Obsidian Entertainment Artist Interview

In this interesting piece from The Penny Arcade Report, Obsidian Entertainment’s veteran artist Brian Menze comments some pieces of concept art and artwork chosen by editor-in-chief Ben Kuchera, describing the thought process behind them and the kind of work that went into them.

Since the piece is so heavily reliant on its imagery, I’m just going to quote the intro and invite you to read it in its entirety:

My name is Brian Menze, a senior artist at Obsidian Entertainment where I’m currently the art lead on South Park: The Stick of Truth. I’ve been involved with making games as an artist since 1993. The bulk of my career has been spent working with Chris Avellone and Feargus Urquhart, beginning at Black Isle Studios in 1999 . My first project at Black Isle was Fallout 2. Since then, I’ve been a part of creating many wonderful worlds and helping create some of the best RPG experiences of the last 15 years.

Since the formation of Obsidian, I’ve concentrated most of my efforts on character creation where I’ve helped expand the Star Wars Universe with Star Wars Knights of the Old Republic II, created masters of espionage on Alpha Protocol and returned to one of the greatest RPG franchises ever with Fallout: New Vegas. When I think back on my early career, I’m proud to know that the Infinity Engine games I worked on were some of the best RPGs of that time. So when it was decided that we’d begin putting together a project that would tap into the spirit of those games, I was of course very excited.

It’s like going home again with the family you’ve always known. One of the most exciting things to me about Project Eternity is the fact that it’s crowd funded. It’s truly an incredible feeling to have such a direct relationship with the people that will be playing the game in the end. For me, it adds to the family aspect of the project as a whole with the backers being part of that family. The day we reached our goal was such a boost for Obsidian, but when we broke $4 million it’s safe to say that we were energized as a company. That energy has set the stage for us to move forward in creating a game the backers will remember for a long time.