Champions Online Meet the Team Q&A

[GameBanshee News]

Another developer profile on the official Champions Online site features art development director Shayne Herrera

Q: How did you set the art style for Champions Online?
A: I was watching an episode of Dastardly and Muttley and thought to myself, "Why are you drinking Pine-Sol and watching cartoons at 1 p.m.? Isn't Michael going to be mad that you aren't at work?" And that was it! I had the idea for the art style.

Wait, that isn't what happened. We spent a lot of time thinking about what jumped out at us when we look at comic books and superheroes. This game had to feel like it jumped out of the panels of a comic. To get there, we needed to have a certain style of shading, so we developed what we are calling "comic shading." By combining comic shading and some interesting post-processing tricks, we are able to achieve Champions Online's vivid color range.

When it comes to creating the Champions Online universe, we decided to marry two very different art concepts. The first is based on basic art and design ideas, including asymmetry, strong silhouettes, smart usage of color theory, etc. The second concept is to take what we think looks realistic, whether it is an animation pose or a character's costume, and then push it to extremes by exaggerating it. Everyone knows what a punch should look like in real life, and everyone knows what an exaggerated punch in a comic book looks like. It is my goal to make that comic punch feel as natural as the real-life punch.