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Who are the Artists behind DoD? A Game Producer provides insight
Hi all! I'm a professional video game producer (not at Blizzard) and I've been doing some research on Descent of Dragons; I wanted to share some of my finding specifically on card art. I work closely on the art pipeline at my studio and I've noticed some potentially interesting details.
38 unique artists are credited across Descent of Dragons, with 8 contributing five or more cards, 14 contributing two or three, and the remaining 16 contributing only 1 card each. Let's dive in! (Table included below)
1. "Why are some artists making way more art than others? Are they just faster/better?"
The art needed for a project will change rapidly over the course of development. There's a ton that needs to happen from start of production to release and all of the cards are released at the same time, so artists need to start working early on in the process. This means that card design will change over time, perhaps meaning the art also needs to change. This means that a lot of the art appearing in DoD was likely originally made for another expansion and re-purposed here. This could explain why a lot of cards were the sole work of an artist in DoD. Perhaps that artist completed work months ago and moved onto other projects within Team 5 or elsewhere at Blizzard.
Or the opposite could be true, deadlines were fast approaching and an artist on the WoW team had a slow week, so they're recruited to work on a card for Hearthstone. It can give them a break from their usual work and alleviate the pressure on Hearthstone artists.
On the higher end, look at Ludo Lullabi who's tied for making the most cards. Most of his cards are Legendary Dragons. That likely means these cards were identified very early in design as MVP for the expansion. Maybe their effect would change, but the art would end up on a card some way somehow and there likely wasn't old art for these. Legendary cards are the most coveted, so I'm sure they have much more scrutiny and attention internally. Best to give those to an experienced, senior artist.
2. "Who's 'MAR Studio' and 'Studio Hive'? Those don't sound like artists at Blizzard"
Most game studios nowadays work with External Art Vendors. 3rd parties who can deliver specific art requirements. Most studios use some amount of art vendors depending on the game and the workflow. Hearthstone is actually very easy because card art is a static image with little specific functionality vendors need to worry about. They just need to know how it should look, art style, resolution and dimensions. Blizzard likely polishes the art internally with their own team, but a vendor can get you 90% of the way there.
Concept Art House and MAR Studio both made lots of dragons in this set, which tells me that their work probably wasn't re-used from another expansion but requested here early in development and they were given cards that were flexible to card design changes. Cobalt Spellkin, Big 'Ol Whelp etc. could have a very wide variety of effects and stats as design needs change over time, but the team were pretty confident they would need lots of dragon art, so requesting those was a safe bet.
3. Clarifications
It's worth noting that the single artist listed for each card is a simplification. I'm certain that every card was touched by multiple artists so who is chosen to be the named artist on the card could fall just to seniority or the last person to work on it.
Hope this has been somewhat interesting! Overall, creating any game is a miracle and it's worth noting how many people and how much time it takes to put a Hearthstone expansion together. I wouldn't be surprised if DoD has begun art production in late 2018.
Cheers!
TL;DR
Some artists made way more cards than others for DoD. The ones who made less likely mean the card was re-used from an old expansion and the ones who made more meant they could start work early in development even if design changed.
Blizzard works with external art vendors as well as their internal team to create art. Vendors were given more generic cards to work on like Big 'Ol Whelp where the art could easily match a variety of stat values and card effects.
