Guild Wars 2's Kristen Perry On Fashion
Among the features that caught my eye about the original Guild Wars was how gorgeous it all was. Not an exception to that were the characters and their clothing. From my head-banging Necromancer >(sporting a mohawk, naturally), to my elegant and prim Mesmer, the game was always pretty, and I generally loved the character design (excepting the prancing female elementalist).
ArenaNet now has an interview up with Kristen Perry, a character artist for the sequel.
The interview discusses some of what's improved, such as poly count, as well as the process of designing for a multi-species game, particularly from scratch. She even gets into basic visual design early on, discussing how the silhouettes of the NPCs and characters has to be distinct and recognizable at certain distances.
It also looks like we can expect something rather new. As Perry states:
Now if your question was more "are we drawing from Guild Wars original concepts or are you giving us new stuff" then I would definitely have to say just about everything was re-envisioned. After all, this is 250 odd years later, and a lot has changed in the world. Cultures have evolved, people have relocated and reorganized. There may be some nostalgic nods to our predecessors, but overall the designs still have that "new car smell." Unless the design calls for old and rotted. Then it'll be "old and rotty smell."
From the designs she's initially shown, I am intrigued in what she calls a mixture of "gypsy, a little bit of gaucho, and the texture and durability of a farrier's chaps." It actually makes me miss a costume designer friend of mine, with whom I would dress similarly when gallivanting about in the summer.
With the mixture of different species, alongside the classes, throw in the decision of which sex to play, I am sure I will spending grueling hours on deciding just which combination to have for just the right effect in fashion-devastating face melting.
VorpalBunny
Posted to Video Games on 19 May 2010
· Comments (2)
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I always liked the graphics of Guild Wars.. particularly the armor of the Mesmers and the architecture of Prophecies. Anet has an awesome collection of artists, and Kristen Perry is no exception. Daniel Dociu (aka Father Grigori from HL2) is their art director and has put up some videos of his work on Anet's youtube page. Also, if you haven't already dug around the Guild Wars wiki to find all the artists' pages I put a link to it in my URL. They have some amazing stuff.
Ironically, Kristin Perry is the name of one of the plaintiffs in the Prop 8 trial, Perry v. Schwarzenegger.
And I do love those costume designs too. I love that they're actually considering the cultural changes in the game when designing characters.
http://www.equalityontrial.org/script-1