I haven't put much thought into what would work better but a green human foot wouldn't be as effective, and a monstrous Zerg foot would be overload, there had to be a balance to achieve monstrous/effeminate. Is the high heel the best decision? I don't know. With all that in mind, you can understand that there is much more to this design than just arbitrarily making a high heel. How do we know this is Kerrigan? The foot has to communicate many things: She's a woman, she's Zerg, she's a monster BUT there is still an attractive look about her (Important! Because we have a character who sees her beauty - Raynor). Kerrigan's foot is designed deliberately to work for shots like these.
Zeratul cinematic in Wings of Liberty there are a couple shots where the distance between the two fighters is shown with a wide shot, Zeratul's full body is shown but all we see of Kerrigan is her foot coming into the shot from the side. The cinematic version was made first, and their decisions are based on what looks good from a film perspective. Kerrigan was designed by the Blizzard Film (cinematic) team and their attention to detail is completely different from the Starcraft 2 team's. I know that all of you there are putting a lot of effort into each game as it's produced, and I for one am VERY grateful for all the work that everyone at Blizzard puts into your games!) I'm almost afraid to try to imagine how much better the different characters would look in a future StarCraft 3 or StarCraft MMO! (And you can tell Chris Metzen and company that yes, there is a HUGE demand for SC3 or even 'Worlds of StarCraft', if Blizzard ever has time, energy, etc. I can't help but wonder if it isn't a little embarrassing to look back at that old work and think of how primitive it is compared to what you can do now. I love how much better the game sprites look in SC2 than in SC1. (Yes, I know that you only went with the cinematic design and didn't have as much say as you probably would have liked to have had in her design tell the design team from me that Kerrigan needs functional wings, would you? )Īll in all, I still think that you and your fellow artists at Blizzard did a great job with the models and cinematics in both SC2 and WC3. All rights reserved.Īs much as I like how the Queen of Blades looks, I can't help but think that those wings should have membranes between each finger to give her the ability to glide if not actually fly. As functioning game art we couldn’t produce as many graceful movements for Kerrigan because she had to be visceral and immediately responsive. Creating the in-game version of Kerrigan was a balancing act between readable, overbuilt proportions while maintaining strong feminine features.Īnimation on Kerrigan also presented challenges in regards to creating an elegant, yet completely powerful Zerg Psionic Queen. The design philosophy in Starcraft presents objects and characters much larger and overbuilt than realistically possible, while such a design sense works 99% of the time female characters are still challenging. A drawback of the design was the Zerg-arms that protrude from Kerrigan’s back which interfere with her silhouette and distracts from her slim lady-waist. A quick resolution to this for the real-time artwork was increasing Kerrigan’s breast size and the width of her hips. In the instance of Kerrigan, her athletic proportions were very subdued when viewed from a distance, and her feminine features did not stand out enough to clearly present her as a female character.
The initial step was putting the cinematic version in Starcraft 2 and deciding how to present her better from the real-time camera view. Her design was established by the Blizzard Cinematic department, and although certain liberties could be taken her design needed to remain faithful to the high-resolution version. When I requested the modeling duties for Kerrigan, I had no idea how difficult it would be to properly present her. Model by Phill Gonzales & final texture by Ted Park!