Starcraft 2: Zerg Broodlord

Starcraft 2: Zerg Broodlord
Modeled by Phill Gonzales, final textures by Ted Park!
Animated by Jay Hathaway

The combat role of the Broodlord fluctuated for a very long time. Many variations of the Starcraft 1 Guardian were presented but the intention was always clear that the development team wanted more out of this new Zerg flyer. Finally out of the blue Samwise concepted the Broodlord like a bold of lightning and thus we created the 3d art in accordance to his concept. Once the visual was decided it was quite relieving how quickly the rest of the design and artwork shortcomings fell into place.

One interesting aspect of this process was the head design. There was a Zerg “Super Larva” the designers were playing with for a time that actually stayed in the game long enough that final artwork was created. Another Starcraft 2 artist, Jesse Brophy had even completed the high-resolution portrait for the Super Larva. When the Super Larva was cut and the mechanic eventually turned into the Zerg Queen’s “spawn larva” ability, the Super Larva artwork was scrapped. Samwise liked the Super Larva portrait and salvaged it by making the head design for the Broodlord the same design as the Super Larva. When Jesse created the Broodlord portrait he was able to reuse the old artwork and adapt it for the new Zerg flyer. The End.

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