WildStar: From Concept to Creature, Part One

Carbine Studios has kicked off a weekly set of developer diaries on the official WildStar website, with this concept art-laden initial entry being the first in a series on creature creation. Metal Maw comes to life:
I worried I was going to get behind the desk there in Germany, pick up my Wacom, and forget everything I have learned about creating concept art in front of a crowd of thousands. Getting back to California and looking back on what I was able to do in that 25 minutes, I feel that is exactly what happened. I really painted myself into a corner with this guy and it would take some thought to turn Metal Maw into the creature the fans wanted when they created it at gamescom.

Right from the start, before I dove back into fixing my little mess, I needed to anchor Metal Maw within one of the many and varied factions or environments that populate the world of Nexus. Luckily for me, the Frankenstein'd, metal-grafted-onto-an-unwilling-organic-host thing going on in the original sketch fits pretty well into the modus operandi of the Eldan. They are responsible for the mysterious experiments and dangerous technology you will be encountering all over the planet, so Metal Maw could easily be some kind of water-based leviathan that has been modified by Eldan science into a twisted, nuclear-cannon-backed land-walker.