This artwork for the latest Hearthstone expansion, Mean Streets of Gadgetzan, was recently revealed so now I can share it with you. The illustration is for card named Wind-up Burglebot in the game. I'm grateful that art director Jeremy Cranford (one of the best in the biz) gave me the opportunity to paint this card. I love designing robots!
I thought I'd provide some insight into my process on this one. Drawing in Adobe Photoshop, I began with some loose doodles, just simple ideas for the robot character. Once I had one I liked (see below), I refined the drawing, working out the shapes and details of the robot, the stolen items it's peddling and it's surroundings.
At that point, I created a new RGB file in Photoshop, placed the drawing into an alpha channel and set the opacity of that channel to 50% so I could see the drawing as I applied color but it wouldn't be overpowering. I use a channel for this rather than a layer because that way I don't risk accidentally painting on the layer that contains the drawing.
Using several custom brushes, I began blocking in colors, working loosely to establish the color scheme and basic lighting. I worked with a complimentary color scheme, juxtaposing the orange robot against a blue background to boost contrast between the two. Once the basics of lighting and color had been established, I started working out details, refining and separating shapes, building textures, pushing contrast, etc. After that, the piece was essentially complete. However, upon seeing how it would look when cropped into the Hearthstone card format, Jeremy and I agreed that the wall on the left side of the picture was an unnecessary distraction so I painted it out.
