My first job in the games Industry was as a concept artist in Codemasters. I spent nearly a year and a half just sketching and creating modelsheets for a game called Dragon Empires. It was great fun even know i worked Super hard for all the time i was on the game....Dragon Empires was to be an on line mulitiplayer game But world of warcraft came out just before us which stopped the game in its tracks. The last i heard of this game it had been sold to a South Korean company where they were going to re-release it there under a different name i suspect....It would have been great to see my work out there in an online world but hey!...thats just the way it goes!.
I have reems and reems of work from this game but here is a selection of some work that i did for Dragon Empires.
These designs were for the first Empire that you as a player would be introduce to, Called the
Monkey Empire.
house_01
energy mill_01
energy mill_02
Town hall
All of these structures had to be designed with upgrades in mind, from Logos on flags to actual modular structures to be attached to the buildings.
This was a energy source building for the Insect Empire. all the buildings were designed with a six sided honeycombe structure so when you built up your city it fitted in perfectly with surrounding buildings just like a hive.
These are from the Ancient Master Empire. This empire was based in the underworld of the game, so the architecture had to reflect the menacing dark world that it was part of. A heighly advanced civialisation with statues representing them selves and their gods which looked to value human sacrifice to better themselves the Civialisation had long gone but the reminants were still there to be seen.
Ancient Broken Machine.
Labatory.
Blood Statue_01
Blood Statue_02
This next lot of Designs were from the Woman Empire.To be the most advanced and beautifull of all the Empires.
Town hall.
Armory.
Some of the creatures that were to inhabit this world.
A few Sketches that didn't make it to the final designboard but i thought i'd put some up here cause there were so many drawings done for this game that it would be a shame not to show some of them.
This was the first attempt at the Insect Empire,...I personaly really like this version. It was like Dickensian architecture gone nuts, whith the butresses and giant oak beams bursting out from the building as if the building itself was about to lift up from the ground and tramp all over the place( it might of been cool if they breathed and moved about from time to time ehh!). the walls of the buildings were of course insect coccon inspired designs.
poor fella's there hanning off one of the leg beems in torture devices.
Heres is a sketch where there is a marked change in the achitecture style towards a more ordered building.
Back to my favourite Empire, the monkey Empire....I think it was my favourite empire because it was so ancient and primal looking, we used uncut stone and tethered wood...I threw in celtic inspired spirals to mimic the monkey tails which just added much more character to the buildings and strongly unified the style.
These individual dwelings were inspired by old hats and American Indian teepees.
There were tones of sketches and drawings that i had done for this game and hopefully in the future i can put some more up here for ya, but for now this will give you a flavour of the style of the game.
