When Alex Iglesias, the celebrated creator of the designs of MechWarrior Online video game franchise, he hit people like an laser barrage with his fresh style, and sustained praise to his designs amongst the player base. He produced artwork for Catalyst Game Labs and is most noted for his work as the lead Battlemech artist at Piranha Games.
Getting into Battletech, Iglesias was exposed from his uncle who had a mountain of books and a gaming computer where he was exposed in the early 90’s. From there the rabbit hole went to MechWarrior 2: Mercinaries, MechWarrior 3, MechCommander, MechWarrior 4, Living Legends, Battletech Novels, Battletech CCG, and The Pods. The mechs were the attraction, but the novels were what kept the interest in the BUC. The Fandom continuued from Iglesias in his urge to collect things from what was available. This would include some source books, technical readouts, some board game boxes, and knick knacks, but with such a small niche of players and no idea how to play the board game it sorta was more for the collection. Back when Iglesias started drawing things it was at really young age of crayon drawings of tanks and random sketches. This would continue as he got older and started getting into robots to explosions and eventually Battletech. But with Battletech he would try and draw game manuals when there were still books that came with the cames, game box art with terrain maps, and other Battletech products with art that that he could find to copy to try and mimic the art styles. Professional life started when school life concluded. The beginning and the end was with a BFA in illustration from Ringling School of Art and Design, Gnomon school of visual arts classes, and previous work at Day 1 Studios, Ignition Entertainment, and freelance. He would always be updating and working on things with Deviant Art with mechs and plenty of them. It was a way to go and get out there with the internet and get some recognition and comments from people who enjoyed his art style. Then jumping to getting involved with Catalyst Game Labs (2007) Mike Vaillancourt worked on a few illustrations (Cthulhutech books) introduced Iglesias at Gencon to Catalyst Games who were mostly Ex-FASA writers and staff along with their Art director Brent Evans who later sent in for some book cover illustrations. Piranha Games came into the picture with Bryan Ekman asking for Iglesias for the challenging role of adjusting proportions, art matching game specs, and refreshed designs completely in some cases. This would be a change for Iglesias in looking at some of the older designs and making them fit for game design, which is not as easy as it sounds, since it has to fit for gameplay and its animations. When working on mech designs Iglesias had stated that his approach would first look at the original design, then secondly emphasize aspects of it while maintaining its identity, while replacing or reducing other elements for its fit into the game world. What this did was to keep in the tradition by respecting the many designers who made variations on the mech with their distinct changes to the designs themselves, like some of the unforgettable designs of the Battletech CCG. The experience was not only tradition, but it was also challenging in taking on the MechWarrior revival frontier and the adrenaline of being lucky enough to work on a beloved IP. With authentic love for the MechWarrior series and the Battletech Universe game Iglesias a creative power supply in his head to take off from to develop new design concepts. The Drawing process first starts with getting a reasonable amount if not all the existing art for a Mech to referance off of. Taking the design at its essence begins the process of identify design elements and shapes that make for the visually distinction of the previous designs. From there it is looked on the inspiration of the designs in the cockpit to the torso and event in the armor or arms themselves. The shape may start as a blob of black and white and then slowly mold into a silhouette or rough draft that changes for awhile with experimentation into several favorable concepts. It proceeds to cleaning up the lines and making distinct shapes for a clearer view of the illustration and finishing up with that begins the color process. The coloring process involves working on the lighting, weathering effects, paint jobs, and of course the color. Fans who had seen many of the artwork from previous Catalyst Games books noticed the gritty more realistic designs that brought more of that old Battletech feel to the designs. This would follow and build a fanbase that would start people talking about the designs as well as MechWarrior all over again. The concepts that were available online which werent chosen for the final models were seen as contrasting, like in the Atlas faces that would take models to the next level. Creating the designs of the game brought back the ideas that people had in the woodworks of faction based designs, specialty designs, and it was just exciting seeing all of Iglesias’s work come to the screen. Toxicity of Fans had a hard time if not impossible time transferring from Piranha Games to Iglesias for having so much vision of what is respectful of lore. They can’t say that the expectations weren’t met with the difficulty of making mechs look nice and show the life of each mech in a great way that enhances the old designs. Even the controversy of adding hips to the Nova, Viper, and Locust almost just seemed passed over for the designs staying so true to the sourcing. The enhancements just feel naturally like they would be natural updates to the mechs designs without it leaving the feeling that its from the Battletech Universe. While each piece is not completely preserved it is one of the best renditions when even compared to its original designs, which sparks the curiosity that if mechs did stay true to the old designs as well... fans would not beable to contain the imagination of what could be with Iglesias’s creative visions for the IP.
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December 2018
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