How to Create a Production Art Process for a New Feature
In a sea of similar-looking games, studios have an increasingly difficult time making their products stand out. Those that do, understand the power of a deeply credible aesthetic, to enhance the narrative. Yet, progressively challenging production cycles and smaller teams, mean Art Leads need to find sustainable working cycles that fit their needs and meet the constant demands of the game.
At Elvenar, InnoGames’ first fantasy city-builder, our challenge was incorporating the game’s universe with new “guest races” – a feature that introduces other fantastical creatures and beings, whilst building and maintaining their city.
With two-week pre-production cycles and only three concept artists, my job was to streamline the production process to create 70 new concepts in two months, per quarter, for the feature to go live on time. My team did this by looking at the phases of the production process and standardizing the work to fit each new guest race.

Brainstorming the right way
While brainstorming can vary, lacking a goal or broad target can make it difficult to find a focus. Firstly, we look at the data; the player surveys, player requests, and consider a suitably contrasting race to follow up with.
The Sorcerers & Dragons, for example, was born from this. Our challenge was to create a theme, which was fitting to the expectations of Elvenar; both in aesthetics and narrative. Our first step is always to bring the team together for different points of views. The invite spreads across disciplines, including; Game Designers, Coders, Project Managers… etc. to maximize the variation of perspectives. However, diverse viewpoints are not enough for a successful and efficient brainstorm session, you need to have a set of categories and questions to speed up the process. For us, we use the following for each potential race:

Each question gives us an insight into specific factors we need to consider, so the new race works in the Elvenar world. As magic is important in Elvenar, the new race should have a type of magic that works to compliment and contrast the previous races. For example, the Wood Elves were powerful, yet elegant, compared to the Sorcerers, who are theatrical and often careless. It also gives us clues as to what types of key supporting elements we should include and what else is already out there. Knowing their lifestyle and temperament helps to inform their societies and their habitat. As the ideas accumulate, connections begin to form between the categories, and the narrative begins to develop, which naturally gains momentum. But how do you know when the brainstorm session has been efficient? When each category is rich with ideas and we have a narrative for their existence. Just for reference, we normally spend three hours at this stage, then we move to next phase, visual research.

Research Forms Content
Research of a guest race is essential, because it forms content. It gives us the depth, substance and credibility for our concepts. But, how do you start?
First and foremost, it is essential to understand common perceptions and tropes of the race. How are they viewed by the public? What are notable examples? Consider how they are portrayed in movies, books, comics, common myths, historic interpretations, etc. Without this understanding, we cannot create something credible for our players.
Additionally, drawing from real world inspiration, such as a historic culture, helps support our limited pre-production period. It gives you a reference for key elements when you think of tangible objects or people. It immediately gives us an aesthetic cohesion when we delve into the textiles, jewelry, architecture, weaponry, and an understanding of their level of engineering. For example, the Mongolian culture influenced our Orcs and Goblins and the Dragons and Sorcerers were inspired by early gothic culture.
Once we know the expectations of the new race we surround ourselves with inspirational prints, in the Elvenar Art Room. It’s no good having hundreds of images tucked away on your hard drive. Get it up on the walls where your team can discuss the ideas, and fully digest the details. We’re too used to flicking through digital images and garnering an impression of the image. It’s the equivalent of running through an art gallery. By having them up in the wall you and your team can become one with your inspiration and full immerse yourself in the project.
Finally, to get the most out of your research, you should explore and experiment with the concepts. It’s the best way to find new ideas in a short amount of time, and strengthen your narrative. It’s important for the artists to be free to explore the extremities of the ideas by experimenting with detail, proportion, colors…etc. By doing this they challenge their own perceptions and break free from preconceptions. Usually, we dedicate 9 days in the research phase.

Implement with a streamlined process
Economizing effort, and pushing for the utmost clarity in the concepts, is the ultimate goal, before we push the concepts out to our outsource partners for 3D production.
We use a modular system in 2D and 3D, so the kit parts can be shared, saving time on rendering and modelling. The expertise comes in being able to define the key parts which we can modulate, without compromising the quality our players have come to expect. As the majority of our 3D production is outsourced, we’ve built up a great relationship with our outsource partners. Our two exceptional 3D Artists, in-house, are at the front line of the communication and review process to make things flow smoothly.
With each new creation, the Concept Artist creates a brief, adding details, reference, and explanations. This is reviewed by the 3D artists for clarity, and only when it passes this stage, it moves on to outsourcing, for production. You get out what you put in, therefore clarity in the brief is of the utmost importance.
Even though completing a new feature in a short time can be daunting, it pays to plan. By going through the same process, we focus on what we want to get from each step of the cycle. We set ourselves up to succeed, and in doing that, we have never failed to deliver on such demands. For us, creating a new guest race was possible by setting up a detail process that re-examined the way our team brainstormed, explored and implemented the feature in a total of only two months.

1 2

#LiveTheRebellion