Since 2003, this company of ultra-talented artists has contributed original art, design and animation for some of the most successful consumer brands and franchises in games and film. They have also conjured up their own world-class Intellectual Properties: Zombie Playground, Mothhead, PROXY, and Transient.
“The Void Star project was one of these jobs that was not for a large publisher, so we were given more of a free reign on what we could do. This draws really good results more so than not. The theme of the game was particularly cool, centered on near-future space guys, a bit like private security soldiers who get to fly around in a free reign kind of orbit. We had a really good repore with the developer Drew Card. Some of the best work came out of this project because the theme was right and one where all the artists here at Massive Black got involved in. Void Star was a true passion project. The idea is that the player can fly around with the jet pack. But, as it says in the book, this project was relegated to the land of conceptual fantasy.”Kemp Remillard had quite the tap dance to do in selecting images to go into the book, so part of the challenge was selecting the best images, keeping everyone represented, while making the section of the book ‘pop’ with the most creative display from each project, and showing a complete gamut of what Massive Black did on each game.
Every now and then one of those jobs comes in that’s fun, awesome, and kind of insane in the level of exposure your work gets out of it. Such a job came across Jason Chan’s desk when Nexus productions approached him to do some concept storyboard illustrations for their commercial, which was to air during the 2011 Super Bowl. Like all advertising jobs the time-line was short. The story behind the scene was that a large and terrible approaching army of Orcs is threatening an ice castle of hearty ice-dwarves. The Orcs are accompanied by a mighty and terrible dragon that they intend to use to melt the dwarven hold and possibly some dwarves as well. Luckily, the dwarves are cunning and have a plan, and time to make ice sculptures. Having constructed a beautiful ice sculpture of a dragon (with delicious Coca-Cola inside), they present the gift as a sort of good-natured Trojan horse. The dragon melts the sculpture but feels compelled to drink the soda that’s hidden within it. The unlocked magic causes the dragon’s breath to be rendered harmless, putting on a delightful fireworks show instead of a burning stream of flaming dragon mucus. Jason worked up some boards in Photoshop, then got some feedback from the client. Two options were explored for how the delicious Coca-Cola would affect the Orc/ dragon’s breath using both harmless fireworks, and balloons. Unfortunately the direction didn’t survive the final production, but it makes for an amazing illustration. Nexus did an awesome job and all of us were thrilled to see the almost one to one re-creation of Jason’s work on the TV.
“I was hoping that it might be possible to expand the character class system,” says Jason, “and make a game with a great role- playing element. Character customization keeps you engaged on a personal level and is something I always look for in games. That, and a big part of childhood adventure is living out the role of the hero, being able to craft that is part of what makes good games fun. ”Along with the characters, they needed a setting. Jason blocked out this scene using 3d elements and artwork to begin a classroom. “Everything started with the classroom,” says Jason. “We said if we could make a classroom, and a character, then maybe we could make a school, and lots of characters.” So the 2D and 3D teams set out putting all of their ‘D’s’ together, at first on a classroom, but eventually expanding to a gym and interconnecting hallways. Production on building a playable demo for Zombie Playground was in full swing. Using the Unity engine experience gained from building the Mothhead demo, our small team of five guys fleshed-out a school hallway that connected multiple styles of classrooms. Work began on a gym and the all-important task of making the 3D mesh for the Playable Character was underway. “At this point, as a studio, we decided that we would throw our full weight behind ZPG,” says Chris Hatala.
Every ounce of the art in all of these projects have that distinct Massive Black flavor of awesomeness, translating beautifully in the pages of Ballistic Publishing’s Massive Black volume 2, a visual tour de force that chronicles many of their artistic achievements from 2008-2012.
