Hello, everyone! First of all, we’ve got some good news regarding patch v1.5. We were finally able to fix the localization issues which means you won’t be bothered with Russian in your English anymore. This also means that after 1.5 is out we will be ready to add any other additional languages to the mix.
In the meantime, there are still other problems that we are addressing, and while we are at it please welcome our newest piece of “Meet the team” series (links to previous parts: #1, #2, #3). This chapter is dedicated to the concept artists who were able to discover the distinctive style of INSOMNIA’s world in the first place. Here we go!
Alexander Torchinow, concept artist
My gamedev story is quite short but means a lot to me. 20 years ago when I was a student I started to question my artistic future, and suddenly I was offered to participate in turn-based sci-fi strategy — this became a life-changing experience to me. I was able to come up with all kinds of aliens, locations, spaceships… this job literally made me believe in art again. INSOMNIA experience started for me back in 2012. Anatoliy, the lead developer of the game, let me do all kinds of crazy things — some of them were quite outside of the focus of the project. Well, you can judge this pre-production era by browsing a few albums I’ve published on Behance: #1 #2 #3 #4 #5 #6 #7
We were looking for the artistic direction — something that I believe is not always a common thing when it comes to game development. Sure, we had to dump lots of ideas since they didn’t do justice to the game’s universe. God, we’ve created so many weird, absurd and dark characters that were never meant to be a part of the final product)) Nevertheless, Anatoly didn’t regret the time we spent while developing the way the game would look since this was a valuable experience for all of us. Anyway, you can still witness some of my works inside INSOMNIA including graffiti, posters, animated videos, patches, tattoos, factions and emblems, food ads (human stew anyone?). Also, I’ve introduced the Furrynose and his “friends” to the game.
Initially, I was really inspired by graphic works of Dave McKean, Ralph Steadman, and “Khrustalyov, My Car!” movie. These days I use Pinterest for this purpose. I don’t play games for 7 years now. When I did I was able to complete Diablo 2, Return to Castle Wolfenstein, Arx Fatalis, Silent Hill. Also, I quite enjoyed each time I had to take sewer tour in STALKER)). The most precious thing I got from playing the games are separate short episodes like that. I mean what can be possibly better than the cheerful rustle of leaves in the sun accompanying me while I was going underground?
Daniil Medvedev, concept artist
I’ve started to work in gamedev industry right after finishing the art school. I’ve spent three years working on casual games which gave me a certain experience in this field, however, I was always looking for more. This is how I discovered INSOMNIA back in 2014 while browsing VK (popular Russian social media service), and immediately fell in love with it. At that point of time, I was playing Fallout and got inspired by all things post-apocalyptic. I’ve created some fan-art first, but then Mono Studio started to look for additional artists, and I decided to try my luck. After a few weeks I was offered to become a member of the team and this is when things got serious.
Eventually, I did many art for INSOMNIA including concepts for weapons, ammo, food, signboards, interiors, etc. I also developed the first version of the interface that could be seen in the early demos of the game. Oh, by the way, if you’ve ever played Prologue with Thyper as the main character — you should have noticed a transmitter shaped like a cat. It’s the brainchild of mine :) As a team, we often shared inspirational music, movies, and games with each other. Anatoliy, the lead of the project, was able to accumulate an impressive amount of references on Pinterest, which really helped me during the work. Initially, my concept art was more steampunk styled so to speak :)
You can find more INSOMNIA related art from Daniil over here and here
Vasily Khazykov, concept artist
I’ve become involved in the gamedev in quite a spontaneous way. As any kid who played the games, I wanted to create something on my own. So it all started with designing some basic board games, which involved creating custom maps, units, and dices, of course. Time has passed, I’ve finished college, served in the army, and got my first job as a storekeeper. Since I had plenty of free time, I’ve decided to do something useful with it and started drawing more often. Eventually, this led into being involved in the development of a card-based board game which turned to be a very useful experience and opened some new doors. Later on, I’ve landed my skills to tabletop wargame Total Extinction, modifications to StarCraft 2 and Tiberium Wars 3.
I’ve joined Mono Studio in 2013 after being contacted by Anatoliy Guyduk, the lead of the project. Even though it started out as an MMORPG, it transformed into a singleplayer story driven game later on. With time I did more and more concepts for the game including weapons, armor and other equipment. Generally, you can find quite a few items inside the game that were based on my drawings including doors, walls, keys, maps, weapons, armor, vehicles, a “pumpkin-mobile” (Crawler), turrets, devices, local animals, and crioma infested objects. It is really hard to describe the feeling when you see a game-ready 3D model based on your art. Satisfaction — is a proper word, I guess.
While working on INSOMNIA I was inspired by classic dieselpunk and steampunk anime, Naushika, The Last Outlaw, Bladerunner, etc. However, the biggest source of inspiration were the works of other artists who contributed to the worldbuilding of the game: characters of Maloshenkov, stylish arts from Guduk himself, accurate works of Medvedev, and very bold concepts from Torchinow. I wanted to keep the same level of professionalism. Of course, not all the art we have created was used, but Anatoliy certainly had a number of works to choose from. I really hope that in the future we shall witness some DLCs that will add more cool stuff to Object 6. I play different games in my free time: FrostPunk, Х-Сom 2, StarCraft 2, Crossout, Red Orchestra 2, etc. Recently, I and my son completed Doom (don’t tell his grandma though). I’m thinking of playing the released version of the Atom — they’ve added quite a few things since the last time I’ve launched the game. Actually, it is very interesting to compare Atom and INSOMNIA, since the first one is quite good at the roleplaying side of things, while the second one has a very distinctive style and the universe. All in all, there is still room for improvement for both titles.
Until next time!