Devoted SpeakEasy #10: A Creature Is a Feature

Art Director’s Tips for Creature Designing. SpeakEasy E10 with Horia Dociu

How to create realistic creatures that immediately grab the attention of your players? How does the color palette build the whole atmosphere in the scene? Why is the balanced approach to the idea-generation process so important? And what approach do we call balanced?

If any of these questions seem relevant to you, we know someone who has the answers. That is why we invited Horia Dociu to our Devoted Speakeasy podcast and had an informative and inspiring conversation. Horia’s advice is priceless, as his track record includes such projects as HALO, Ghost of Tsushima, inFAMOUS, and Guild Wars 2. 

Timecodes:

( 0:00 ) —  Intro
( 0:42 ) — Horia Dociu's core principles in creating art
( 2:32 ) — Why monsters and creatures are game features
( 3:28 ) — How tone forms our game experience
( 4:49 ) — How to make creatures believable and understandable for the audience
( 6:16 ) — Why it’s essential to design functional models at first
( 7 :34 ) — All you have to know about theme ideation and creating mood boards
( 9:33 ) — An effective approach to design concepts
( 11:16 ) — How to make models tell stories
( 12:49 ) — How colors convey the mood in Last of Us, Fall Guys, and Mario Kart
( 15:26 ) — Stylization dilemma: keeping a balance between cartoony and photoreal styles
( 17:14 ) — How to nurture original ideas
( 20:29 ) — Creativity vs keeping deadlines: what is more important?
( 25:44 ) — How to achieve solidarity between different departments
( 29:04 ) — Ways of testing theories for artists

Watch the full episode at the link