Before we brought external concept artists onto the team, I’d spent a fair bit of time developing different Beasties purely in code and design - using just stats, traits and playbooks to come up with broad sketches of different playstyles, to help inform the range of concept designs we’d need.
its always so cool reading about the design process!! could you talk about leobro/broslidon next? their in-game concept arts are very different from the final result
Ha, yes, that one was an adventure. Like Daredillo, it was spearheaded by Irischroma, and I want to make some space to highlight work by our other designers. But I'll make sure Broslidon is the next primarily-Iris one that we showcase.
"One of the hallmarks of a great design is how “obvious” it can appear to be. Beasties that have strong clear themes and such cool shapes might seem so elementary that you can’t imagine them any other way, and you might naturally assume that it was a straightforward process to arrive at the design."
This stuck out to me because Daredillo's design, right down to the name, feels so cohesive that it almost feels like it was designed with that very specific theme in mind! It's also my favourite beastie in the game, so it's really cool to see the process here. :D
I imagine every beastie will get an article eventually, but I really want to see the Troglum family be covered—I feel like the "field research" only gives a very small glimpse into what inspired the designs, but they're both so out there that I want to see how they got to that point!
(Side note: Troglum and its metamorph creeped me out *so much* when I first discovered them, but their weirdness eventually intrigued me. Now they're among my top favourite beasties, and I think their "creepiness" is super endearing, so I hope that was kind of the point!)
Milimine!!!!!! I've taken a peek at it and Demolipede's concept art already, but I'd love to hear more in-depth about those two, and why Demolipede is spheres instead of cubes (or vice versa)
I'd love to talk about them! I want to show a different Beastie family before those ones, to set a bit of groundwork for them, and then I'll make sure these ones get an article ASAP.
its always so cool reading about the design process!! could you talk about leobro/broslidon next? their in-game concept arts are very different from the final result
Ha, yes, that one was an adventure. Like Daredillo, it was spearheaded by Irischroma, and I want to make some space to highlight work by our other designers. But I'll make sure Broslidon is the next primarily-Iris one that we showcase.
I'm here to second this request, it seems like a story waiting to be told!
In a broader sense, though probably not for a long time, do you think you'll do an article about how raremorph palettes were chosen?
"One of the hallmarks of a great design is how “obvious” it can appear to be. Beasties that have strong clear themes and such cool shapes might seem so elementary that you can’t imagine them any other way, and you might naturally assume that it was a straightforward process to arrive at the design."
This stuck out to me because Daredillo's design, right down to the name, feels so cohesive that it almost feels like it was designed with that very specific theme in mind! It's also my favourite beastie in the game, so it's really cool to see the process here. :D
I imagine every beastie will get an article eventually, but I really want to see the Troglum family be covered—I feel like the "field research" only gives a very small glimpse into what inspired the designs, but they're both so out there that I want to see how they got to that point!
(Side note: Troglum and its metamorph creeped me out *so much* when I first discovered them, but their weirdness eventually intrigued me. Now they're among my top favourite beasties, and I think their "creepiness" is super endearing, so I hope that was kind of the point!)
Milimine!!!!!! I've taken a peek at it and Demolipede's concept art already, but I'd love to hear more in-depth about those two, and why Demolipede is spheres instead of cubes (or vice versa)
I'd love to talk about them! I want to show a different Beastie family before those ones, to set a bit of groundwork for them, and then I'll make sure these ones get an article ASAP.
I preferred the gen 4-5 one woudlve been my fave probably