Styx

Staff Presentation #1: Concept Artists

Hello,

Today, we will open up a new facet of the development of “Styx: Master of Shadows” and take a special interest in the area of the game art, namely concept art.

Before beginning to create a 3D world, we the concept artists, have the job of putting down on paper, in both image and text form, our vision of the game universe.

Working with game designers and writers, we strive to produce an overview of the graphic universe of the game for the whole development team.

So a lot of preparatory work goes into creating a general outline, with “painting” and “drawing” being the vectors that bring the environment to life. We supply the “blueprints” to help our “blacksmiths” shape the distinctive world of Styx.

One of the most interesting environments that we had to design for Akenash are its “bowels” where dark creatures have their lair and where Styx finds the shadows of which he is so fond.

So we produced a variety of artwork to outline the location:

These images set the atmosphere of the location. After that, we move onto a more specific design of the elements that will make up the environment. This will help the 3D artists when it comes to modeling the Akenash tower, with such things as the pipes and roots of the Tree as they crisscross the various volumes.