Wade Huntsman designs for popular movies
- posted: 20 Feb 2007
- scrollcampus@byui.edu
The sketchpad that Jack Dawson, played by Leonardo DiCaprio, carried around on the deck of the Titanic was actually the development work of Wade Huntsman of the BYU‑Idaho Art Department. In the summer of 2005, Huntsman went from working with the world’s best artists to the world’s budding artists.
When I was young, art was what you did for fun. We didn’t have an art program in school,
Huntsman said. I was always drawing.
Christina Taylor / Scroll
Huntsman with his artwork and posters from movies for which he did developmental work.
It wasn’t until Hunstman took his first art course at Ricks College that his interest was triggered. After finding the girl of his dreams, Mary Jo Davis, at Ricks and finishing three years there, he and his wife headed to Los Angeles where he attended the Art Center College of Design in Pasadena, Calif.
In 1994 he landed a job with Dreamworks after two years of art school. He also freelanced for Disney for three years. At Dreamworks, he worked on animation for films such as The Prince of Egypt, Sinbad: Legend of the Seven Seas, Star Wars: Clone Wars (the animated micro-series), Spirit: Stallion of Cimarron, The Road to El Dorado, Testament of Paul, Over the Hedge and Flushed Away.
Of all the movies he was involved with, My oldest, my 11-year-old, he likes Star Wars, my nine year-old daughter likes Spirit and my five-year-old, well she likes them all,
Huntsman said.
The Prince of Egypt stands out to Huntsman most for the traditional way it was produced (not computer animated). The entire environment was done with traditional paints, where the artist paints with acrylics on transparent plastic covering so characters can go in and out of scenes and through buildings. For each movie, he produced 110-140 paintings.
Development illustrators, such as Huntsman, must be flexible as they work with the director of the film to create their ideas in artwork.
When Huntsman started to work with computer animation movies, he built the scenes, gave them to the computer animators and made sure they created the scene just right with his sketches.
After spending 11 years in Los Angeles, Huntsman decided to come back to the rural area of Rexburg. He now teaches illustration, Media Experimentation — creative perspective, basic drawing, color and design, BFA (Bachelor of Fine Arts) courses and a traveling class that visits museums and looks for potential jobs or internships for students.
Huntsman says he enjoys seeing the creativity that comes from these new artists he works with. 
