Greetings.
I'm Lee Jin Seo, an AD (Art Director) with over 10 years of experience in military shooting game concept art.The world of Black Stigma and its concepts are being built by all of us, and I'm in charge of the overall design.
Have you seen the backstory, concept art, and 3D models we've been uploading to the community page?
I would like to share the story of how this world and these characters were created and the incidents that happened in the process.
[h3]
[Joining the Black Stigma Project][/h3]
"Come visit some time, we're making a new game!"
That's how I met the Producer, and when they showed me their ideas for the game, it seemed like a new shooting/action game like never before, not to mention I was personally interested in the story as well.
It inspired countless ideas in my head, and it looked like I could try anything.
I thought that I could be imaginative and implement different ideas in the game, which led me to join the team.
And that game became Black Stigma.
[h3]
[Struggles of the AD: "We want the graphic style to be changed within a year"][/h3]
When I joined the Black Stigma Project as an AD, the game development was focused on the game's core system and enjoyment.
The artwork they had before was a very simple rough draft, so I had conflicting feelings of both comfort and pressure, from "Whatever I do, it'll definitely be an improvement from this" to "When am I ever going to revise all this?"
However, there is no doubt that it was quite a weight on my shoulders to have to redefine the art style within 3 months.
[color]< Early character design of Mr. TEN >[/color]
In shooting games with PvP modes,
there should be a fixed set of rules for each character's proportions in order to make the game fair and balanced.
Furthermore, the design must have a serious and realistic tone to match the realism and ambience that shooting games strive to generate.
However, Black Stigma is a shooting action game with many different killers.
so we had to put a lot of effort into making characters with different silhouettes and emphasizing their unique traits.
We had to overcome the limits of creating new character designs while abiding by the restrictions on creativity.
Therefore, rather than following the existing pattern of FPS characters doing melee combat, we've decided to have characters in the style of Street Fighter or Marvel Comics using firearms.
Considering the given deadline, current artwork, and resources from in and outside the team, we came to the conclusion of using "Toon Shaders."
[color]
※ Shading: One of the processes of surface-treating a manufactured 3D model (≒frame or surface structure) according to the situation and setting (=Rendering), which refers to the process of processing lighting/light source/chromaticity/light/reflection/blur, etc.[/color]
[color]< Lecture on the use of Toon Shader in Unreal Engine (YouTuber 'underscore00') >[/color]
However, I fell into despair as I got feedback after suggesting it to the team.
"It's going to be difficult to make an FPS game immersive with the toon shaders."
"Toon style? I'm afraid it might miss the mark on evoking a deep, breathtaking vibe in a killer action game."
"The downside of the toon shading is that it's going to look too simple and messy."
Even an acquaintance who worked on countless graphic design projects discouraged me by saying,
"I've seen a lot of developers try toon shading and fail."
[h3]
[We just wanted to do something unique.][/h3]
While it is not difficult to see games with toon shaders, FPS and TPS games rarely use them.
This is because shooting games prioritize realism, and also because the players' fatigue level rises if the toon shaders are not applied neatly.
In addition, toon shaders might make it difficult to distinguish characters from backgrounds, which would be an issue in a game where the contrast between friend and foe is important for fair competition.
"There were so many reasons not to do it, but I still wanted to try."
I thought it would be perfect for establishing unique visuals if we could blend the art style of Marvel Comics with the creativity-inspiring world lore of our game.
Just like everyone knows what game the image below is from, we were hoping that players would recognize the art style and say, "Is that a new Black Stigma character?"
[color]< The art of 'League of Legends' featuring a unique fantasy style >[/color]
Additionally, we've combined the PD and the team members' ideas to come to the following conclusion for our game's character design:
"A sharp, noir art style that fits the contract killer world"
"The base of a North American art style with the clean look of Japanese animation art"
"Unique and trendy characters"
[h3]
[Graphics unique to Black Stigma][/h3]
We applied different shaders to the background while maintaining the existing work as much as we could, but the characters' visuals had to be reworked from the ground up.
[color]< Before making changes to the background >[/color]
[color]< After making changes to the background >[/color]
We used many different shooting and fighting games, such as Street Fighter and Tekken, as references and were inspired by the animated Spider-Man film while working on the shaders.
