STEVE ABEYTA

TF legends is a card collection game. With this in mind, the goal was to create a new art style for the G1 license in order to create greater perceived value for the individual cards themselves. The target audience is core TF fans from the original series to today.

The art style and treatment for the game all started with the characters. There was a conscious decision made to respect specific design aspects of the G1 designs. However, new treatments and elements were incorporated to the design, rendering style, materials and articulation to make the resulting art more current and compelling. Realism was added to textures, and articulation added to the design. However, the mandate to keep characters "Instantly Recognizable" was followed throughout.

A pipeline was created for perpetually creating a large amount of assets in a short period -12 Character cards, 6 Weapon cards per week. The process was broken up into 4 parts: Sketch, Tonal, Render, Unifying Pass. For character sketches I recruited established TF comic book artists and worked closely with them on the new design style. For vehicle sketches I recruited industrial designers and comic book artists. This pool of sketch artists was instrumental in maintaining quality and pace.

A group of remote rendering artists was set up that worked in parallel with each other on different events. Tonals were the first required step in order to greenlight form, lighting, shading. Once greenlit they were free to create the final image. After receiving the final image an in-house pass was done by myself or another artist to unify all art into a total cohesive collection.

Hasbro, Dena, and the fans were very happy with result. This was the highest grossing game for Dena West and the style, including specific art from the game, continues to be used as marketing art, book art, and box art for TF products. It was a pleasure working on such a wonderful license with the good people of Hasbro :)