We have another Peek Behind the Curtain: Portraits-style for you today but first a couple reward updates…
Digital Rewards for Late Comers - If you answered your BackerKit survey BEFORE this Tuesday (5/12), the following DIGITAL rewards can now be found in your BackerKit account depending on the level at which you backed the game. You can get to your account with this link: https://shadowrun-hong-kong.backerkit.com.
SRR/DFDC Soundtracks
Out of Print Sourcebooks
Shadowrun 5th Ed. Digital Tools Box
SRR/DFDC keys
Hong Kong related rewards will be delivered closer to the launch of the game.
If you have NOT answered your BackerKit survey (there’s over 900 of you still out there!), we are unable to deliver your rewards until you do. If that’s you, please go to https://shadowrun-hong-kong.backerkit.com where you’ll enter your Kickstarter email address and follow the rest of the instructions. Digital rewards will be distributed again sometime in the next few weeks.
New Improved Soundtrack Files! - We heard that a number of Backers were interested in better quality soundtracks. Since our Producer, Chris, is a “music guy”, he completely understood where you were coming from and figured out how to make that happen. You will now find new, 320kbps soundtrack files packaged into 4 zip files (3 for Shadowrun Returns and 1 for Shadowrun: Dragonfall) in your BackerKit account.
And finally, we want to thank you very much for the Bagels we had yesterday! They were delicious!
Now, here’s your Peek Behind the Curtain: Portraits-style!
Hey everyone! I’m Joel – the Lead Character Concept Artist and Portrait artist for Shadowrun: Hong Kong. I’m here to show you guys a little behind the scenes on our process for getting a portrait into the game.
It all starts with our lovely Backers! Many of you gave us information and insight into what your perfect Shadowrun: Hong Kong character would look like as well as a photo of yourself (or someone you chose) to use as a base for the portrait. I take that base photo and create a sketch using it as inspiration, along with the details you provide like Elf Rigger or Dwarf Mage. Here’s an example of that:
Now this is Shadowrun: Hong Kong, not Berlin or Seattle, so there needs to be a distinct look for that. One of the things we want to show is that Hong Kong has a more sleek tech feel. Having said that, my designs for the tech and clothing take a bit from high fashion ideas for post apocalyptic worlds with some of those awesome glowing technology and, of course, current day cyberpunk ideas of Shadowrun.
After the initial sketch is done, we take it to a color pass. This is the quick but really fun process of blocking in the base colors. I also need to decide what kind of background this character should be in. A lot of our visuals utilize bright rim lighting by colorful neon signs that futureShadowrun Hong Kong would feature. Here’s an example of taking that backer to the next level:
Alright, so he’s looking pretty cool now, but we need to take it that last step so we send it off to our painter who will take the image and render it to the final game-ready quality our previous portrait art team established in Shadowrun: Dragonfall. Its pretty exciting to see! It’s a long process but totally worth it when we see these guys (and by that I mean you guys) start showing up in the game. So here is the final result!
Hope you enjoyed this little peek behind the curtain! I’m off to go get some more of you into the shadows, see you soon Chummers!