BIG DADDY ART PROGRESSION
Irrational Games Technical Art Director Nate Wells shows us his early sketches of the Big Daddy, one of the most recognized characters from BioShock.
Click the images to enlarge.
This is one of the first sketches of the Big Daddy. Even before all the detail of the design started to come into play with the concepts of the Big Daddy, they had that hulking metal feel of an underwater protector, so solid not even a shotgun blast could knock him off his feet.
Another early sketch of the Big Daddy, this is a beginning mock-up of the Rosie model protector. In the world of Rapture, there are several different Protectors roaming, each with its own variation on weaponry and body armor.
Nate spent some time working out the details on the Big Daddy's helmet, seen close-up in this pen sketch. He really started to get into the nuts-and-bolts of the Big Daddy's costume, cobbling together the pieces of the suit as inventors would in Rapture, using the parts of the city they could salvage to make unbeatable warriors.
Another early pen sketch of the Big Daddy, Nate pulled this crumpled gem out of a stack of his sketches and handed it over, saying it was a very early concept. I think that this is probably my favorite of the entire batch.
A detailed sketch of the Big Daddy's gun. As the design went on, the gun itself got much more fleshed out and threatening, although I don't relish the idea of being attacked with a rivet gun, no matter how unassuming it looks.
A more in-depth study of the Big Daddy, this sketch happened just before the modeling and rendering phase.
A study of the Rosie-style protector, again, in both front and side views for modeling and rendering purposes.
