The design of the Heralds was made by a number of talented people all collaborating together. It was a team effort from both the design and art departments. The Heralds are a species that serve the Iconians more closely than other servitor races. The Heralds were distinct from the Iconians, but similar to them at the same time. While they also had the six eyes, they were supposed to be an entirely different species than the Iconians. The challenge was then to make a unique looking race, while still being easily associated (visually) to the Iconians.

In the early discussions, we thought of the Heralds as not only a servitor race, but a race that actually worshipped the Iconians. The Iconians were so few, and yet so advanced, that the Heralds thought of them as deities. Indeed, the Iconian technology was so far ahead of anything else that whatever they passed down to the Heralds would be almost “magical.” With this in mind, we envisioned the Heralds not using traditional sci-fi tropes such as ray-guns, and instead using weapons and gear more akin to “magic.” So instead of a phaser assault weapon, the Heralds could use weapons such as a staff with a glowing orb; or a mace that does massive melee damage; yet these weapons would be able to attack at range. The Heralds were to be a contrast of visual style and technology compared to anything else in the game.

Bringing a concept to life as actual game assets is often a challenge. There is a great deal of translation involved.  Additionally, everything in game development is on a schedule, and it is usually a tight one.

Examining the concepts, you can see similar characteristics across each character, even though they are wearing unique uniforms. We didn’t have the time to make a unique head-to-toe costume for each, so we had to be clever about sharing a lot of the costume elements and only make a couple truly unique pieces for each character. 

A key to making the actual game characters in this case was focusing on key elements and overall impressions from the concept. Take a look at the color group shot concept; look at each character. Now, without looking at the image, what stood out? There’s a lean floating guy with coat tails or skirt, one is a huge dude in heavy armor, an energy robot, and a toned guy with horns. Lots of metal and techy bits, reds, oranges, purples. You may even think it resembles a specific sci-fi character you’ve seen in movies, comics, games, etc.

These are the fundamentals of what makes the characters stand out and now you can begin to break down the crucial specific details and begin the first pass at the game assets.

We often begin with proxy costumes. The design team is usually doing their work simultaneously to the work on the art team. They need to see costumes that look close to the final product to check for scale, readability, etc. One of benefits of any of Cryptic’s games is the characters are built on an immensely versatile system of interchangeable parts and body scaling. So we put together temporary outfits mainly reusing costume parts that already exist giving us a great start very early on. 

Jumping ahead to the final render you can see many shared pieces. Even the shoulder pads are essentially the same across three of the characters just rotated or scaled differently. At the same time, there are enough unique looking elements on each to make them feel very distinct. Weapons also feature a key role in accentuating the characteristics of each character. The end result accomplishes the visual goals set forth in the original design and concept in a practical way for STO’s character system and schedule.

Joe Jing
Senior Character Artist

A lot of great artists were involved in making the heralds. I hope you have fun fighting against them. See you in game.

Samuel “Swallrus” Wall
Art Lead

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