Creating Concept Art for Warhammer Survivors
/Every project we work on at Auroch Digital is driven by the passion and enthusiasm of multiple disciplines coming together to create the game. This collaboration extends from the pre-production stage all the way through to the game you get to play on release. Our team of incredible artists is one of those, creating everything you see on screen.
In a new series of blogs, we'll be giving you a sneak peek behind the scenes at the journey the art team have taken in creating Warhammer Survivors. Today's journey begins with the concept art phase!
The concepting process
Development starts in the concepting phase, where all departments brainstorm ideas to make a game as enjoyable and unique as it can be - and for art, it's no different!
Lead Concept Artist, Dom
We often begin with a discussion with the other teams about what we’re trying to achieve in the final version of the game. What kinds of places we want the players to experience, how do we strike a balance of environments that feel inherently ‘Warhammer’, what players will expect to see, with ones that will be new and surprising.
Concept Artist, Ohm
The concepting phase is the exciting part as that’s when ideas and visions of the game start to take shape. Once the design team have their ideas and share that with us, we begin by creating and exploring a few sprites of characters, weapons, and enemies with varying details and sizes to nail down the style we want for the game. After we have established varying styles of assets, we put together a rough test scene to see how the sprites fit together or if the style is right.
We then work with other areas of the development team to receive feedback and make iterations based on that feedback. This period of development allows us to discuss the overall concept and address any outstanding concerns around the test scene we’ve created.
These images show the concept for Bloodwind Spoil, a mock-up, and how the stage currently looks in development
Working with the Warhammer IP
Lots of us here at Auroch Digital were Warhammer fans long before working on various Warhammer titles, such as Warhammer 40,000: Boltgun and Warhammer Survivors, and getting to work with the beloved brand is hugely exciting.
Lead Concept Artist, Dom
I'm a lifelong Warhammer fan so, honestly, it's all been exciting for me. The hard part has been restraining myself to the ideas we have the time to make!
We’re trying to adapt two universes in Warhammer 40,000 and Warhammer Age of Sigmar into Warhammer Survivors. We want to create a game that is instantly recognisable as inhabiting those worlds, while also feeling like an authentic representation of the universe, even if we’re exploring them in a shrunk-down, pixel art form.
With such a wealth of lore, characters, environments and more to explore, we asked Dom and Ohm what their favourite part of this stage of development has been.
Concept Artist, Ohm
My favourite part of concepting has been the big enemy sprites and animating them! It’s been great to take behemoths like Ghazghkull Mag Uruk Thraka or Vizzik Skour and shrink them down, while still making them imposing and intense. These enemies are so iconic in the Warhammer 40,000 and Warhammer Age of Sigmar universes, and to feature them in Warhammer Survivors in this way has been incredible!
Lead Concept Artist, Dom
We’ve had a great opportunity to work on some locations and content that no other games have been able to explore. Some of that has meant getting to introduce my favourite old miniatures from the deep history of Warhammer 40,000 that I loved when I was younger; some of it has meant getting to explore locations from Warhammer Age of Sigmar that might only have a paragraph and a single piece of existing concept art as a jumping-off point. But as a hobbyist myself, the most fun has probably been in exploring the ‘Meta’ elements: the Warhammer Hobby Table stage and weapons like the Nuln Oil or D6 Dice.
The Art Team at this stage
As a mid-level studio, which consists of over 80 people, our dedicated teams for projects are relatively small.
Lead Concept Artist, Dom
We have two artists internally working on character and environment art; we also have an artist dedicated mostly to weapon effects and another for technical work. This is where we do the majority of our exploratory work. Aspects like trying to figure out ‘how to interpret Skaven as a faction into something that works in pixel art’, ‘how large should these sprites be’, ‘how many frames of animation should we give to bosses vs fodder enemies’, to name but a few.
During this phase, we’re establishing the art style, and ensuring it’s consistent across characters, enemies, environments and weapon effects as well as across the multiple artists working on the project. In addition to our internal teams, we also work with some external studios who help us produce the huge number of sprites and VFX for different factions, and this is where spending that early time doing the concepts pays off.
For Warhammer Survivors, Auroch Digital is working with Water Witch Studio to bolster our art team’s work. In the early stages, Water Witch took our stage concepts and turned them into the action-packed battlefields you see today. They also later assisted us with multiple art passes based on internal and external feedback.
In addition, RocketBrush worked on characters, enemies and VFX, creating new sprites based on proof-of-concept work for each faction and universe.
What’s after concepting?
The concept stage is just the first of several parts of creating the vast and captivating art in Warhammer Survivors. In our next blog, we’ll share how the team handcrafts iconic champions and heretic scum with a focus on characters and enemy factions.
Thanks for reading!
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