Behind the Scenes: Diablo Illustration (Patreon)

I remember it like yesterday, sitting behind a CRT monitor as a 12 year old and scared senseless after the first Diablo cinematic ends and I have to dive into the corrupted Tristram cathedral.

Then, few years later in high school, linking with a friend's PC using twisted UTP cables to play through the Diablo 2 campaign.

So, when a new Diablo releases, you might imagine the effect it has on me. But times change, and my schedule isn't really supportive of gaming :) That's why 3D design and Blender helps me as a creative outlet and I can channel these things through creative work. It's really special thing to play game's story recap on one monitor while working on the game's theme in Blender.

So it wasn't really too much a challenge to come up with a new project this time.

Visit the full Pinboard here

It's been some time since I made a character in Blender, so I thought it would be nice to take my first D2 class I ever played - Barbarian - and create some nice stylized setting. 

I say stylized, because I knew I wouldn't have time to create a realistic style similar to Diablo 4, so I only took some inspiration and gathered references from it.

There aren't many iconic things from Diablo, as it always reuses a lot of assets and the environments are large scale, so I had to think a bit about what to make. Finally, I chose to include a zone waypoint, as it's really one of the few things that are recognizable and always present in the game.

I also gathered some generic barbarian images and cartoon references. I had an idea about how he should look like, but it's always a good habit to get as much information as possible.

My character sketching skill got a bit rusty too, but the main purpose of this exercise was to include all the character elements, clothing and armor I needed to make and determine the proper scaling and proportions.

Also placing the character on the waypoint has it's own challenges, and you don't want to over-saturate the scene with other objects, so the character can stand out.

You can watch the process video on Youtube