City of Heroes / Villains

City of Heroes / City of Villains

MMORPG City of Heroes was released in 2004 by Cryptic Studios, followed by City of Villains in 2005. Both published by NCSOFT.

I played these games when I was young, and for a good while, they were my life. I played them with both my mom and my brother, and we went around being heroes (eventually villains) and it was awesome. I realize a lot of my love for these games come from rose-colored glasses, since it's always a bit of a shock how badly the graphics aged, but nostalgia is a magical thing.

This was another drawing that once I had done the thumbnail, I knew I liked what I saw -- two of my main characters brawling across the image, each representing their own side. Baby T (short for Baby Tiger -- I was like 10 at the time), representing the Heroes, and Crew Leader representing the villains.

While I knew what I wanted to do for the main image, for a long time I was at a loss about what to do for the background. In CoH, I remember spending most of my time in Atlas Park, under the big statue just talking with people from all over, taking part in costume contests, or even getting random people to help me with my homework (though they always said I should do it myself, they still helped -- true heroes I suppose). However in CoV ... there wasn't really a big social hub area like Atlas Park. But! There was a PvP (Player vs Player) area that was an alternate version of Atlas Park where the villains were in control! So I could then match their backgrounds truly to each side.

I thought it was fitting that they both cross over the "divide" because in a way they did -- through me. They were considered different games for a few years, but ultimately, it was all one account for both sides. Also, later when I played another super hero MMO, Champions Online, I brought both characters over to continue their adventures in a new world (though both as "heroes").

The city skylines in the background are also meant to sort of replicate the original logos for both City of Heroes and Villains, where they had outlines of buildings behind the game titles.

The sketch was first drawn on my Wacom Intuos tablet, in the drawing program Paint Tool SAI. Once I liked how it looked, I began to work on it inside Photoshop CC 2017. The image was basically done all with the pen tool, including the plazas which are not 3D! They were drawn piece by piece, using what few screenshots I could find as reference.

The statues have a layer "style" on them to try and emulate the stone work. The background is made up of three layers -- the color fade, the building shapes, and then the gradient pattern over the buildings for the fade and color.

Baby T's power was a custom shape that then had a "style" applied to it.