Another topic that the Discord community (which you should totally join - www.discord.gg/exorstudios) wanted to know about is concept art. For those of you unfamiliar with the term, concept art is what our artists produce as a base for their further work. It is created in order to visualize the artist’s ideas to the other members of the team. Then, the artist iterates on their first draft in order to achieve the quality we expect. Today we are going to show you a couple of these ‘first drafts’.

This was the first iteration of Mr. Riggs’ appearance. There were a couple of problems with this version - it looks very heavy and incapable of handling anything but flat terrain. The arm extensions - energy sword and drill - are excessively big and disproportionate to the rest of the body. Moreover, the drill doesn’t look like it could mine anything at all. All these issues have been corrected, and now Mr. Riggs looks much sleeker and agile. In the art, you can also see a drone that was supposed to accompany Mr. Riggs, but we ultimately decided to change the character of drones in the game.

Next up, we have our concept art for Ashley. Admittedly, this is not the first version - we spent a long time figuring out what kind of features we would like to give her. It is, actually, quite close to the final version that we used to create the 3D model. The cybernetic elements stand out a bit too much, and the uniform looks a bit too baggy. Another aspect that required correction was the color scheme of the uniform - we wanted it to fall in line with the main colors that we use in the game - orange, blue and green. All of these issues were fixed in the final render. Now, let’s put Mr. Riggs and Ashley together.

This is one of my favorites (it’s me, voidreaver, the guy who streams!) when it comes to concept art. We wanted to feature Ashley and Mr. Riggs on one piece to show that they are inseparable and both are the protagonists of the game. This scene feels powerful - the giant robot is towering over a mound of slain beasts, while the pilot relaxes after a job well done. The position of the sword seems a little awkward, but that could have been easily fixed. This piece was not chosen to be the key art for the game, however. It suggests that The Riftbreaker is all about fighting, while there is much more to it, but it will remain #1 in my heart forever.

Next time we are going to show you the concept art for some of the creatures and biomes found in the game. We’ll also tell you where the inspiration for those came from. Until then you can find us and ask questions on our Discord - www.discord.gg/exorstudios