With Diablo IV’s first expansion coming this Fall, let's look back at the concept art that helped breathe life to the game’s immersive world. The devil is in the details...
Igor Sidorenko, a principal concept artist for Blizzard Entertainment, says he drew inspiration from fine art hanging in some of the world’s greatest museums.
“The vision was, let’s make Diablo a painting and connect it with traditional fine art like drawings and paintings,” Sidorenko says. “Let’s take the inspiration from academic art, neoclassicism, pre-Raphaelites and their followers, from pieces like ‘The Last Day of Pompeii’ or ‘The Raft of the Medusa,’ and insert it into the decaying, brutal world of Sanctuary. So we started working in this direction from the very beginning to make it clear for a public, when people can finally see it, that this project is going to be different.”
1. “This big battle scene was heavily inspired by Gyula Benczúr’s ‘The Recapture of Buda Castle in 1686’ and Jan Matejko’s ‘Battle of Grunwald.’ We wanted to have a “last stand” scene—a battle filled with chaos, anger, and desperation,” Sidorenko says.
2. “Murals for Alabaster Monastery are my favorite ones. I wanted to have a strong religious feel here: The moment of creation (Genesis), the revelation of deity (Revelation), the ascension of Jesus into heaven (Ascension). Fortunately there is no shortage of European paintings based on biblical stories in any period.”
3. “I was mostly inspired by Benczúr’s masterpiece ‘The Baptism of Vajk’ as well as different artworks by Edwin Austin Abbey and Jean-Joseph Benjamin-Constant.
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1wThat is a creative approach. Though reminds me on people sitting in the restaurant, each one with his mobile instead of talking...