Another classic LOTR character I got to re-imagine for GoME was the Balrog. I tried some other demon designs, keeping in line with the look from the film version, but it's hard to do a new version of a creature that's now part of a classic scene. I think my designs kept the flavor of the original just with larger proportions better suited for the game. I told myself that this isn't THE Balrog but another of it's kind.
Please form your fingers into the
"devil horns" hand gesture when
viewing these concepts.
Final design for the Balrog summon
One of the other responsibilities I had on GoME was helping with effects concepting. I really like doing effects concepts, it's more about impact and action than design and anatomy. Though coming up with visually dynamic shapes is still "designing", but its' different than something like armor or weapon concepting. The concepts can be looser since they're just there to give the effects artists and animators a jumping off point.
Bright and celestial effects for Gandalf and Galadriel.
Weird, unnerving Gollum effects.
Elemental Agandaur and Lugbol effects.
Spooky Barrow Wight effects.
Finally here's a collection of sketches that just didn't make the cut. Most of the characters in GoME are from the films or the LOTR books. I came up with some other fun characters but they didn't really get past the sketch stage!
I will never tire of sticking arrows into characters.
I hope you all aren't sick of Orcs, Dwarves and Elves just yet.... I have TONS of work for Shadows of Mordor to post in the future!
I took my sweet time and finally added a bunch of the work I did on Guardians of Middle Earth (from here on in, referred to as "GoME") to my website. Figure I'll feature a few concepts here and on my tumblr over the next few posts. I worked on GoME for a bit in between a cancelled Batman project and Shadows of Mordor.
It was an interesting project to work on, as I'd never worked on a "MOBA" before (multiplayer online battle arena for you non-gamers out there), but as with all official LOTR stuff there are restrictions to what you can come up with. All of the characters were already designed from the films for the most part, we just had to "puff up" their proportions and colors a bit so they were more readable in very chaotic action, and from an isometric camera angle.
Overall the work I did on GoME was a tiny step towards what I'm doing now on Gigantic, boiling characters down to simple elements for a clean and dynamic visual read. The biggest difference though is that LOTR is still a realistically depicted world, whereas Gigantic is a fully stylized world.
First off... one of my favorite characters from LOTR, Gandalf the Grey! He really lives up to his name since he was literally a grey blob until I suggested giving him a non-canonical potion vial, add some other colors to his robes and really emphasize that impressive beard! (though in the final game he's still pretty much a grey blob)
Please say "Gandalf" in the whiniest Frodo voice when you look at this image.
Another fun character I got to work on was Treebeard. I had to use the film version as a jumping off point. (which was fine because he was great looking in the movie) I was happy with some of those head designs. I can draw organic tree people all day...
Did we really need extended Treebeard scenes in the movies? SNOOOZE.
Canis and Rem were two original characters for the game. They never made the final cut but they were really fun to work on. They're "skinchangers" like Beorn. These two siblings turn into wolves, rather than bears.
This guy doesn't care about stupid "no shirt, no shoes, no service" rules.
It was fun to keep some of the design elements from the human form in the beast form.
I referenced native dress of Turkey and of the Roma people for her costume.
I wanted to be sure Rem's beast form looked more intelligent than her brother's.
More trees! Here's some stuff for the Ents that you can summon in the game.
It was fun coming up with different forms for the Ents. The team really like #4's
root legs.
I was tasked to concept the Stone Giant at WB Games a few years ago when I was working on another LOTR related project. A few of the other concept artists that were on the War in the North core team had already taken a stab at this boss creature but for one reason or another their concepts weren't what the designers wanted. Andrew Arconti did a wonderful take on him, he was much more human but the stone shapes were incorporated in really interesting ways. For instance, the top of his head was formed from a flat slab, and his skin was a subtle mix of skin and stone. Overall his face and general anatomy was still very much human.
My art director, Phil Straub wanted me to to see what I could come up with. Giant boss characters are always fun to concept. Gone are the nuances of a player character or some important NPC. Boss characters are usually supposed to be big, mean and ugly. I don't think my stone giant is ugly per se but he has all the nuance of a bag full of rocks (literally).
As usual I started with some roughs.
Here are my first few sketches.
And here's the final page of roughs
The only restrictions were that he should be bipedal and he had to fit on the troll's animation rig. (An animation rig in game development refers to the "skeleton" of the creature that the animators use for animation.) Unique rigs are often expensive for the game's memory so many games will re-use them. Skilled art teams can get a lot of use out of a versatile animation rig. In this case the LOTR cave troll rig worked out just fine for any number of big lumbering beasts.
Here's a breakdown some of my thought process and design choices for these roughs:
His most distinctive feature are his very long, straight "slab" arms.
#1 - The Old General
I thought this direction captured some of
the ancient quality of Tolkien's world. Everything in LOTR is old, and
has some involved history to it. So maybe this stone giant has seen alot
of battles, and he's got the demeanor of a grizzled old warrior. He
also has a low center of gravity and looks very solid and strong.
Lots of asymmetry, kind of a boring head design.
#2 - The Ugly One
Here I'm playing more with odd shapes. I think it's a cool design overall but there isn't much of a hierarchy of shapes, every piece of him is different and doesn't seem quite as tough. I do like his off- kilter pelvis and legs but I think this shoulder area is a little muddy He also looks like he could be an Ent if you put some leaves on him.
With a few proportion tweaks this guy could've been a winner!
#3 - The Living Hill
With this idea I thought the Stone Giant could be a living part of the landscape. When he's not lumbering about causing mayhem he just settles into the landscape and the environment just grows back around him. I thought if we went forward with this direction he could even have grass and foliage on his back. Those cavities in his head could have water pouring out of them as he rose up from the ground. His chest and lower body aren't that interesting, it's pretty much human looking but I do like his pointy feet. He would've been fun to take to final for sure.
He has some character in his face, if you didn't get on his bad side he'd
be more of a gentle giant.
#4 - The Fighter
I think this was the first drawing I did when I started this concept. I wasn't thinking to far out of the box, he's very cave troll-like. If I took this guy to the next stage I'd have to tweak his proportions. I'd give him a smaller head and mush longer arms. Howeever I do like his built in "brass knuckles' on his fists.
He has some nice thicks and thins to his body shape but he could be in any
old fantasy world. He's not "Tolkien-ey" enough.
#5 - The Monster
This version of the character is much more lanky and skinny than the other iterations. He also looks less intelligent. I feel that because he's skinnier he doesn't look like he's the right scale, He could almost be some little impish goblin type creature and still work.
And just for the sake of playing with iMovie to make a video here's my process for the roughs:
In part two of this post I'll show you the progress of the final concept, so stay tuned!
