In the first art update for Obsidian's isometric RPG, Project Eternity, Rob Nesler, the game's art director, has provided some new prototype renders and information about how the game's artists are fleshing out the world. The basic gist is that they've got a lot of work ahead of them.
"Often, when starting a project, the artists and I just want to start drawing sh-ssstuff," he writes, being careful not to swear. "With Project Eternity, we are starting the development of a rich storied RPG from scratch."
There's a technical challenge too, as a result of the team moving to the 3D graphics program Maya. "We've been making test worlds - we call them gray boxes. We've been making test characters - we call them gray characters. We've been giving them gray animation, we've been giving them gray (actually sometimes white, we'll make some black ones too, we're not racist) weapons, and we've been inserting them into our prototype worlds to prove to ourselves and you, that we know what we're doing."
Below are a selection of screenshots from the process, complete with Obsidian's rather charming "please don't think these are final!" watermarks. You can see the rest, along with Rob's detailed overview on the Kickstarter update page .