Unit Pictures

[Robear]

So when does your new job at Blizzard start?

In all seriousness, let's compare me to Mr. Jack, who was hired at Blizzard after posting a lot of pictures of Starcraft units on the internet. Now, I too feel like I have my own pretty good visual understanding of the Starcraft universe, and of course I personally like some of my interpretations better than his. But, let's look past that:
—His art is just more professional that mine. For example he has a really good understanding of how lights color and reflect off his different surfaces. I can draw highlights on where I think they should go, but here are some examples of his, 1, 2, and 3. There's just a lot of depth and ambient light that I don't know how to convey (although partly he just has more experience, you can watch him improve if you look at his work over the last few years).
—He has a lot of original concepts in his gallery, whereas mine is mostly other people's designs.
—He also had some other professional experience before Blizzard, which I don't yet have (ex. Warmachine).

So, to answer your question, as soon as I get those 3 things, I'll head straight to Irvine, CA!

[Robear]

The Queen of Blades is in...



I did another long-overdue unit, the Dragoon, and, with a little copy/paste and rotation, I've got the immortal's base. Yay visual continuity!





Also here's a rough sketch of what the BW carrier may look like:

[Visions of Khas]

You've got some sexy things going on in these here pictures.

So you've decided to go with the classic Carrier, as opposed to that BroodWar/WoL hybrid carrier? I really liked the design of that one.

I was about to suggest making the Immortal slightly larger, but it seems to conform quite nicely with this official artwork. I would, however, like to see more of a difference between the Dragoon and Immortal. The latter is more heavily armored.

Keep going, man!

[Robear]

Don't worry, that earlier SC2 carrier is definitely gonna be in too, but I couldn't leave the old stripey classic out.

The earlier dragoons are pretty small, too. So, even without that immortal concept, I don't think they could be any bigger than this.



That dragoon is definitely thinner than my immortal-base version, but, then, it's also different from the SC1 sprite dragoon, which looks much more armored (although each part was probably just thickened so that they would show up better as sprites).



I tried to incorporate the SC1 dragoon into my dragoon's center a bit, while the legs mostly came from the immortal and the SCG dragoon. When you turn these legs at an angle, they come out looking pretty thick:



(If you check the immortal's in-game legs, the shape actually matches really well with that SCG dragoon's back legs.)



So, uh, that's the explanation of why the dragoon looks so armored. I could've gone with the older-style legs, oh well. :/

I also updated the Reaver's coloring to have the same shading as the newer drawings (top is new):


Lurker redraw coming next.

[Visions of Khas]

Cool beans. Yeah, I was looking at the screenshots last night and doing some sketching, trying to figure out how a Zealot would fit into a dragoon, and found that you'd have to either remove the legs or have the protoss curled into a tight fetal ball. Based on a picture of Fenix in a stasis cell by Samwise Didier, I wonder of removing the legs might be the way they go. Otherwise you'd have a lot of trouble fitting anything into that shell. But considering the Protoss are masters of microtechnology, it wouldn't be impossible; it does seem like everything a Dragoon needs is mounted on the outside, with the protoss itself used as internal power source.

[phazonjunkie]

Love what I'm seeing so far! Especially the starship/flier scales.

At first I was inclined to think that the scout was way too large, especially when compared to the phoenix & wraith. But thinking about it, when contrasted with the size of the infantry units, it doesn't seem much bigger than most present day fighter aircraft. If anything the wraith & viking could be considered too small!

[Robear]

Thanks! I definitely agree that the Viking fighter seems too small for a spaceship, but, then, Blizzard showed us exactly how small they were in walker mode in the campaign.

So I guess terran fightercraft are just really really tiny. I wish they were bigger too. :/

I finally understand the lurker's shape, which is totally different from the last drawing I posted here. Here's the story: back, you know, ten years ago I only ever had this to go on,


But like 5 years ago I saw this fan art, which I thought explained the rest of the lurker's shape perfectly, and that's how I imagined lurkers since.


So I thought the SCG lurker, with its separate upper torso, looked awful.

But, hey, if you look closely at the original sprite, you can start to see a separate, lower body, with the head and shoulders raised up above. Now I can see the SCG lurker's shape. In that high-res render of a lurker for Brood War they just reused some hydralisk parts an chose and angle that hid the body from view.


So, as usual, the guys who were working on SCG were doing a great job, and here's my improved version:



The colors are kind of ugly, but they match my hydralisk picture, so I'll leave 'em for now. ~6 ground units to go!

[Visions of Khas]

The Lurker models developed for StarCraft II suggest it has a body plan cut into sections, somewhat like an insect, connected by that thin, tapered torso.





Did you purposefully omit the newer model? Really, the biggest change it made was the inclusion of more eyes and a more complex and defined upper body.

This comparison also highlights how your style, approach and skill have improved since you first started this project. I really like seeing how you've gotten better at this; it's always awesome to see that in other artists. Good luck.

[Robear]

The new/old models actually are really similar, except for the big roachlike armor behind the head/above the shoulders.


I also didn't want to include that bit of webbing in the legs because it's similar to the Queen. The one thing I hated was the SC2 portrait, look how weak it looks compared to the in-game head.


That's what made me want to stick a bit more closely to the old hydra-y look. But, hey, the newer drawing wasn't perfect either, so here's some SC2 features edited in (on the right):



Improvement, no? Thanks for reminding me to give the SC2 version another look, Visions of Khas! Any other suggestions (that hopefully I can do without redrawing the whole thing :P)?

[Visions of Khas]

Additional eyes. Nice. The only thing I'd suggest right now is to push a sense of depth and use specular highlighting.

You'll see in anything Mr Jack does at least minor atmospheric perspective, increasing sense of depth. Limbs on the other side of a character or robot lacks the same vividness as something closer to the viewer. See, on both versions of the Lurker, the scythe arms are becoming lost, blocked as they are by the foreleg. You can change the value and color of the limbs; make one more bold than the other; give one more detail or texture; or give it highlights. Eyes like highlights.