Orcs Must Die prequel comic available for download!
The creative minds at Robot Entertainment have now released the prequel comic book for Orcs Must Die! The comic takes readers through the prequel back story and tells us all about the history of the important rifts and how the Orcs came to ravage the land. It also tells us alot about the kind of character the war mage is and his history.
I’m not going to spoil it too much as you really should check the comic out – its full of humor too! Not only does the comic detail the back story up to where the game starts – it also has a bunch of exclusive artwork from some of the bots at Robot and some community art pieces. It’s really interesting to see how different artists can paint different pictures of the Orcs Must Die world.
Orcs Must Die coming late August / September – previews galore!
With E3 having drawn to a close previews are now being published by various gaming websites who visited the Robot Entertainment booth at the event. RTS Guru, Joystiq and Sarcastic Gamer are just some of the websites who have published their previews. There has also been some excellent game play footage from the likes of GameTrailers. It’s great to see Orcs Must Die getting the press attention it deserves. Read more
Robot Entertainment art blog voting closes and website data loss
Its all over! After a week (and a few more days!) the voting for the art blog has completed. There were plenty of votes cast and in the end it looks like the winning art was Nate “N8” Stefan with his awesome military spider drone:-
Won Choi and Bart Tiongson upload their art for the art blog
Two more art blogs are now available on the Robot Entertainment website. First up is Won Choi who is partnered with Planet Age of Empires. Won has come up with something a little different, something more lighthearted than previous art blogs in the series. Take a look at the below: Read more
More art from the art bots and playtesting from David Leary
Its been a busy week so apologies to readers for the lateness of updates here at Remember Ensemble Studios. Good news is though if you haven’t already been on the Halo Wars and Robot Entertainment websites youve been missing out on some juicy blogs and art. Kicking it off we have Robot and Ex Ensemble designer David Leary talking about playtesting which Ensemble was quite famous for in its development cycle. As always theres some cool pictures of the old Ensemble office in comparison to the new Robot play testing labs.
One of the Ensemble playtest rooms on the 16th floor
The new Robot Entertainment play test room
David Leary’s blog post is an informative look into just how Ensemble executed its much talked about play testing and is a good read over on the HaloWars.com website. Or here’s a little snipped of the action:
“Managing a Halo Wars playtest session was a lot like herding cats. Some of the playtests were scheduled, but late in the project, a lot of sessions would get called on an as-needed basis. I’d page for testers over the intercom, but since everyone had other responsibilities, I’d often only get four or five people on the first call. Usually a second page would fill the rest of the seats. If that didn’t work, I’d start walking around the office – it was hard for my co-workers to turn down a personal request, especially if I groveled.”
Mean while over in Art Bot corner the Clash of the Titans is continuing with two entries from grand artists Won Choi and Bart Tiongson. First up we have Won’s Poseidon and Perseus almost painting look a like art below:
Bart Tiongson is next with his take on Medusa:
She’s looking much more “chilled” than she was in Chris Moffit’s scary picture!
If this outstanding series of art is anything to go by we can expect grand things from Robot Entertainment’s currently un announced game. But will it be mythology.. or something else all together?!?
Bart Tiongson shows off some incredible concept art
In the today’s Robot Entertainment blog update artist Bart Tiongson shows off some awesome artwork for Halo Wars and other projects. Just how awesome is it? Pretty awesome! Halo Wars fans will be able to identify the early Brute Chieftain below!
Check out some more on the official blog!
“Board” to Death: A Day in the Life of a Concept Artist
Whats was it like to be a conecpt artist at Ensemble Studios? Aloysius today published a new article on the HaloWars.com website detailing the expierence of Bart Tiongson. The concept art team at Ensemble were responsible for some fantastic pieces of art much like this one below: (click to enlarge)
You might think that in order to produce such fantastic art the team at Ensemble would be under alot of stress but ho ho ho.. you might be mistaken! Ensemble Studios was well known for being a great place to work. But having too much fun means not so much work… so how did the team deal with work vs play? Well.. about 50/50 actually – sounds like a good ratio!
You can find out more by reading the insigtful blog post below:
“Board” to Death: A Day in the Life of a Concept Artist
In a nutshell, that is what a concept artist does. Quick, clean and summarized in a tidy little paragraph with enough time to spare to go watch the NBA playoffs.
Then I thought about it again. And I realized that it wasn’t that simple; at least not on Halo Wars and definitely not at Ensemble Studios.
You see, in order to create artwork at the highest level, you not only need a team that is talented, dedicated and stays on schedule, but you also need a team that meshes with each another. For that team to be successful in what they do, they need to have chemistry. So instead of writing about our daily tasks and attaching images of artwork, I decided to talk about what the team did that wasn’t on the task list and include photos that illustrated the “chemistry” that we had.
Throughout the studio there are white boards that are used for a variety of things like jotting down tasks and ideas, descriptions of units and keeping track of deadlines. The artists, on the other hand, had a different use for them. The concept guys would draw caricatures and create “inside joke” drawings on a daily basis. I would walk in the office and at the end of each day there would be new and often inspiring drawings on the white boards. While these boards’ original purpose was to have drawings, diagrams and written statements to help keep the team on track, the random imagery, humorous and often non-work-related material, probably kept the team more focused than unit descriptions or schedule dates and deadlines. It wasn’t long before other artists joined in on the fun as well. It wasn’t unusual to poke fun at each other, or crack a joke at someone’s expense. The ratio of laughing and having fun to drawing was probably an even 50/50. I absolutely felt that this dynamic was essential to create the top notch artwork that was done on the project. There were a lot of late nights and long hours, and without a sense of humor the team probably would have driven each other insane.
I’ve always felt that if you enjoy what you are doing and who you are doing it with, success will ultimately follow. Take a look at the art-work in Halo Wars and I think that you’ll agree that we were successful in what we set out to do: create a beautiful looking game. Laughing the whole time.
During my short time leading the concept guys on Halo Wars, I realized something- I did a heck of a lot more learning than I did teaching. Thanks to the Halo Wars concept team.
-b
Below are some examples of the crazy pix that these guys did… I’ve “edited” a few of them. 😛