What a great article/interview. I specially love the one that had the crit on Ivy's image and the before/after pieces but I loved the progress thumbnails. Overall, I think the final piece is done very well and so balanced that it does each character justice. I don't like that Harley has been getting such a promotion in everything she is involved in but in this piece, although she does project a little bit more, it is only by a smidge. Ivy holds her own since all that green in the background attracts the viewer to her. Canary, as the only sitting character, helps her make it into the group. And even though Huntress could have easily gone to the background by being behind everyone else, Isis being in-line with her brings her out to the front with the others. Very cohesively planned. I think the image that the characters don't exactly fit in with the background can really be helped. I'm sure proper shadowing from the toons and the background could have gravitated the whole image together into a more realistic setting but the way things are done here, it celebrates the characters. I love how individual each look; femininely sexy but not overtly so. I am also looking forward to the posters from what I saw in the stream. Maybe someday you guys can talk about environmental art in the game. I think a few of the more successful ones and I am sad I can't explore it at leisure is the Monsters of Metal raid. Each environment done so perfectly capturing their respective bosses even while using old structures we have seen previously in game. Reminds me of how I felt the first time seeing Gotham Wastelands, walking into New Genesis and Thanagar looks awesome as well.
Hmmm, it's kinda hard to see the diamond pattern on her boot's sole...Could you have Harley stomp on a few faces? Likely, I'll see the diamond imprints better that way.
I know other people have replied to this already. My blunt answer is this was the design of the NPC and I wanted to match costumes between our key art and our in-game characters; but I do think barefooted-ness evokes her being connected with nature (no barrier between herself and the Earth). To me it makes sense with her abilities and character but I can appreciate why it is odd to see her without footwear. I also had to look up a lot of feet reference which wasn't nearly as much fun as looking for Isis' reference
The old model is barefoot aswell I think people are just over thinking this. In the comics she has no shoes as well. The Comics speak for themselves. You did great job on Poison Ivy, really. Giving her shoes will look so out of place for her.
Forgive me if I come across as an armchair graphic designer but wouldn’t the majority of your work be waaaay easier in Illustrator, particularly with design tablet/pen like Wacom? Photoshop is obviously king on the editing side but on the creation side I know I struggled mightily with PS doing all the marketing merch for my business (because I have Steve Jobs level control freak issues, lol) until a buddy of mine in GD turned me on to Illustrator. Granted, I’m sure your experience and formal education has you much more proficient in PS than my Google School of Figuring Stuff Out education. But I still can’t help but wonder if the freedom of Illustrator wouldn’t be way better for 2D design. I mean, it’s like a 3,874 step process to simply draw a straight non-vertical/horizontal line in PS!
My work is mostly raster; Illustrator is vector based. Illustrator is great for graphic design or flash animating but isn't a very good tool for digital painting. I even do our UI work in Photoshop though that is mostly because we have an old enough system where I can get away with it. It is faster for me to do linework in Photoshop even though Illustrator has much nicer bezier curve control. Different tools/programs for different jobs
I don't get the issue with the feet. Ivy is all about being connected to nature so it seems more natural for her to NOT have shoes on so she can always be touching nature (as long as she's not walking on concrete, asphalt, etc). I'm not a fan of going with the non-green version of Ivy for the same reason but it's nothing I would rant over. Pick your battles more wisely, people. Sheesh.
Hmm, I was under the impression that one of the benefits of Adobe’s new-ish effort to push their full design suite as a comprehensive, integrated toolset intended work seamlessly and complimentary was that vector/raster conversion was less of a hassle than it used to be and that files could more easily be “flip-flopped”, utilizing the properties of both formats more synchronously. Though I wouldn’t be surprised if it’s one of those “sounds good on paper, but in practice...” things. Either way, I thank you for taking the time out of your busy day to humor my “amateur acting like he knows crap about the pro game” question and dropping some knowledge on me. I know a bit about “crunch” so I definitely have a lot of appreciation for whatever time you and and your teammates can squirrel away to interface with us. You and your team don’t hear this enough but you’re doing a kick-a** job. Thanks again.
Illustrator is a great program, it's just not well suited for the work I do. Illustrator doesn't have the robust painting/brush features that PS has, but PS' pen and vector tools suck. I don't really know how to use vector in Photoshop. I've had on OK time converting raster to vector but it's not pretty, Illustrator does an ok job not its never as nice as just creating assets starting from vector. Going from vector to raster is easy since once you go raster you're prone to losing pixel/image fidelity anyway. Thanks for the questions! Have a good one
Damn skippy. Quite simply, this has got to be one of my favourite postings the devs have ever made. Perhaps at the tippity top. It could be because I'm a fan of comic book art, or because I'm a fan of Megan, in both her work and personality. Probably a tasty stew comprised of the two. You checked all the boxes for me. You credited the artists you admire and were inspired by. You showed humility in mentioning where your difficulties lie. And despite being a professional in your field and knocking it out of the park, you still show an eagerness to learn more (and if you get around to it, I'd love to hear follow-up on what other artists say they would have done differently...but even if they would've tackled it in a different fashion...I'm certain all you'll receive is praise). While there is certainly nothing wrong with the 3D promo art you've done previously...I urge you to continue to deliver the promo art in 2D. Since the game is based on comic books, we have plenty of 3D in the game itself. The strong lines around the hairline I find give it a bit of a three-dimensional feel anyhow; and if you were to make another article like this and plan ahead, you can have the comic book sites you send your releases to have a link to it for those, like myself, who do appreciate the fine artwork. I enjoyed Nicola Scott's work on "Age of Justice', and Phil Jiminez' work on "Earth 3"...and by all means if you want to get a very "DC" artist to do the occasional commission, that would certainly be most welcome. (Along those lines, you once asked us if we'd like more of the statues as base items you've given us and mentioned how those are relatively easy to recreate. I apologize as I don't post that often...but I guess I should have because I'd love more of those. It's been a good while since the Aquaman & Mera statue was released. Throw a "Batman B&W" statue pack on the marketplace at a reasonable price and I'll snag one.) Barring that...let's go full Megjira. Let her have at it. Loved the art, the article and thank you for posting it.
Ah I've done that before. Megan's words...but I just hit the "Reply" button and deleted everything but that one line. Mepps is the messenger. And you know the old saying. "Hug the messenger".
Congratulations on making this great Key art that makes the characters shine on their own ways! Although I think Catwoman should be there.
