Let's see, what else? The Comedian's closet -- his inner sanctum -- where Rorschach discovers that secret panel and the wall flies open and you can see everything inside. I developed that final look and incorporated the final weapons that Zack [had already worked out]. I was able to really bring that piece to how it appears in the final.

BD: So what was it like balancing fidelity to the graphic novel and bringing something new to make it a movie?

SL: Well, it's definitely a delicate balance. The last thing I wanted to do was create something that was too far removed from the original source. You can't always take a literal translation, so you have to realize what would work in a real world. Take the Comedian's closet as one illustration. In the comicbook, it's pretty barren: an empty closet with clothes hanging on hooks and a few weapons here and there. In the [movie] version, there's much more of a technical aspect: there are moving parts that look like they have multiple layers and panels and whatnot that could reveal additional layers behind that closet. The presentation is a little bit more fulfilled yet still based on what it was in the comicbook: this secret passageway behind the closet. Arrangements were kept in a very similar manner.

Same thing with the exterior streets: the tenement vista had to be fully realized. It existed as a generic representation of a city exterior in the graphic novel. We have to fill out the empty spaces with more detail. And that was a lot of fun. An almost literal translation [the way I illustrated it] was when the Comedian falls to his death and the camera starts in on the [smiley face] button in the drain and then pulls back. We knew what the exterior of the building was going to look like so that was altered but the street itself, the composition, everything -- I just finished it in a [painterly] way that included atmosphere and lighting and all the content that was visible in the graphic novel itself.

Lukowski first worked on the Owlship, trying to figure out how it would move and "live" in the movie version of Watchmen. 

BD: What software do you use?

SL: I use Adobe Creative Suite. I try to stay updated with the latest version. And the primary tool that I use is Photoshop. I've played a little with Corel Painter but Photoshop for me is just more of a full package: you can paint, you can recreate different styles through painting through custom brushes, you can deal with location photographs, you can do photo manipulation, incorporate a myriad of different things, most recently you can incorporate three-dimensional elements as well. If a set designer has a 3D structure or vehicle, you can now play with that in Photoshop in a very rudimentary way. Until I dive more into 3D, which I have very little experience with, Photoshop is 99% of my toolbox.

BD: Let's turn to some of your other recent work that has not yet been released: Akira, Alice in Wonderland, Surrogates and Fantastic Voyage.

SL: There's a lot of content to squeeze into one film [for Akira], so what they're planning on doing is making two features. When I worked on it, which was a year ago, we went full steam and they started slowing down on the visual element so they could continue to focus their efforts on the script.

BD: And what kind of look were you striving for?

SL: It was a very realistic take, based in reality and, as you know, it takes place in the very near future, and that, too, was very gritty. Oddly enough, Taxi Driver, which was a reference for Watchmen, was also a reference for Akira. So was Heat. So that was a great experience. Ruairi Robinson [Fifty Percent Grey] was the director and Martin Whist [Cloverfield] was the production designer. There were a lot of very talented people that started creating all of this fantastic artwork: the motorcycle, the city itself. Unfortunately, I can't go into too much detail.