Monster infestation!

Tom Fowler delivered the first batch of development sketches today. Keep in mind, these are very early development sketches -- basically, think of it as Tom brainstorming a bunch of ideas. The next step is for us to go through his ideas together, and figure out what we like and don't like about each of them, then see if any other ideas come to mind. Out of that, Tom will refine the design we've chosen and then eventually we end up with real polished illustrations, which will in turn serve as the basis for 3D models.

I'm actually feeling a little guilty about the fact that I don't have the money to pay someone to build models good enough to do Tom's artwork justice.

This guy is the infamous octojellypus! I love him. He's amazing. He's just bizarre and alien and I can just imagine what I'd think as a player if I had these guys on my side. It would be wicked awesome. Unfortunately, they won't likely be in the game, because I really don't know how I'd make them work visually. Well, that and I don't know exactly what kinds of powers I'd give them. On the plus side, Tom's come up with something even MORE awesome to serve the same sort of role these guys were going to fill, but I'm going to wait and show off those guys later.

Here's another guy who I'd love to include in the game but don't quite know how to incorporate him. Visually, he's just fascinating to me. I've been tossing a few ideas around in my brain that would need some critters, and having something like this might work well. I'll think about it. I'd love to find a way to include them.

This guy's from a totally different set that, not surprisingly, is being called "brutes". The role these monsters will fill is, basically, a big muscular brute who hits things and doesn't waste a lot of effort on thought. I've got a few fun ideas in store for them. Tom produced a lot of really incredible sketches for the brutes, we're going to have a lot of fun mixing and matching bits to come up with the next iteration, but this guy's got roughly the body shape that we'll likely go for.

So there you have it, three out of the 57 sketches. Yes, 57 -- I just counted them. They're all great. Seriously, as much as I love that octojellypus, I'm not including it in the game because Tom produced something that's even better.

This is why you hire pros, folks.