerful despot. She looks like she would be some sort of royalty as well, and sort of frightening looking too. Maybe the design was turned down because the movie was meant for children and children might be scared of her appearance??

Similarly, Gamora looked a lot better as well. The markings on her face and lack of or lightening of the iris and pupils in her eyes is a nod to the comics, where Gamora usually has circles around her white eyes. This design makes the character look like some bizarre, alien, quasi princess warrior, which, like Nebula, she is sort of supposed to be. She even has her hood she has been wearing since 2006 or so...

Instead we get Zoe Saldana just painted green with barely noticeable facial prosthetics, this is a more flattering picture I posted of the character as well, she usually looks more flat...

This is the concept for Hela, which again, looked more like a foreign, scary viking God of death, which is what she is supposed to be.

Instead, we wind up with Cate Blanchett in Goth.

Now here is Andy Pak's (the man who does a lot of conceptual stuff) art for the Nova Corps in the first Guardians. You can see that the mask looks like it seemingly has parts that go over the mouth and eyes, possibly for travel in air and space, which gives it a more alien feel and gives the character the look of being a space patrolmen, which he sort of is. Presumably when the mask's mouthpiece and eye covers are retracted the helmet just looks the Nova helmet from the comics.

Instead, the Nova Corps looked more like space janitors.

Notice a lot of this stuff was Guardians related. If James Gunn was calling the shots maybe him getting fired wasn't so bad after all.

This isn't even half of it either, I just didn't feel like copying and pasting 100 images. You can google the original concepts for Star Lord, Mantis (more Guardians stuff -___-) Arnim Zola, find original designs for Thanos to be much more sinister, Ultron, even some original designs for Black Panther's mask/helmet looked more unique, detailed and cat like as opposed to the sort of generic mask they wound up with. All of it was better than than the final product.

Whoa, you don't wanna criticize the MCU 'round these parts lol

Non- CGI MCU suits are bad in general. I really like the look of Hela they went with though. Minimal but looks pretty damn awesome.

I do it all the time, though it's usually nestled within the confines of an ongoing thread where arguments are already flying around. I have never really started the thread.

My body is ready.

@cattlebattle: that first concept art for Hela is amazing

Concept art looks cooler 9/10, but yeah the final products do look pretty bad by comparison here. Total overhauls.

Yeah, when Watiti (is that his name??) first came on to direct Ragnarok I think he was pushing for a more Norse fantasy/mythology theme in the movies, rather than the sci fi theme that sort of existed. Which is bizarre to hear considering he went and basically made a science fiction film. Perhaps he originally wanted it to be more mythical but the boardroom of Marvel/Disney producers told him otherwise. I honestly don't know how it all works.

Anyways, the artist that did that Hela also did this for Loki, which made him look much more like an ancient, evil God than the films have ever done..

hahahahahaha so true lol this comment made my day XD also this thread haha thanks @cattlebattle for the amazing post!! :D

Never saw these concept arts, I agree the final product looks much worse. Zemo's final appearance is just embarrassing compared to the art lol.

I know concept art gets to look more stylized because of the freedom artists have compared to costume designers but the difference is really jarring here.

It's not

That's kind of how concept art works but I love this art.

The Spider-Man and X-Men movies also had quite a bit of concept art that was better than the final version in the film.

Most concept art looks better than the final product. It can be because Budget,Costume making Compilations, Actors not wanting to wear something, What it looks like In Film.

Hey, thanks man. You're great too.

I agree with and have acknowledged the second part of what you say, in that I understand that production of a film can lead to a lot of alternatives and sometimes actors dictating things, budget, and things being abandoned for not working can happen. The original design for the Grandmaster character in Ragnarok was much different and more alien looking, similar to the comics, but I assume that they wanted to showcase Jeff Goldblum physically and did not want him masked by all this make up or CGI or Goldblum negotiated to not wear it so the character just wound up being Goldblum with some white dots on his face....it sucks but it happens.

However, I think saying that most concept art looking better is untrue. For the majority of films the concept art is relatively close to what ends up in the final film more or less, unless it's something that changed direction and concepts before the production began, like the new Star Wars trilogy did. In most other cases the concept art is awful and it's not hard to imagine why the designs that made it into the movie made it there in the end. The X-Men films have had some pretty bland or straight up awful concept art for a lot of their movies. I remember one of the original designs for Mystique in the original X-Men film was to make her look like a cobra type being. Weird.

Marvel is this strange anomaly where they publish all these brilliant designs that are a good marriage between realism and the comics and then in the films they always look like they dumb down the blander aspects of the art. I would say that it's only for a more high concept films like Guardians but there is pretty bad ass art for nearly every film.

Concept art almost always looks better then movies. Costumes are harder to make then a drawing.

Nevertheless with Malekith and Zemo in particular I wish they did more with their costumes