I Expect You to Die 2: Operation Eaves Drop Key Art

Finally I can post some of the stuff I’ve been working on!
-
Thank you all for hanging in there as I know I have not been able to post much and also because, just like the rest of the country, this has been an incredibly difficult year… and I’ve been pretty overwhelmed to say the least.
-
But the awesome news is, with I Expect You to Die 2 coming out this month (August 24th), I can now officially post some of my artwork!
-
Here’s some still shots and a time lapse video showing the progress, from painting over the Designer’s whitebox base to the final touches.
-
Let’s start with the paint over part - For those not familiar with the term, “paint over”, it means to take a screenshot of a white box, or 3D image, etc from the game and paint/draw right over top of it.
-
Paint overs are very common in the game industry, sometimes used for marketing images to advertise the game, and sometimes used so a Concept Artist can take a rough 3D object or scene and add details or explore potential ideas to push it further. It’s generally WAY faster to explore what something could look like as a concept painting than it is to model an idea in fully detailed 3D, see if it works or not for the game, and then start over again if it doesn’t work.
-
So first things first, for this level, Design had the base level white boxed (or roughly laid out with 3D boxes etc) to get a feel for how big the level should be, approximately where certain key objects should be placed around the player, etc. This is actually the second layout for this particular level. For a long while we had another version white boxed that was pretty different and, eventually once we got back to being able to work more on it, the team felt it needed some significant changes so it was slowly reworked into this layout - except the winding staircase, that was a huge favorite across the board, so we kept that :D
-
As I worked on this level I had to also keep in mind the various nuances of the character the room belongs to, and that’s where a lot of the personality came from. The messiness, the notes and blueprints, the “evidence board” style pushpins and strings connecting various blueprints and drawings, all of it was done to communicate the chaotic creativity and thought process of the (yet to be publicly revealed) character who works here.
-
The process video covers my progress on this from beginning to end, with lots of changes along the way from team members and Directors, so as you watch the video you’ll also see some ideas I put in partway through that I took back out later. This is where digital painting is great - you can work in layers, so if if you need to change something you can often turn off the layers for that part and draw in something else!
-
Stay tuned, as I can I’ll definitely try to keep posting more.
-
Check out the link to our Mixed Reality trailer in the bio here:

https://youtu.be/wVGSWFQynyg
-
Painted with the Procreate app.