Room 8 Group’s artwork for Diablo IV: A closer look 

Diablo IV, developed and published by Blizzard Entertainment, gave Room 8 Group’s 2D and 3D artists the opportunity to contribute to the legendary franchise. The team had a blast working within the game’s established visual style to develop the look of specific assets. Whether designing armor, creating weapons and various cosmetics, or experimenting with unexpected approaches to in-game skins, we poured our hearts into making our contributions to Diablo IV as infernally beautiful as possible. 

We sat down with some of the Room 8 Group team—Slav Kotov (Art Producer), Ivan Mayol (3D Characters Team Lead ), and Olga Starodubtseva (Principal Character Concept Lead)—for a peak behind the curtain on our work with Blizzard Entertainment.

Navigating the concept art pipeline

While working on Diablo IV our team had two core challenges: first, to create concept art for armor, weapons, mounts, and other assets, and second, to bring those concepts to life with 3D modeling. 

As soon as we dove into the project, we established an effective concept art pipeline with Blizzard’s leadership, constantly exchanging ideas. The artists shaped the game’s look in lockstep with the client. 

It’s always awesome to see when the team are genuine fans of the game—and in this case we got lucky like that, I guess. It was a huge surprise that a studio as legendary as Blizzard Entertainment didn’t make us stick extremely close to a specific pipeline; they let us do things our own way. They gave us a huge amount of freedom and the ability to offer our own solutions. As a result, we were consistently delivering amazing models that are now used as a quality benchmark, which Blizzard Entertainment themselves called “world-class assets for the game”. I can’t miss mentioning the partner literally calling us their ‘superstar crew’ which is something to be truly proud of.

Slav Kotov, Art Producer at Room 8 Group

Learning to dance

One of our favorite concepts was the Grave Dancer skin, which was in fact the test task we received prior to starting this partnership. Our work on this concept started by collecting references relevant to the brief. Initially, we were tasked with creating something grim, dark, morbid. After browsing thousands of images and photos of Egyptian mummies, Paris catacombs, ancient crypts, and the Sedlec Ossuary, we landed on a rugged and gnarly look. As we presented the client with a few designs, one of them caught their eye: it involved a mask inspired by gothic angel statues with ‘tear tracks’ left by rain. 

After incorporating some of Blizzard’s feedback, we presented to the team the final design you see below. The whole team involved in the creation process of brainstorming and ideating—especially our Olga Starodubtseva (Principal Character Concept Lead), Anastasia Shevchenko (2D Division Art Director), and Stefan Dowhan (ex-Characters Concept Art Sub-Division Art Director)—absolutely nailed the character design. Let’s dive in deeper!

Weapons that pack a punch

Let’s talk weapons! We went all-out on this part. Designing the Grave Dancer’s rapier was exciting, and we’re proud of the final design! We especially pride ourselves on how smoothly and quickly the concepts got approved. Unlike the character’s armor that evolved with feedback, weapons went through close to no changes. 

The client’s initial brief requested a rapier that had to be forged from unexpected and crude elements, like pieces of a grave fence. While it may have looked menacing and cool, our concept team realized that sticking strictly to the brief may result in a visual disconnect between the weapon and the evolved (and quite graceful) armor. Before proceeding, both the client and our team agreed that going in a more elegant direction with the design was the right choice. This is how our Grave Dancer got their rapier—nimble yet deadly. 

As we designed the blade, we also had a blast playing around with different tints and hues to represent the forging process—talk about attention to detail. But the crossbow was a whole new challenge. Conceptualizing those curved mechanical parts constantly made us think of a rollercoaster ride. Plus, we had to make it match the upgraded skin design.

