Spoilers for the quest Childhood’s End ahead, scroll on by if you want that quest to be a surprise.
These are some assets I created while working with Kate Pitstick and the narrative team on the Childhood’s End side quest for Borderlands 3. It was probably one of the most interesting (and depressing) things I got to tackle on the project. I actually studied children’s drawings and read some articles by art therapists and childhood psychologists in order to try and draw like a traumatized kid at various stages of her life. I had just finished playing Life is Strange when i got assigned this, so I was super inspired to try my hand at visual storytelling through assets hidden within a level.
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A collection of rough sketches for some of the original Borderlands characters. I didn’t to a whole lot of work on any of these guys (except Tina) but it was fun getting to throw down some sketch exploration during the early phases of development. I’m still partial to the heavy bomber jacket on Lilith, personally.
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If you like, you can follow me elsewhere for more art, commentary, and whatnot! :D
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Some very early exploration for Moze! I didn’t do a whole lot of work on this character, just some very rough preliminary explorations. The first set of color sketches was done before she was supposed to be a mech pilot, and was more of a haggard military vet. I actually inked these by hand!
The second sheet was something I whipped up while working with the early design team exploring the idea of her having some kind of mech. She was then passed off to the other artists to explore, while I focused on Amara.
I hope people find these explorations interesting!
I’m very proud of Max Davenport and Sergi Brosa’s final designs for Moze and the Iron Bear. She turned out great!
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As usual, you can follow me elsewhere for more art, commentary, and whatnot! :D
https://www.artstation.com/mandersmash
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Early rough concept exploration for the Beastmaster class. I was exploring how fantasy I could push things with it still seeming Borderlands. (I went too far, haha.) This was suuuuper early, long before the art director, Scott Kester, had the brilliant idea to make Fl4k robotic.
I adore Fl4k’s final design, by Max Davenport! They turned out super cool. :)
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I don’t get tasked with a ton of prop work at Gearbox, and when I do its usually character specific. Here are some really cute props I came up with for the player character to go collect for Ava on her backstory quest. And in case anyone was wondering what the little blue balls were under the bonsai tree in Ava’s room, they are Hermes poops.
Some very early rough explorations for the guardian aliens for Borderlands 3. They ended up going in a different direction for these guys, but I’m glad I got to take a pass at their look.
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