Burning Ambition Part 6: From paper to screen

Sections: Features, Opinions, PCs, Gear, Comics-and-Graphic-Novels, Game-Companies, Developers, Indie, Genres, MMO

Burning Ambition Part 6: From paper to screen

by Christopher Buckner on Apr 2, 2008 at 10:00 AM

gamertell burning ambition wide logo

In part five I talked about the nightmare that is finding capable artist to join your team. Enough bitching. It’s time to talk about what we at Burning Man Studios do have.

The production of concept art is by far the best and most rewarding part of the design process for me regardless of the headaches it may cause. I’ve spent the better part of 15 years collecting thousands of different styles of art. I’ve studied and mimicked my favorite comic book artists for hours on end and, now, it is time for the long and painstaking process of character design.

While I spent much of my youth drawing the X-Men, Spider-Man or Batman, it has only been in the past five years that I really began studying character design, focusing more on comic book styles in the tradition of Michael Turner, Brett Booth and Jim Lee than what you typically find in video games.

The design for Conquest of Heroes (CoH) began before I ever joined Burning Man Studios with an interest of creating my own comic book geared toward science fiction, history and a more realistic world than one created by Marvel or DC Comics. Even the MMO City of Heroes is still centered on what you might call the Golden and Silver Age of comics. For Conquest of Heroes, I wanted the world to center on two things: sex appeal (since I love drawing women) and serious, no-nonsense anti-heroes set in a very realistic world.

For Conquest of Heroes, my inspiration came from three main sources. The first being Image Comics which, as a teenager, I grew reading through the 1990’s. As a young artist, I was drawn to the heavy details and edgy real-world feeling of Image characters. The second is Japanese Anime, specifically Ghost in the Shell: Innocence’s and Akira, which have influenced the way I think of scenes within a story. The last would be my love for Roman history which I referenced a lot while my writing for CoH. Many of the events in the story mirror the fall of the Roman Republic and the rise of the Roman Empire.

burning man studios When designing a new character I always start with the lead character, normally the hottest leading lady. In Conquest of Heroes, that character would be Velvet.

Velvet’s design began more than a year ago. I had originally drawn inspiration from artists Michael Turner and Mike Deodato Jr., who I think draw the sexiest women in comics. I had studied Deodato’s long, thick legged and heavily detailed women since he first broke into comics in the 1990s. As for Turner, I followed his poses and hair styles more than anything else.

While I had a strong basis for Velvet’s design early on (her large brimmed collar, Christian cross, white hair with the long anime-style sword), I’ve continued to modify her general features, size and basic look almost every time I draw her. She’s.never quite settled on one final design.

Velvet is probably the most important character I’ve ever created and, for whatever reason, people have always liked her. I hope when gamers read Velvet in her story form and see her that, inside the game, she has even greater appeal as a deep and diverse character with a tragic, tortured soul.

burning man studios Many characters featured in Conquest of Heroes come from various sources of inspiration and older stories that I had created in the past. Links for instance, is a character that I had created back in High School. I’ve used her in a number of my older stories and she has always been a fun character for me to draw and write. Her creation was inspired by some of Brett Booth (a comic book artists) old animal/human characters. Arkady, the leading male in CoH is another character I’ve used for quite a times in past projects. In reality, he is just a creation of my own persona (most writers has one in their books). Still, many characters in CoH are original creations and are designed based off of their role in the overall story, powers and personalities.

Finding the right design for these characters has been a real challenge. I might go through five thousand pictures from my large collection of comics and professional concept art just to find the perfect belt design. For some, such as the character Halo, I have never managed to nail down his design. For the Order Storm Troopers, they are inspired by the Roman Legions and Praetorian Guards, sprinkled with a bit of the Helghast from Killzone.

I can’t say that I do as much art as I would like. I enjoy writing more then drawing. Often, I have gone as long as eight months without drawing a single picture, which makes me feel incredibly guilty. When I do draw and ink, it can take around an hour to lay out a basic pencil figure. After that, detail with a pen can take up to ten hours to finish a single drawing.

One of my biggest weaknesses has to be that, no matter how much I try, I can never seem to sketch my drawings first. On a large sheet of paper I’ll draw a piece from beginning to end, sometimes hating the shoulder pads or belt, which means starting from scratch on another picture just to correct the first mistake.

burning man studios While I can do some environmental concepts, I have never really bothered with them beyond a few assigned projects in college. I do have a good visual idea of what the environments in CoH should be like, but I’ve never really gotten around to working on them. Namely because I am just too damn busy with all my other daily duties within BMS to try. Environmental artist too are, for some reason really, hard to come by. I think in five months we have only ever had three people apply for the job.

While I enjoy doing much of the art for CoH (it is certainly easier to argue with yourself then another artist) I would still love to have a capable and talented artist out there to eventually take over.

Ultimately, I hope for what any artist/writer hopes for, and that is that our work is appreciated. While it might not be ideal for a independent game company, it certainly helps to have a real passion for the characters. I hope that others will be able to enjoy them as much as I do.

Read all 10 weeks of “Burning Ambition: How to make your mark on the videogame industry:”