Dev Diary #6 — Art of the Cards
Greetings once again, Adventurers, and welcome to another developer diary. This week we sat down and talked to Polina of Dev Diary #2 fame. Without further ado, let us dive into the questions:
Q: How does the process for creating card art begin? Is there rhyme or reason to what is being worked on at the time? Walk us through a little of that!
A: Our game designers maintain a database of all the cards in the game and I prefer to focus on the ones that tend to appear together on the screen, usually a specific hero’s class cards. This makes the research and inspiration stage easier to dive into, and the sketching too as I prefer to work on several cards at once.
Q: Several cards at once!? Is that something you developed for yourself, or was it learned from somewhere?
A: Making multiple thumbnails and developing several ideas at once is a natural process for most artists but in our case it’s done for several different images instead of a singular illustration. It’s not a perfect solution I know but the best we could reach considering the time limits and the quantity of the cards in the game. Doing several cards at the same time allows us to see them in something very close to gameplay context, see if they look good together without being too similar.
Q: Okay, so you create several sketches at once and work on them all a bit as you go, but how do you ideate over that many ideas at once?
A: To start with, I focus on what the card is supposed to do in gameplay terms, and how that has been represented in D&D media before (or in Demeo). Sometimes our VFX artists have already worked on an effect, so I can take inspiration from their work as well. Then I consider if there’s any opportunity for visual metaphors or unique visuals without losing the direct association and later switch to sketching in color.
Q: With all of the cards you’re illustrating in this phase, how much of each do you render toward their “final” state, and why do you take this approach?
A: Once the general composition and colors are decided I tend to finalize card art one by one, reaching maybe 90% for each one before doing a final pass.
Q: How many stages of reviews do tend to have during the creation of the art?
A: I prefer to check in with our art lead, Alexandru, at the most important stages which is usually after the initial sketches are done and then again once the cards are closer to completion.
Q: So, you start adding color, rendering finer details, and now you’re coming to the final stretch of the illustrations. Are there times when you have to start over one of the designs because of a change of direction? If so, how does that affect your method and how do you overcome those sorts of changes?
A: Yes, sometimes only when the card is finished and seen in the game do we realize that it doesn’t really work. This is where I rely on the team to provide feedback. To be honest an opportunity to remake some card art usually makes me excited since that means I can work a little longer on it, and a lot of the initial issues have already been solved by the first version of that card. Sometimes we also have changes in game design that might affect what a card does, so then it’s a matter of translating that change into visuals.
Q: The rollercoaster of game dev, for sure! So, you have the final render. Is that the last you will do with the cards before they’re added to the game, or are there additional steps before that can happen?
A: The last, yep. For now. That “for now” is very ominous. I love it.
Q: A fun one as we get toward the end of the questions: Which D&D class do you think you are in real life?
A: A druid for sure. A hermit who wild shapes into a small unassuming animal when there’s fun gossip nearby.
Q: Finally, do you have any words of inspiration for the artists out there who maybe want to do what you do one day?
A: As long as you have a purpose for your art and something to communicate - it’s worth doing it, be it for a video game, a small group of friends or some strangers on the internet. I believe it’s something D&D and art have in common.
We want to thank Polina again for sharing some of the processes and even taking the time to create awesome timelapses for us to show. For now, we’re going to share with you one more awesome timelapse before we sign off for this dev diary. We’ll be back again very soon!