Issue link: https://digital.copcomm.com/i/1542693
This became the foundation for Weta FX as they carried it into final shots. The gondola and Medusoid are towed by the cuttlefish-inspired Windray, connected to the gondola with a complex rope trusswork. As the Windtraders use the Medusoid like a living airship, we had to design a practical rigging system. We built paper-and-string study models to test how the wing-like vanes would fold or angle to tack in the sky. Jim wanted absolute specificity: If a performer pulled a line on stage, it corresponded to a real maneuver on the creature. We created a full operating manual—rigging diagrams, lines, ballast-water logic—so that every action on deck mapped to the full final system. One of my favorite moments of the film is seeing the Windtrader gondola docking with the Metkayina village. Each design had taken years to develop independently, and seeing them finally lock together—reef and sky in one frame—was truly rewarding. The Ash Clan If the Windtraders embody connection, the Ash represent rupture. Their origin traces back to Jim's visit to Rabaul in Papua New Guinea, where twin volcanic eruptions in 1994 blanketed the region in ash. Jim saw a community adapting to devastation— but for the film, he envisioned a darker, more tragic trajectory: a clan permanently reshaped by their loss. The Ash are smart, cunning and fiercely resilient. They live inside a burned-out Great Tree—their former home, destroyed by a volcanic eruption. This wasn't scripted; it emerged organically through the design process, as the way to tell their story. The Ash believe Eywa abandoned them and now reject her entirely, despising those who still follow her ways. Steven Messing did fantastic design work of the tree and its environs. Their construction methods echo the tension and woven logic of other Na'vi but are warped into something harsher. Animal hides, bones, burned wood and anti-Eywa motifs dominate. Totems of skulls, leather and the cut kurus of slain enemies hang as trophies. Their palette is brutally simple: black for the burnt, white for ash, red for blood and fire. Varang's domain had to communicate both femininity and threat. The entrance to her yurt, A. ASH VILLAGE. ILLUSTRATION BY STEVEN MESSING. ROUGH MODEL IN CINEMA 4D AND PAINTED IN PHOTOSHOP. THIS ESTABLISHED THE SHAPE AND FEEL OF THE BURNT-OUT GREAT TREE OF THE MANGKWAN. B. ASH YURT. ILLUSTRATION BY JONATHAN BACH IN PHOTOSHOP. THIS WAS ONE OF MANY DESIGN ILLUSTRATIONS TRYING TO FIGURE OUT HOW THE ASH PEOPLE USE NA'VI CONSTRUCTION METHODS WITH THE BURNT MATERIALS AVAILABLE TO THEM. A B C D