Anton Zemskov 9 Secure the Deck, Primordial Explorer, Elemental Allies, Sand Breath, Lightforged Zealot, Breath of the Infinite, Molten Breath, Evasive Chimaera, Transmogrifier Ludo Lullabi 9 Ysera, Unleashed, Malygos, Aspect of Magic, Sanctuary, Nozdormu the Timeless, Murozond the Infinite, Waxadred, Invocation of Frost, Deathwing, Mad Aspect, Dragonqueen Alexstrasza Jim Nelson 7 Shrubadier, Treenforcements, Dwarven Sharpshooter, Sky Claw, Bloodsail Flybooter, Troll Batrider, Wing Commander Matt Dixon 7 Toxic Reinforcements, Rigtheous Cause, Flik Skyshiv, Bandersmosh, Tasty Flyfish, Goboglide Tech, Camouflaged Dirigible Ivan Fomin 6 Learn Draconic, Whispers of EVIL, Abyssal Summoner, Sky Raider, Hot Air Balloon, Frizz Kindleroost Konstantin Turovec 6 Galakrond the Unspeakable, Candle Breath, Galakrond, the Nightmare, Galakrond, the Tempest, Galakrond, the Wretched, Galakrond, the Unbreakable MAR Studio 6 Arcane Breath, Chronobreaker, Surging Tempest , Dragon's Pack, Dragon Breeder, Cobalt Spellkin Dave Allsop 5 Corrosive Breath, Seal Fate, Fiendish Rites, Nether Breath, Crazed Netherwing Jakub Kasper 4 Violet Spellwing, Envoy of Lazul, Stowaway, Living Dragonbreath Andrew Hou 3 Fate Weaver, Praise Galakrond, Kobold Stickyfinger Arthur Bozonnet 3 Clear the Way, Time Rip, Evasive Wyrm Eva Widermann 3 Disciple of Galakrond, Grave Rune, Wyrmrest Purifier James Ryman 3 Breath of Dreams, Chenvaala, Valdris Felgorge Mike Sass 3 Diving Gryphon, Twin Tyrant, Zul'Drak Ritualist Studio Hive 3 Mana Giant, EVIL Quartermaster, Embiggen A.J. Nazzaro 2 Emerald Explorer, Hoard Pillager Adam Byrne 2 Lightforged Crusader, Parachute Brigand Alex Horley Orlandelli 2 Skyfin, Sathrovarr Arthur Gimaldinov 2 Amber Watcher, Squallhunter Concept Art House 2 Evasive Feywing, Big Ol' Whelp Daria Tuzova 2 Rain of Fire, Dark Skies Jaemin Kim 2 Veranus, Mindflayer Kaahrj Jason Kang 2 Stormhammer, Chromatic Egg Max Grecke 2 Bronze Explorer, Ramming Speed Anza Nguyen 1 Devoted Maniac Charlene LeScanff 1 Azure Explorer Dan Scott 1 Depth Charge Ekaterina Shapovalova 1 Blowtorch Saboteur Gabe Gonzalez 1 Hippogryph Grace Liu 1 Ancharrr Hideaki Takamura 1 Shu'ma J. Axer 1 Ultgarde Grapplesniper Jerry Mascho 1 Kronx Dragonhoof Lloyd Hoshide 1 Ritual Chopper Luca Zontini 1 Dragon's Hoard Luke Mancini 1 Strength in Numbers Maria Trepalina 1 Umbral Skulker Mauricio Herrera 1 Phase Stalker Melvin Chan 1 Bad Luck Albatross edit: formatting
HS_Alec
Hey! Hopefully I can provide some more insight into this, it’s one of the coolest things we get to work on as designers.
When we start sending out requests for art, we are usually somewhere in the middle of our initial design phase (card design works in initial/final design phases). By then we have the major mechanics of the set, a very solid grasp on the flavor (setting, Hearthstone twist, etc.), and some amazing concept art pieces done by the 2D artists on our team.
The designers then work with our Outsourcing team to put together a list of art descriptions for each individual card. This is done for every card in the expansion, it’s typically all brand new art (unless there’s a hiccup somewhere or we have a really great piece in the bank). The outsourcing team takes that and pairs artists with certain pieces. There’s a variety of factors that go into those pairings, so that we can match an artist’s style with the intended tones of a piece/card. As others have said in this thread, it’s usually an individual artist or a specific combo (ex: one artist sketches while the other colors).
Some time and a few reviews later, we get to put amazing art into the game!