The cat backpack

You definitely heard of a wolf pup backpack Diablo IV beta-testers received as a memento, and Our Art Solutions team was tasked with creating a similar one—but with a cat. The initial brief outlined an awesome concept of a black cat, akin to a panther, lying in a black backpack. While on paper it sounded rad and certainly was in spirit with the Diablo franchise, the more we experimented with the design, the more we understood that certain alterations were necessary. In the dim and dark world of Diablo IV, and with the camera located above the player, the black backpack and the black cat hiding in its folds had a risk of being “lost” among the other elements.

So, together with Blizzard Entertainment, we decided that we should make the backpack “pop” more! The brainstorming session with the client sparked our ingenuity and made us think: how can we provide a solution that will be faithful to the Diablo world, effective from the design and gameplay standpoints, and reflect the vision laid down in the updated brief? We explored practically everything that a cat could fit in: mostly stuff resembling spheres and squares like globes, Asian puzzle boxes made from bones, steel tea infusers, you name it. The final one actually became the basis for the design, and… it worked! The cat backpack is now in the game, complete with ward spells for extra charm. 

Breathing life into tattoos

Aside from skins, weapons, armor sets, and accessories you may have already seen in the game, we were also tasked with developing tattoo designs for the characters. For Diablo IV, they’re not just ink; they tell the story of the game’s world—the gates of Hell, armies of angels and demons, mysterious runes, and so much more. The tattoos also had to bridge the gap between ink and flesh, as some of them were illustrating swollen veins, scars, and so on. We drew inspiration from architecture, ornaments found in old books, manuscripts, frescoes, and much more. Every tattoo tells a story.

Unlocking the third dimension

During our partnership with Blizzard Entertainment, the 3D Division also got the chance to showcase their skills. The artists brought the third dimension to the concepts, turning them into something you could almost touch. As our 3D Characters Team Lead, Ivan Mayol, recalls, facing a renowned project like Diablo IV brings with it the highest artistic and technical demands.

As a 3D artist, you always have to be conscious of three core aspects of adapting the two-dimensional design:

• Non-visible areas. A ton of details may be missing in different perspectives or hidden parts of the character in a concept art, which always has a risk of leading to misinterpretations or inconsistencies in the 3D version. Luckily, we had the pleasure of working with experts at Blizzard Entertainment, who were open to making creative decisions based on the overall style of the 2D designs to complete the 3D representation both in a realistic and functional way gameplay-wise.
• Proportions and perspective. 2D drawings can often have certain artistic exaggeration and favorable perspectives that look dazzling in 2D, but may appear distorted on a three-dimensional model. Your best friends when creating a 3D model are references and sketches. These help 3D artists better understand the volume of certain elements and play around with proportions to make them coherent and realistic before producing the final shiny model.
• Technical limitations. Some artistic details may not be feasible to replicate in 3D “to the bit” due to certain technical constraints. Take dynamic elements, like capes, skirts, or other simulated garments, for example. They all vary their shape and volume based on game physics—so they can’t be modeled identically to the static view in the concept art. Pre-defined folds and cloth deformations will look odd once the fabric moves dynamically in the game, and won’t achieve an appealing look. So, we had to find creative ways to preserve the essence of the character without sacrificing the visual quality of the 3D model nor the original 2D design.

Back to our cat

Watching the sparks fly between our 2D and 3D teams as they work their magic is always exciting, and seeing the Diablo IV concepts being transformed into 3D assets was no exception. Our cat backpack’s intricate form required eagle-eyed attention to detail. 

It was important for us to respect one of the most notable elements of the design: the blue fabric that wraps around the asset,” We did some tests with fabric simulation software, but the spherical design of the model, as well as a clearly defined flow of wrinkles in the 2D concept, made us decide to manually sculpt this element. This gave us more freedom with adapting the 2D concept, and gave us an opportunity to adjust the shape of the cloth and its proportions easier.

Ivan Mayol, 3D Characters Team Lead

Shadow Walker: Playing with color palette & material readability

The Shadow Walker skin was the first our 3D team got their hands on. Getting this skin right required a deeper understanding of what Blizzard Entertainment wanted, which, in turn, meant laying the groundwork for what would be a larger-scale production.