[color]< The case that inspired the Toon shading challenge, Spider-Man’s Spider-verse animations >[/color]
It was a casual art style, but I believed it could work with the game, so I modified some of the elements and added it to the shaders. It looked decent when the characters and background were viewed together. I thought it had potential.
After discussing the work in progress with our new Technical Artist, we created a final "Black Stigma Style Shader."
In terms of character design, we were heavily inspired by the movie "John Wick," which gamers who are interested in killer action genres would have seen before.
"Mr. Parabellum" is an homage to the character "John Wick."
Thus, were born the three Masters: Mr. Parabellum, Mr. Ten, and Mr. Hollowpoint.
The idea was that all three of them wore classic suits, but the more classic they were, the harder it was to make each character stand out.
After overcoming a big hurdle, we finalized the three female characters from M.A.I.D. as well: Ms. Nano, Ms. One, Ms. Twin.
These were the six Masters we were able to reveal so far.
[h3]
[The first alpha test where the characters were revealed to the public][/h3]
We were short on time, and we had to make decisions on the spot and push through.
I tried harder, knowing that everyone discouraged me from working with this style.
Time passed, and the first alpha test was scheduled. I couldn't sleep the night before the test.
Even within the team, I'd heard no comments such as "this looks good" or "this looks cool" before the game's release.
I was only hoping to avoid extremely negative feedback.
Thankfully, there were no mentions of the graphics disrupting the gameplay, and most of the players who participated in the test gave the graphics a passing grade.
It seems like they were satisfied with the characters themselves as well.
This was when I started feeling confident about the graphics.
[h3]
[Mass production][/h3]
Thanks to the positive feedback we received regarding the graphics of Black Stigma, we have settled on the art style and are now in the process of creating various unique characters.
There are already 18 different drafts for the world and Masters of Black Stigma, and there will be 24 more characters in the future, including the ones already released.
From a rough draft, like the one shown in the image, it takes 2 weeks to add details and settle on the design, skills, and equipment. Afterwards, the 3D modeling and animating team starts working on it, making the whole process take about 3 to 4 months total.
Recently, we've been doing a better job of dividing the responsibility, which has resulted in a faster work process.
If only the concept art could be finished sooner...
But, coming up with new characters is causing creative block...😔
There are six characters that have been finalized and are waiting to be released.
We are planning to showcase three characters each from the two unrevealed contract killing organizations: AB: Gray Crows and AB: Hardworkers.
We've prepared trendy, stylish characters who have various traits and use rare weapons to perform action moves.
[color]< Part of the rough draft for Hardworker Zero, a member of AB: Hardworkers >[/color]
[color]< Part of the rough draft for Gray Paper, a member of AB: Gray Crows >[/color]
[h3]
[Collaborating with an artist][/h3]
This is the first reveal of our collaboration with a very famous artist who is active in both the U.S. and Korea.
I'm putting extra effort in because I'm a huge fan of this artist and I'm excited to be collaborating with them.
In some games, you see a character or costume based on a celebrity that only feels like the shell of the model.
In Black Stigma's artist collaboration, even the artist's personality and history were taken into account when creating this unique character that seamlessly blends in with the world and whose costumes and concepts will also be implemented in the game.
We can't reveal it now, but be sure to keep your eyes peeled!
[color]< Our business manager told us not to reveal who it was, so here's just a little silhouette of the character >[/color]
[h3]
[Lastly][/h3]
As a start-up company, we are going through many issues and attempts in development, but we have a hunger to make Black Stigma a great game.
We hope for your support and honest feedback.
We are ready to hear any kind of opinion from the playerbase.
Even today, I pressed our business manager to set a date.
I heard that there's a test scheduled not too far in the future, so if you haven't played Black Stigma yet, we hope you participate in the test and give us feedback.
Thank you for reading. If you have any questions, feel free to leave a comment or upload a post on the community page.
We will make sure to get back to you.
Thank you.
Sincerely, Art Director Lee Jin Seo 
▲ Differentiate design by grade of the same gun implemented in real games
▲ new maps; ‘Old Manor’ and ‘Abandoned Subway’
