concept Art

PRE-PRODUCTION & IDEATION / VISUAL BRANDING & Identity / ART DIRECTION

I was fortunate enough to have worked on Ghost of Tsushima from early stage pitching to completion. Here are some of the concepts I’ve done over the course of its development. I've also included a breakdown of my contributions in detail below.

LOADSCREENS

Leadership

COLLABORATIVE / cOMMUNICATIVE / iNCLUSIVE / IMPACTFUL

Among my many duties, I provided art leadership to the concept team through planning, managing, recruiting, training and providing feedback to individual artists for the majority of its development. I was also responsible for art directing our external partners for various aspects of the game. Throughout production, I established and maintained a high visual bar by providing concepts, paint-overs and guidance to various departments while working closely with our producers and managers to ensure high quality results from the team within varying time constraints. I formed a strong pipeline and process with other team leads to cultivate healthy cross-team collaboration and helped support teams through to final implementation. Below are some of the beautiful concepts produced by our team.

Characters

DEFINING VISION / DRIVING COHESION

Our goal was to create unique characters that showcase the beauty and authenticity of 12th century Japan while satisfying gameplay readability and working within our technical limitations. I provided interdisciplinary visual guidance through all steps of implementation by finding a balance between strict authenticity and creative expression to reach the best results for production. Here are the results from our incredible Character and Tech Art team.

Environments

INTERDISCIPLINARY ENGAGEMENT / DECISIVE VISUAL DIRECTION

I collaborated closely and extensively with our environment, design, and layout teams by developing visually rich and varied locations. Creating concepts, reference boards, architectural guides, 3D layout mock-ups, paint-overs, and guiding developers through final assembly are many of the ways I worked with the team. It was important to push bold stylistic choices that breathed life and story into spaces, such as the yellow ginkgo trees of the Golden Forest and the bright white flowers in the Akashima wetlands.

Trailers & Cinematics

BOLD STYLISTIC DIRECTION

I collaborated with our brilliant cinematic, animation, and lighting teams, providing top level direction for our trailers. To keep in line with our stylized art direction, I pushed for exaggerated colors and composition in our cinematics. Below are the trailers for the game, some of which I was a part of.

Visual Branding & Marketing

UNIQUE / CLASSIC / MEMORABLE

I oversaw the visual branding aspects while supporting the marketing efforts and introduced my take on a fusion of historical Japanese aesthetic and modern, traditional art styles. I assisted in the creation of a cohesive and extensive style guide for our internal and external partners. Some of the high-level assets include box art, key art, collector’s edition content, art book, trailers, 2D cut scenes, merchandising, statues, and figurines. We also found opportunities to apply this aesthetic in game, notably through our UI and menus, creating a readable, minimalist experience.

FINAL THOUGHTS

Working on Ghost of Tsushima with the talented people of Sucker Punch Productions has been a completely fulfilling journey, and I look forward to sharing more in the future. Special thanks to Jason Connell, Susan Luo, Neal Hanson, John Powell, Mitch Mohrhauser, Romain Jouandeau, Naomi Baker, Erik Medina and Horia Dociu. Thank you for reading! Onward and upward!