Shadowrun: Hong Kong Updates #3-4, $430,619 and Counting

The Kickstarter campaign for Shadowrun: Hong Kong is currently getting close to its $450,000 stretch goal, a revamped take on the Cyberware system, and has received a couple of new updates. While the less recent of the two is simply an attempt to drum up additional excitement and funding from backers, the latest includes a behind-the-scenes write-up from concept artist and lead environment artist Tristin Ishmael. Well worth reading, in my opinion:

As the Environment Art Lead on SR:HK I’m responsible for ALL the environment art and concept mood pieces. It is definitely a lot of responsibility, but I learned a lot on SRR and DF through great mentorship from all the HBS Art Leads – Mike McCain, Chris Rogers and Jenn Tran. Working with them taught me how to take on the challenges of our creative process and their fantastic direction and feedback keeps my creative juices going.

A concept piece starts with high level direction from the Designers. They describe what kind of environment they think a specific story element should take place in, as well as the Shadowrun history of that place. With that information, I look for inspiration in various places – the actual real world history of the place, similar areas, and the possibilities of what could be. It’s also important to gather references… LOTS of references! I created a Hong Kong reference folder with hundreds and hundreds of images of signs, streets, buildings, people, and more.

To begin, I create thumbnails (loose sketches) to experiment with vastly different camera angles, compositions, and lighting situations. If you have a good composition, you are set up for success. If you don’t have a good composition, you can noodle it as much as you want, and even if it’s a great idea… your painting will still suck.

Once I have a bunch of sketches, the Design and Art teams work together to choose which sketches to push forward to the next stage where I focus on making sure all of the important shapes read clearly. Once the general shapes are established, I keep in mind the humans/metahumans, magic, tech and cyberpunk elements that make it Shadowrun 😉