Urchin comic

Archive entry by Ste Pickford on Sat, 18 Apr 2009
Subject: Urchin

Following on from the very rough sketches John posted yesterday, here's a little comic strip that was the first page of the game concept doc we did for Urchin, to present to Rare at our introductory meeting with them.

I've moaned before about how much I really hate doing concept art sometimes - the sort of concept art where you're expected to come up with the complete look of a whole game in the time it takes to draw a couple of pictures (rather than the year or more that it actually takes to design every element of a video game).

This was one such occasion. John described to me his idea for Urchin, and then there was a meeting in about a weeks time where he wanted to present a concept doc, with concept art, designs, maybe a comic strip, etc. Suddenly I had to do pages of art for a game I'd not thought about, or even heard of, before that day, while my head was full of ideas for Cosmic Pirate and Cluster and the other games I was doing graphics for at the time.

I absolutely hated every second of drawing this page. I just didn't have a proper idea of what I was doing or why. Drawing this page was like pulling teeth. Just looking at it brings back all the pain I felt at the time. Urgh.

But, it worked! Rare really liked what we'd come up with (there were a load more drawings as well, and a short written design I think), and they pretty much offered us an NES contract to make Wizards and Warriors 2 (Ironsword) on the spot, partly on the basis of these drawings.

I still didn't enjoy it.

Tags: concept art, comic, pitch

Predecessor post: Urchin

View the softography page for Urchin »

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