Concepting

Before your idea can come to life it’s always a good idea to concept it first. The idea behind concepting is so you have a reference point. It’s especially helpful if you have multiple people working on a single project. Concepts are also a great way to gather community feedback before long hours of work are put into a design.The ward used as an example in this guide, “”, went through two concept phases. The initial phase focused on the overall shape and silhouette of the item. In regards to “” specifically, the goal was to figure out how to present an Owl themed ward that would read well from an isometric perspective. This involved figuring out a way to exaggerate the top half of the owl, which is the part that would be most visible to the player.After playing around with a few ideas and researching different owl breeds, it was decided to exaggerate the eyebrows of “” into an upward crescent shape, and make them wrap around the sentry eye as a framing device.As is the process with concepting an item for someone else, a few variants were created to show to Jimo to see which base he preferred the most for the ward itself. We had an idea of adding books to the base to give a nod to Jimo's role as a guide creator, among others. The concept was then ready to be passed around for feedback.Once we all found a design we were happy with, a refinement pass was done to provide the modeler with a version of the ward with color and all the necessary details. As there were no major issues or concerns with the refined version it was then given to the modeler so the sculpting could begin.For a more in-depth guide on concepting a Dota 2 set check out the guide from Oroboros below.