The Infamous Chryssalid

Here is my concept for the Chryssalid. This guy was nailed in the first thumbnail pass. I distinctly remember my art director and designer saying "that's the guy, that's it right there". There was a lot of pressure involved in redesigning the original xcom alien, which is considered one of the scariest things in gaming...

(Images Created by: Piero Macgowan for XCOM: Enemy Unknown. ©2012 Firaxis Games/Take Two Interactive)

Initial thumbnails. You can see the chosen one at the bottom middle.

I was also asked to visualize how the chryssalid would burst out of the human's body. I did not want to make it look like the Alien movies too much. In a sense I think I came up with a quick sketch of something even more gruesome. I remember Jacob Solomon, the lead designer, being a bit disgusted at the time. In the presentation he said that this was "too much", "gratuitous" and "crossing the line". Someone then brought up the fact that in order for this event to not happen, you had to burn your soldier alive (back when we did have flamethrowers and bullets would not do the trick). After that comment, the matter was settled.

The final version, after enlarging the level of detail to read from game camera.

Finally! I can post XCOM artwork!

The time has finally arrived. I can post my work from XCOM: Enemy Unknown! I have been working on this project since Summer of 2007, so there's a bit of stuff to go through. I was officially the first guy on the project's payroll, some months before anyone else came on. It was just me and my art director, Greg Foertsch.

It was exciting to start on this new adventure called XCOM, with a plethora of aliens to design and an exciting lore imbued into the universe. Needless to say, I loved working on this project. I will make a quick plug and say that if you enjoy tactical games, especially games that are not like anything else out there, you should check XCOM out. Better yet, the PC Collector's edition comes with an artbook (wink, wink). 

Anyway, here is my first post. The Sectoid was the very first thing I worked on as a freelancer, even before I came onto Firaxis full time. I'll be posting more stuff as I sift through it. 

(Images Created by: Piero Macgowan for XCOM: Enemy Unknown. ©2012 Firaxis Games/Take Two Interactive)

The classic grey alien - or Sectoid, in this case

The very first drawings I worked on for XCOM

Front and back

X-COM: Enemy Unknown

Make sure to check this link out. I cannot post work I've done for the game yet, but probably will after release. There's 5 years of stuff I'll have to go through...

French Magazine XCOM Piece

I was fortunate enough to have one of the Illustrations I did for XCOM find its way to an article in a French game magazine. It is only half of the image, but it serves the purposes of the article well enough. You can see it highlighted in the third shot (click for a higher res image).

Free shipping of my artwork to the U.S.! Limited time only.

Artflakes has a special promotion going which is pretty sweet: free shipping for the whole US till December 14th 2011!!!

This is worth taking advantage of. You can check out my store at http://www.artflakes.com/en/shop/piero

Merry Christmas!

figure study

It started as a quick sketch and sort of became a figure study. I probably would've done this in charcoal if I knew where it was going, but why change horses mid-stream? Not sure if I want to go on with it yet, but here it is so far.

Store

I now have a store where you can find prints of some of my work. I will update it with more as I have it ready.