Comments - gntlemanartist

It is an ornithopter-type craft, this one happens to be of the heavily armed variety. We will have different ornithopter designs, appropriate to each faction.

It depends on the kind of fidelity you're working in, I've used several methods:

1. I used to do my high-detail linework by hand on a sheet of vellum from a pad, taped down on a drafting board with a combination of non-reproducing blue pencil for sketching and construction lines and finals with a Pilot precision fine-line pen. I would then scan the line drawing (which was easy since it's a single sheet) and do the color in Photoshop.

2. Now I do all my linework digitally directly in Photoshop using a Wacom Cintiq tablet screen. They're expensive, but very worth it. I generally don't scan my sketches to use as a baseline for a finished drawing, instead I place my sketchbook next to my screen for reference but I build the final essentially from scratch. I do this for several reasons, firstly sketches are low-detail and may not have exact perspective so using them as underlays can introduce perspective issues into the final drawing if you're not careful; secondly I take the opportunity in transcribing the drawing to a higher level of refinement to iron out things that I may not have had to deal with in the thumbnail sketch, like detail density and stylistic elements.

These aren't hard rules, that's just my personal method. I think the accordion-style book would make for ease of scanning because it eliminates the troublesome spine that bound sketchbooks have. When I scanned these drawings for the image above it was pretty easy and I could do several panels at a time like a filmstrip. If you're using a book built like this at a larger size and producing more refined lineart I think that might be a good way to go.

We've been too busy lately with project development to spare much time for news.

Trust me I understand your concern.

We did think about the House colors and heraldry at the start of this project since we are trying to adhere more closely to the original fiction than any other Dune game has previously done. We're fully aware that in the novels the Atreides are represented by a red hawk (and by banners of black and green) and the Harkonnen by a blue griffin and by (banners of red and blue). We chose to adopt the visual standard of Blue and White + Hawk for Atreides, Black and Red + Ram for Harkonnen and Green and Gold + Snake for Ordos for several reasons:

- The adoption of the ram in place of the griffin is not one we took lightly. It's partly an homage to the Dune games that have preceded us and established this highly recognizable symbol for the Harkonnen (it's what players of the previous 3 generations of Dune games are used to), but it also fits the play style and characterization of the Harkonnen that we want to convey. We had also thought that having winged sigils for two of the main factions (hawk and griffin) could create visual confusion.

- There was too much overlap in the original color sets - there are blue and red in both - it would have caused recognition problems in hectic battle scenarios.

- The cultural associations of color: Red = Bad, Blue = Good cannot be ignored. It's unconscious but it permeates throughout visual media. The reason for this is simple: it works. It conveys connotations of meaning that are direct and require no explanation, which is a good thing in a game; saving time and visually clarifying complex situations so you can get back to killing stuff.

So please understand that we are by no means trampling on the original fiction, for which we have a great deal of respect. We have very good reasons for going in this direction, and these changes should not unduly affect your gaming experience.

Besides, if it REALLY bothers you, you can always fix it by choosing a different team color in multiplayer. :)

I guess it does look a bit like one of those. Actually the design was more closely inspired by WW1 era tanks and a turtle. :)

Sadly I'm booked so solid on this project we're actually seeking additional artists to spread out the workload. But thanks for the kudos.