Concept art has always been a fascinating part of a game’s development, showing early ideas and visions of what the game was intended to look like. Most concept art, though, is rarely ever seen. However, Insider Gaming has managed to uncover some new concept art from Gears of War E-Day, which shows what pretty cool early visions for the game.
Lead Concept Artist Kev Chu shared the earliest iterations of Dom Santiago and Marcus Fenix on ArtStation, and they are pretty interesting to look at.
Creation of a young Dom Santiago
For Dom Santiago, the album shows a step-by-step journey of how he came to be. The studio wanted to imagine a young version of him, and his first design is described by Kev Chu as “very stylized,” and how it “needed to be updated to the E-Day direction of gritty realism.”
The art team delved into his character to understand what gave Dom his signature look, which led to a version of him that “lost Dom’s likeness.” So the team “brought back some of the exaggerated features, balancing the stylization of the legacy games’ design with the realistic treatment of the new game world.”
Then, they went towards a more realistic image, but the result was something that honestly loses everything that makes Dom “Dom”.
The next step was to bring back his likeness and key features, but his proportions still feel quite exaggerated. It’s close to what we know, but something is still missing between this and the final version.
His hairstyle, goatee, and overall beard received some polishing, making him an appropriate younger version of the Dom Santiago we all know and love. The final remarks show that he still had some final touch-ups, perhaps to reduce the graininess.
Kev Chu described the whole process as:
“The Balance between Realism and Style – The goal was to align with Gears of War: E-Day’s vision of a gritty, terrifying return to the franchise’s horror roots while keeping the aesthetics grounded in realism.”
Creation of a young Marcus Fenix
When the team started designing a young Marcus Fenix, they began “looking at how he looked in the original trilogy as well as old Marcus in 4-5.” Kev Chu explains, “Art direction from The Coalition Studio Art Director Aryan Hanbeck and story direction from E-Day Creative Director Matt Searcy challenged me to fuse the style and larger-than-life feel of the characters from the Gears of War franchise with Gears of War: E-Day’s realistic look.”
There was a challenge of not leaning too much into the legacy designs and not prioritizing the realism of E-Day. On the other hand, they also didn’t want to lose his likeness during the process. So, they began with a 3D asset that they adjusted to Marcus’s proportions. Kev Chu also mentions Marcus’s signature expression as an integral part of his look, which was incorporated in the concept art. The scowl and dropped, furrowed brows.
After getting the main things down, the artist began adding more texture and details to give it that “gritty” look. The huge jump from the earlier two iterations to this is vastly thanks to the hand-painted details like the scars, stubble, and wrinkles. In step 4, he looks a lot more like how we have always known him. The next iteration makes him look much younger.
The design is much more polished, with the pores and hairs. The lighting is also more realistic, and while he looks a bit less gritty to me than before, the design is perfectly grounded in E-Day’s art direction.
Kev Chu described Marcus and his E-Day look as “even though still in his twenties, Marcus needed to look like a hardened, gritty war vet during Gears of War: E-Day. Early concepts had him looking young but tough-looking as he faces Emergence Day.”
These were posted yesterday, so we can only hope to see how the art conceptualization went for other characters like Lucas Reyes and Mags Carter.
Source: Dom Santiago, Marcus Fenix
What do you think of the early concepts of Gears of War E-Day characters? Leave your thoughts down in the comments, and join the official Insider Gaming Discord server.
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Mudassir carries years of experience as a journalist and embodies that in his articles. His motto is "All great ideas come while writing." When he's not interviewing someone, he's on…
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