31 pieces of spellbinding Wicked concept art, from flying monkeys to the epic Emerald City

Wicked has already smashed it at the box office, earning over $718 million, and has been nominated in many categories for the Oscars 2025, including Best Visual Effects, Best Production Design and Best Picture. But what did Wicked look like before its magical VFX was applied?

Below you can see how the spellbinding VFX was created in its earliest iterations, as ILM has shared over 30 beautiful pieces of concept art with us. These paintings were created using the best digital art software and the best 3D modelling software, before 3D artists, animators, matte painters and more turned took inspiration from them for the film's final scenes.

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Editor, Digital Arts & 3D

Ian Dean is Editor, Digital Arts & 3D at Creative Bloq, and the former editor of many leading magazines. These titles included ImagineFX, 3D World and video game titles Play and Official PlayStation Magazine. Ian launched Xbox magazine X360 and edited PlayStation World. For Creative Bloq, Ian combines his experiences to bring the latest news on digital art, VFX and video games and tech, and in his spare time he doodles in Procreate, ArtRage, and Rebelle while finding time to play Xbox and PS5.

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