After concept work on Battlefield Earth, Red Planet, two Star Wars prequels and The Astronauts Wife, poor old Stephan Martiniere sure could use a break. Okay, that’s not entirely fair - he also got to contribue to I, Robot which ended up being quite a clever film, at least in terms of it’s imagery.

One of his assignments appears to be character designs for a film of The Looking Glass War, the Frank Beddor Alice in Wonderland spin off that Charles Roven is currently shepherding towards the big screen. After the break, some big and frightening pictures of some dudes in armour that seem to be spoiling for a right royal ruckus, as well as Alyss Heart, Beddor’s heroine.

These four characters are identified only by a card suit, respectively Club, Diamond, Heart and Spade. This refers to their class in the heirarchy of Wonderland. I think these are simply soldiers of the families with which they share these names.

And here’s Alyss. She looks as ready to rock with that bleeding big sword as the rest of them - these aren’t called the Looking Glass Wars for nothing, of course. There’s more than a touch of Tron at play here, don’t you think? Maybe even Galactus, at least as far as that helmet goes.

I’m not sure many of these suits of armour would be at all functional, but that’s hardly the point. I wonder what guidance Martiniere was given in creating these designs, if there was a director involved? If you look closely, you’ll see that the artworks are dated 2006 so they may not even be considered in the current attempt to adapt the books. What makes them relevent, though, is that they do visualise the characters necessary to tell this particular story, and are a lot less time consuming than reading the books if you want to get a rough and ready idea of what kind of movie this would be.

Unless Tim Burton’s Alice in Wonderland is very well received, I’m feeling a little doubtful that this project will come to fruition any time soon. They both take the Alice mythos and remix it, tossing in extra swordfights - though Burton’s film to a much less extent - and they each give everything more of a contemporary fantasy vibe.

Maybe Burton’s film could also snuff out The Looking Glass Wars by being too successful?

Thanks to /Film reader John Struan of Superpunch for the link. You can check out Martiniere’s many designs for other works at his official site, including the Area 51, MK vs DC and Stranglehold video games.