by Warhammer fans have been clamouring to get a couple of different armies onto the tabletop for years, and Games Workshop is making some dreams come true by bringing Grand Cathay to The Old World, their revitalized and modernized rank and flank game. In a recent Old World Almanack, some members of the design team came together to discuss the process of bringing the content to the game, and it’s an interesting read.
Design Studio member Alastair remarks that it was an overall interesting project, as Total War: Warhammer III had already established a strong aesthetic for them, and Creative Assembly had let people see a bunch of concept art and other design elements.
“We wanted to meet those expectations in miniature, and surpass them by giving everything that Warhammer spin. The way that computer game assets look and move has to be adapted to miniatures. There were lots of trinkets in the concept art, lots of fine detail everywhere, and when creating miniatures, you have to focus those elements down into certain motifs that you can repeat across the range.”
Mostly, it was about getting the level of detail right, as what looks on screen may not always translate to a readable, paintable model that looks the part on the tabletop, and doesn’t give wargamers headaches when trying to get all the detail painted.
“One area of refinement was the scale armour that you see throughout Grand Cathay. Nailing that was important. Traditional lamellar armour is made up of many panels neatly tied together with string – it’s a gorgeous, complicated pattern that looks fantastic in a video game, but would make miniatures visually noisy and hard to paint across big regiments.”
It’s definitely something that I have personally noticed, as model designing has shifted from the old hand-sculpting of modeling putty to computer-generated designs, the trap of just adding finer and finer details is something that many designers seem to be falling into.
Be sure to read the full chat with the Design Studio sculptors and the ‘Eavy Metal team painters over on Warhammer Community.
