


“I think what worked for us is that we had largely divided the characters of the game into several ‘factions’: the human ‘Ironheade’ faction lead by Eddie Riggs, General Lionwhyte’s glam-rocking sell-outs, Ophelia’s Goth influenced ‘Drowning Doom’, and the demonic race of the ‘Tainted Coil’. Trying to integrate that into a cohesive experience with some sense of progression and achievement was really tricky. “We had years of concept art and a ton of really awesome ideas that all of the members of the team had come up with. I mean, good lord, what do you even do with that? Imagine this: Tim Schafer walks up to you and asks you to make a videogame world out of every metal album cover in existence. Read on as Lee and I dig deeper into the game’s art than ever before, and check out some never-before-seen artwork from the game. I had the opportunity to ask Lee about Brutal Legend and his work with videogame art in general. He and his team are responsible for the incredibly creative and cohesive world of Brutal Legend, and it’s hard to imagine just how much work went into making this creativity and cohesiveness work in the context of a videogame.īut that didn’t stop me from trying. See, Lee Petty is the Art Director for Double Fine. But I will say this: I do not envy the job of someone who is asked to do what Lee Petty was asked. I’m not going to lament the propagation of brown color palettes, generic RPG characters, or any other individual aspect of art design. It has been said so many times that it now borders upon a meaningless cliché, but the fact remains: a lot of games look the same.
