Call of Duty:
Black Ops 6
Description
I wish I could go back and tell my teenage self that it would all work out this well (and I'd be taller than my sister). This project had the whole team firing ideas and scribbling with paint like they were back at uni, and we bloody loved it. With Ryan Hays (CD), Liam Proniewicz (AD) and Harriet Craig (Prod) running things upstairs it was up to artists like myself, Josh Thorpe, Dan Wyatt, Aaron Stelfox, Tyrone Magnuson, Pamela Gray, Sophie Marschner and Francise Long to create the shots for 16 load movies, as well as assets used in multiplayer and for marketing. We were given a huge amount of creative licence, damn was it good fun.
Below is an edit of some of the shots I made, largely from start to finish (including in most places the textures).
The 3D shots (the bloody table, and the CIA logo transition) were collaborations with the wizard Josh Thorpe.
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Client
Treyarch and Raven Software
Year
2024
Type
Game
Description
As a senior designer I helped out across the project. I was at the head of three of the load movies before creating shots for the intro and assets for multiplayer. The general process on each movie went like this: Liam (AD) and I would brain storm when we got the scripts. Then I'd set about creating style frames to capture each beat, imagining how they'd flow together. We'd get the frames in front of the client as a kind of storyboard, address any feedback before jumping into animation. Internally, I'd be showing WIP's to Liam as well as the other artists (honourable mention to work-wife Aaron) to get eyes and ideas on all of the frames. Externally, after the first animation pass, we'd do another round or two of usually minor feedback from the client before delivering the final film.
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Description
Raven & Treyarch wanted us to create bespoke assets for both legal and creative reasons. Honestly, my initial thought was, 'B*llocks', I mean surely this is going to be a lot more work if we can't draw on our pre-existing asset library. But then a beautiful thing happened, we got off the computer and started playing. Using Letraset, paint, ink, tipex, tape etc, we created grunge, graphic elements and type that we could pull into our designs. What started as a limitation became the most creative and exciting part of the project. Nothing beats that real grungy scanned in hand made texture. Below is a BTS filmed at Territory and some little making of edits I put together to show my process.
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Description
Project highlight? Convincing Francise to pick-up wet cigarettes butts from the street so I could scan them. That's dedication to the craft. I made dozens of assets across the project, and have laid a few of them out below.
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Description
By day myself and Dan Wyatt were tasked with creating concepts for the multiplayer map loading clips. By night, Dan was choking me out on a BJJ matt in a sweaty London dojo. Can't say for sure which I enjoyed more. We created a huge sweet of text and graphic elements that are used in game as-well as an example implementation for the client to follow as seen below. Multiplayer being the heart of COD games to me, it was really nice to get some work in that part of the game.
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Description
The artist developed a mantra, and it was simply 'BIG TEXT'. Composition not quite working? Add some 'BIG TEXT'. Need a snappy transition? 'BIG TEXT' Ah but the client has reques-'BIG TEXT MATE'. Looks. So. Damn. Good. Everytime.
I must have designed a hundred of these, and I've mercifully cut down to just a couple, to save your finger scrolling.
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