A Look at the Art of Darkwatch
- April 30, 2004 15:04 PM PST
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Dig into the depths of the artwork behind Darkwatch, Sammy Studios' vampire western, with our exclusive interview.
One of the most often overlooked parts of a video game is the art direction. While many players will comment on "pretty graphics" few realize exactly what it takes to get there. GamePro.com recently sat down with Farzad Varahramyan, the Creative Visual Director of Darkwatch, at Sammy Studios and delved into the inner workings of character creation.We not only talked about the evolution of the main character, Jericho, but Varahramyan was kind enough to give us an exclusive look at the early sketches of the character so you can see exactly how he evolved from a cute and cuddly western cowboy, to the dark and brooding hero that appears in the final game.
GamePro: So before we start talking about the game, tell us a little about the trailer -- obviously cinematic, but revealing some of the story. Was it created as an advertisement, or is this going to be one of the cinemas in the game? How did it come to be?
Farzad: It?s multi-purpose, and I think the main reason is to show the promise of things to come in our game. The cinematic did showcase all the things you can do in Darkwatch the game. It also has, obviously, marketing purposes. The way I see it, if it catches the imagination of the people it has done its job. As far as the origins of the game, it really just started out with some sketches and it was quite a different looking game; it was a lot more light-hearted originally. I kind of saw it as a caricature of the Old West.
GP: Before we get into that, why don?t we talk about what exactly an art director does in terms of game design. Obviously the game has changed since the initial draft, how much input did you have into that? Was it just something like: hey this is the game we?re doing, create some sketches for that? Was it, hey this doesn?t really fit into the game but it looks a whole lot cooler? Can you give our readers an idea of the process involved?
FV: I don?t think there?s really a correct process or way of doing it, there?s a lot of give and take and its really a symbiotic relationship between myself, Chris Ulm who?s the design director, Emmanuel Valdez, and of course Paul O?Connor who?s the lead designer on the project. Initially, myself, Chris and Emmanuel, and a couple of others guys who started up Sammy Studios together, we were tossing ideas around, and the idea of a vampire western was very appealing for us.
It started out with just ideas; it started with small couple sentence paragraphs, and at the same time I started doing sketches and drawings. And it went back and forth. I?d read Chris?s words, be inspired, sit down and draw something, and add a little something to it. Chris would see the images and find something he hadn?t thought of and go back and rework the story, so there was a lot of back and forth -- very collaborative. And I?ve found that collaborative creative relationships really yield the best products -- that?s been my personal experience.
GP: You mentioned that Darkwatch didn?t start out as such a dark game, for lack of a better term. How many iterations does a typical character go through, be it Jericho, be it his female companion, or even just one of the enemies. Obviously what we are seeing here are the characters in their final state, but what did it take to get them there?
FV: It really took, to be honest, months and months of both paper drawings and sketches and illustrations and paintings, and on Chris?s side months and months and months of writing and re-writing and re-massaging the story. Again, it was that back and forth.
I think that visually, the point where I realized where the game had to go, was when I stopped sketching and drawing characters that I wanted to see, and started, especially in Jericho?s case, a character I wanted to be, not to see. And that?s why Jericho looks the way he does. He?s a character that I think a lot of us, when we look at him, he?s a character you want to be. As far as the tone of the game goes, that was a conscious evolution of the business plan of the company, which was to move towards more mature games and aggressively going towards that area of the market.
