And now the second iteration of this illustration:


Here is some commentary from Michael Grills, our lead artist and the creator of these lovely illustrations:

Rough 1

I’m always reluctant to show this stage to anybody but the client. For me this stage involves figuring out what Needs to go into the illustration to tell the story. I don’t like to spend a lot of time on this stage as I need Carla and Arthur to tell me what they think is missing and what should be taken out. I don’t spend a lot of time on anatomy or specifics of the character poses as that will change as the picture evolves. It’s the essence of the whole that I aim for here concerning myself with the big shapes and where they will go and how everything fits into the format of the screen



Rough 2

I spend some time gathering reference and figuring out the character poses. Taking in the comments from Arthur and Carla regarding the first version I start to work out more of the finicky issues, but I’m still working as a rough and do not want to commit to everything as new issues always come up. The poses and backgrounds are referenced and more work is done to get the characters look. I attempt to be objective about my decision-making at this stage because I do not want to get my heart set on anything. Since Arthur and Carla have such a vested interest in the story I am careful to present the rough as my interpretation and not the only one. In this version we had a lot of discussion about the look. More cartoony or less, are the characters ok, does the mood work, what about the children at the back? It’s a fine line on this project and I know we won’t have the look until the game ships. Therefore we talk back and forth about how to proceed and I know that on the next iteration we will be even closer.