Horizon 3: Broken Stars Cover Art

- Backstory:
I took a little break from art, burnout was insane, so what better time to finally play Forbidden West, I wanted to since it released but just couldn't find the time, and now I had it. So for the next 3 weeks, I was living in that world, to say that it was awesome is one hell of an understatement. Game is done, And I'm left with immense hype for the 3rd installment, and an urge to create again. Put two and two together and a Horizon 3 project begins, I start experimenting with ideas, a simple alternative poster, however, while I'm looking at inspiration, the 2 official covers grab my attention, they're SO COOL, but so huge and detailed, not something easily done... Fuck it, it's a challenge!I start doing research, writing ideas down, sketching, and talking with the people who inspired me, a brief conversation with both Luc de Haan (Horizon 1 Cover Artist) and MOOD Visuals (Horizon 2 Cover Studio) helped me get an understanding of the scope of this project. It wasn't gonna be easy, alot of people worked on those covers, they took good time, and I'm just an individual... How hard can it REALLY be?!I wasn't sure of all the details at the start, but I knew one thing, this cover HAD to match the quality of the 2 official ones, and it HAD to showcase a proper look into what Horizon 3 could be. So, a true passion project begins, Horizon 3, Broken Stars!

- Enviorment Design:
Originally this was gonna be set on the moon lol. While the idea is pretty cool, problems occurred, Firstly, Moon barely has any atmosphere, which means no depth scaling, Secondly, I had to invent ALOT of lore for this to make sense, I threw sum together but inevitably dropped the idea as it didn't feel like something you'd put on the main cover, even tho I do hope for a space segment in H3, Might still do an alt poster on that in the future. So where to next? The map at the end of Burning Shores showed a few locations of old-world tech that were in the Pacific Northwest, so, easy, let's head for Seattle! A few Google Maps sessions later, and I got my desired coordinates. The Odyssey Crash Site is an interesting one, from day one I knew I wanted the ship to be in the cover, one way or the other, so this felt like the most fitting position, Perhaps it was an accident, or maybe Nemesis had something to do with the crash, who knows?!

- Aloy Design:
I had two major ideas for our homegirl Aloy, Apex, and Spectre gear. I really want to see Armor and Weapons based on these 2 themes in H3, so I got to cooking. We already had Spectre weapons in Burning Shores, so I just expanded on that, Making a Spectre Hunter Bow, pretty self-explanatory. Now it was a bit odd to me that we didn't have any Apex armor in H2, even tho Apex machines got introduced, so that was the most logical next step, let's make some Apex armor! Alternatively, It could've been Spectre armor, akin to Zenith suits but more Aloy, and Apex weapons. Both of which I want to see, but for this cover at least, we're going with the opposite, as a black and purple outfit is just too badass!

- Spider Machine Design:
Prior to this, I've never actually done a proper machine design, so that was the biggest challenge. While yes, I could've grabbed an existing Horizon machine and it would've been just fine, that's not something an official-worthy cover does, it had to be mine, and it had to be new! After some brainstorming, I opted for a Spider Based machine to pair against Aloy, Now just gotta design and render it... 2 weeks, some change, and looking at LOTS of spiders (what's arachnophobia?!) it wasn't easy, but everything was done with intent for it to fit the lore perfectly, from drilling natural resources to its function now evolving to recapture overridden machines from hunters and foreign machines, I think that's one helluva concept! And coming up with a new Cauldron, OMEGA, as all of them are named after the Greek alphabet, OMEGA was a perfect fit for the final installment! You can read more about it on the lore slide! Only thing that was left, was the name. I couldn't for the life of me come up with anything Horizon-sounding... So I asked the community, and I've gotten quite a response, many of them were great, but at last, I have decided on Voidweb, suggested by u/venusianhorizon! It voids overrides, very ominous and mysterious! Love it!

- Conclusion:
Little short of 2 months, and the project is COMPLETE! Phew, Now I understand why these things take whole teams and studios lol. But the challenge was worth it, and I've learned quite alot in the process which is key. I never doubted I could do it, just didn't know how, but then I did it, and now it's done, there's a lesson in that! So yeah, that concludes all of this, I'd love to hear yall's thoughts on the whole thing! And if you have any questions, bring em on!
/ And hey, If Guerilla or any other studio wants to hire me?! Please do (Like seriously)! Cheers!