Creating Hellboy II - design and photos
August 2008

Hellboy II does have a plot - the big red hero has to stop the dark ruler and save the world from annihilation.

Scene from Hellboy II

Hellboy II is based on the Dark Horse Comic Book created by Mike Mignola. Apparently, after working out the storyline with Mignola, Del Toro took two and a half years to write the script. Mignola is also the co-executive producer of the film.

Del Toro sketched and sketched in his notebook; Prince Nuada’s faithful henchman, Wink (the troll), the winged Angel of Death, goblins and many other creatures. Production designer Stephen Scott was tasked to bring these drawings to life.

At least half the creatures were played by actors in elaborately designed prosthetic makeup. Puppeteers enhanced the range of their movements with radio-controlled animatronics.

CGI was used when practical effects were not possible. Double Negative Visual Effects brought Del Toro's vision of the merciless robotic Golden Army and other fantasy effects to life.

Location location

Scene from Hellboy II

This magical world was based in locations found mostly in Hungary.

The Troll Market was filmed in a former limestone quarry, 25 miles southwest of Budapest in the village of Tarnok, Hungary. It took production designer Scott three months to transform the 4,000-square-metre cave, most recently used for growing mushrooms, into del Toro’s vision of the teeming marketplace.

Francisco Ruiz Velasco was Hellboy II's concept artist: “Every artist working on the production was throwing crazy and exotic ideas around to come up with the different creatures that were to populate the Troll Market, ‘where you can find anything in the world, even those things that are not for sale.’”

Designed to contrast

In addition to new Bureau for Paranormal Research and Defense (B.P.R.D.) uniforms, costume designer Sammy Sheldon had to try and make sure that the audience could not confuse trolls with humans in the enormous cave. “We gave them strange humps on the front, humps on the back, big bellies, big bottoms, gloves with three fingers, tall shoes… anything we could think of to try and change the shape of a human being,” she says. “Every single character in the Troll Market has his face covered.”

Both the Troll Market and the imposing Golden Army Chamber were designed to contrast with the above ground world of humans. “The human world is linear, with straight lines and sharp edges,” says Scott, “while the shapes of the below ground worlds are curved and fluid, with a mixture of Indian, Moroccan and other North African influences.”

Holding the robots

Prince Nuada - scene from Hellboy II

While director of photography Guillermo Navarro’s cameras rolled at these and other locations, the production’s construction crew worked at Budapest's Korda Studios’ back lot, building a New York street to the production designer’s specifications.

When principal photography began on June 9, 2007, Hellboy II's Manhattan was nothing but a stark metal scaffold, which dozens of men scaled daily to build. As the months passed, it grew to encompass three blocks of shabby shops, a meat packing plant, loading docks, an auto shop, a bank, billboards, an SRO hotel and a trendy meat packing district café.

The New York street hosted several pivotal scenes, including the confrontation between Hellboy and the Elemental, a powerful “Jack and the Beanstalk”-type of vine creature with enough life force to rip through pavement.

Ireland's Giant’s Causeway, an ancient place of myth and legend, also features. Although aerial photography was taken at the actual site on the Northern Irish coast, the actors performed their Causeway scenes in a hilly field near the town of Soskut in the Hungarian countryside.

Scene from Hellboy II

The B.P.R.D. sets for Hellboy II: The Golden Army were also built in and around Budapest. The Bureau’s well-stocked “freak corridor,” medical bay and meeting rooms were constructed on soundstages at Korda Studios, as was Hellboy’s personal lair—complete with dozens of television sets and cats.

Professor Broom’s library, the site of a confrontation between Hellboy and Nuada, occupied another stage at the brand-new Korda facility.

Also, the small hut at the military base where Professor Broom raised young Hellboy was built at the studio. Here, as a child, Hellboy first heard tell of the Golden Army’s bloody history between mankind and the outlanders.

Scene from Hellboy II

“These fantasy worlds and creatures had been so carefully imagined by Guillermo and the many artists who worked on Hellboy II. To find the detailed sketches built into intricate sets was especially exciting.”

www.hellboymovie.com