“Unlike most of our other heroes, he doesn’t have a weapon-weapon-he has orbs, which are easier for us to concept when we’re designing new looks for him.” “Zenyatta is one of our simpler characters to make skins for,” says Kang. The tin robot theme was a perfect fit for a character who’s already robotic, making the process a fairly smooth one for the concept art team and allowing them to take a number of creative liberties with the skin’s little details. He’s the sort of robot you might’ve gleefully unwrapped on a chilly 70s Christmas morning, its charming, box-y smile beaming up at you as you held it in your hands–except this robot has a digitized grimace on his face as he floats menacingly in your direction and slings orbs at your head.
The finished product is a charming, retro-ified Zenyatta, the vintage sheen of his body accented by bright red antennae and a battery pack powering his movements. As the art director, I looked over the entire process.” We loved ideation for this skin, so we sent the sketches to one of our outsource concept artists, Yiming, who really pushed it and made the concept game-ready and Blizzard-quality. “Then, we took what worked, and sent that to our concept artists to finish. “We started out by doing in-house sketches,” says Kang. David Kang, the art director for the skin, guided the concept from its inception to its implementation in the game. The dichotomy between smiley and frowny face echoes his mantra of balance in both harmony and discord and gives him a bit of fun flair as he helps allies and hurts enemies. One of the most unique skins in the sleigh-load of Winter Wonderland cosmetics, Toybot Zenyatta employs visual effects that allow him to swap between faces in the midst of battle. Senior concept artist David Kang, technical artist Ben Gerowe, and concept artist Kejun Wang divulge some of the secrets behind two of this year’s Winter Wonderland skins. Among the skins to unwrap this year are Toybot Zenyatta, a chrome-plated present straight from Santa’s sack, and Penguin Mei, who sports the latest in vogue cuddly climatology gear. The holidays are back, and with them come festive new outfits for Overwatch players to don while they sleigh the competition.