Death Rattle

Don't get me wrong.  I'm proud to have been involved with this visually unique franchise.  But I still occasionally had to do clean-up passes and callouts on other people's work, like a little bitch. This guy was a jailer variant.  I think Han Randhawa drew him.



Death armor by Brian Jones with callouts.



The design to the left was done by Han Randhawa, and I just did a liner pass from a different angle to make sure the mouth was explained.



Han also made this tree golem that was built, but never used, I guess because it looked like a like a dumpy ewok.  I thought those things in his belly were eggs, lol!



Thumbnails for the stinger hive, a wasp nest that belches unpleasantness...



And, at one stage, Death was going to have these little creatures that assisted him called Reapers, which we weren't sure should be platybears or full-blown demons.  I was preeeettttty sure they should be platybears.  You know...to go with the general tone of the project.  I AM A VERY GOOD CONCEPT ARTIST.



I was thinking the Reapers would be made out of some gooey, shadowy susbstance, and that they might sprout wings and stuff, but eh...this mechanic got killed, and in the shipped game, you get assisted by these cool undead king dudes instead.  Much better.



...I think that's it!  Thanks everyone for checking back.  I hope these posts provided a glimpse of what it's like to work on such a crazily creative project at the pre-production stage.  Vigil Games opened up doors for me professionally and personally, putting me in touch with incredible people, developers and fans alike.  I love you guys.

Jesper Kyd's Voice

I'm taking a quick time-out from PAX to share an experience I had at a panel.

Today I got to hear and meet, Jesper (pronounced "Yesper") Kyd, the man behind the Darksiders II soundtrack and many others. His biggest message to aspiring composers (which I think applies directly to concept art) was "Have a voice. Don't just try to copy what's popular. Keep doing what you think is cool, and really focus on that." Amen, brother. Amen.

Make Mine Maker!

The Maker architecture was derived from some early Nick Southam concepts -- Ulthane's house -- which was composed of circular doors with chunky stone slabs and Celtic knotwork.  Really, this is all his fault.



Nick did a color pass on this big, frowny-faced Maker temple, which I roughed out in primitive 3D.  With character concepts you can kind of BS your way through, but level geometry requires a bit more spatial awareness.



A quickie stylesheet, explaining the round motif.  I must have really thought I was onto something!



...and some extrapolations of this concept.  Other concept artists who did Maker environments, like Phu Giang, did their own extrapolations.



More level chunks from the top concept, explained further...



Bridge segments and temples...



"I made you this bowl."



Concepts for the above statue...and a few flags.

Random Dungeon : Shreds

Yawning hover-cathedrals...



Dutch-angled tree kingdoms...



Crumbly whatsits....



Maker arches...



Crow Temple interiors...

Random Dungeon : Scraps

Twisted cathedrals...



City of the Dead...



Various doors...



Arches 'n' stuff...

Sportin' Mean Wood

While on the topic of trees, here are some sketches I did for an area I wanted to see called "The Tortured Forest."  There were already some wooden creatures in the game by this point -- thought it might be neat to have more corrupted vegetation.



Skulls/mouths in trees were sort of a no-brainer.  "Put a skull in it." was common art direction at Vigil.



Lastly, I pitched, "Death's going to be skippin' through forests choppin' down tree golems, right?  Dude.  He should have a CHAIN-SCYTHE.  Eh?  Eh?!?!"  The image of Death as a lumberjack, let alone a skipping lumberjack, didn't appeal to enough people, so I was told to go back to my concept hole.



...I should have left out the part about the skipping.   

Trees!

Everthing in the Darksiders universe (Darkoverse?) required a stylistic wonk, plant life included. These were all for the Marker area.











...and some little shrubs as well.

Heaven is pointy.

In games, big towers or statues or fountains or steam-powered zeppelins are referred to as "POI"s or "points of interest."  Here's an angelic POI that began as thumbnails...



"Combine 1 and 3."



"Take it to a higher degree of completion, but eh...remove the tower."



There's a lot of stuff I know about color and light now that makes me wince at this image.  

The Crystal Spire

From what I recall, the in-game Crystal Spire is neither spire-y, nor crystalline.  Nevertheless, here are the drawings that were done.



Some angel keys thrown in here...



And some doors...



And whatever these are...

Merchant / Guard

Here are some angelic merchant ideas, ranging from "gawky librarian" to "second hand armor dealer."



...and an angel guard.  I wanted them to be placed as statues on podiums, springing to life and slashing you.

Here comes the judge!

At some point there was going to be an angelic judge.  This turned into...some other kind of judge.



Hawt lady style...



John Goodman style...

Send me an Archon.

Archon took a "Let's do Tyriel from Diablo, but not." kinda direction, but this wasn't always the case, I swear!



The techier, mechier vision I had for the angels didn't gel with the game's fantasy setting, and so was abandoned.  What was kept was the notion that Archon is a being of pure light...like Tyriel.  *sigh*  I wanted to make his suit a containment vessel, implying he could light-jump to other, bigger ones.  Like, you'd encounter him and think, "Wimpy, glowy dude.  No biggie.", then he'd zap himself over to some giant angel-mech and you'd be all, "Fuuuuuuuuuu...."



Also thought it'd be cool if Archon was plugged into a throne, a battery powering the citadel he chills in...



...but, since he's a boss, he couldn't be some glorified light fixture.  No epic throne room, no energy arcs.  I don't think Vigil paid me that week.