As Ivan recalls, one of the most challenging aspects of this particular character was maintaining the balance between staying true to a dark and desaturated color palette in the 2D concept, while also ensuring readability of all components in the 3D model. The 3D team focused mostly on defining the three main materials: leather, fabric, and metal. They also used some light-dark color gradients for better readability between some of these elements—very slight, but critical tweaks. For instance, the edges of the skirt are a bit lighter than the rest of the fabric, allowing it to pop-up over the dark trousers and making it distinguishable in dark environments. 

Plague Rat: Facing technical considerations

The Plague Rat design was spectacular, featuring many overlapping elements that looked great as a concept but required diligence to translate to 3D and then animate. Luckily, we got invaluable help on the technical aspect from Blizzard Entertainment themselves, who shared some suggestions and guidelines on preparing the model topology to ensure correct functionality. A large part of the 3D team worked hand in hand to produce this skin, exchanging ideas, brainstorming technical approaches that would bring the design to life—visually, creatively, and mechanically. 

The Oaken Keeper: Wood you like to talk about its silhouette?

This character stood out at first sight due to its distinctive, massive silhouette. It was essential for the 3D team to maintain all the organic shapes that bulged out of the character’s the upper body, like branches and wooden plates. It was important that we properly defined each volume that shaped the silhouette, iterating the more voluminous elements several times until the character was recognizable from every angle. 

The secondary volumes that form each element—such as the various protrusions in the wooden parts of the armor—should flow and follow the character’s shape, creating a design that smoothly transitions from one side to the other, while also maintaining its gnarled and wild nature.

Master Brawler: Where materials and proportions intertwine

Time for the big guy! In Diablo games, Barbarians were always considered as the heaviest and most resistant class. Therefore, the Master Brawler skin contains a lot of heavy and distinct elements like shoulder pads, bracelets, and a belt. These surfaces’ proportions—compared to the rest of the elements—are meant to infer the strength of the character by showing how heavy they are.

Considering points of visual interest during modeling is important, as well as keeping in mind a good contrast between the different materials in those areas. That is why it was important for us to clearly distinguish metallic details from other natural materials like leather or fabric, to make the heavy elements that compose the personality of the character pop out from the rest of the design.

Ivan Mayol, 3D Characters Team Lead, Room 8 Group

Sightless Seer: Keep your eyes peeled for iconography and symbols

The Sightless Seer design stood out among others for its luxurious, esoteric design. This skin oozes symbolism and references to history. The purple color, historically associated with royalty and high society, as well as all the jewelry show that we’re dealing with some body of status.

Unlike the other skins we showcased earlier, this character does not have a striking, bold, or extravagant silhouette. Their look and shapes are composed, clean, and without great stridency. This design’s distinctness lies in all the small eye-shaped details that can be found in jewelry, as well as patterns on their clothing. Clearly, the iconography is what transmits the message of this design: the character’s sight is covered by a mask with its eyes closed, but their clairvoyance is obvious and not limited.

Diablo IV was definitely a dream project, with its style and level of art making me fall in love with the game again and again. Crafting this world with Blizzard Entertainment was a pleasure, and I am especially joyful to have had a chance to work with Adam Richards, Senior Concept Art Outsource Supervisor. I am thankful to my project team members for the excellent teamwork and support along the way—it’s a joy to work alongside such outstanding people! Seeing the concepts that we worked with come to life in the game is just fantastic.

Olga Starodubtseva, Principal Character Concept Lead at Room 8 Group

Thanks, Blizzard Entertainment

As millions of players explore the world of Diablo IV, we can’t help but feel proud to have among the hundreds of talented developers and artists creating this world. Populating it with gnarly creatures, trusty mounts, deadly weapons, and much more was a memorable experience. And best of all, our collaboration with Blizzard continues.