Art Director Matt Kuzminski talks about how he and his team updated everyone’s favourite Warboss from when we last saw him!

Gorgutz, Dawn of War III

Greed! Gorgutz wants all the things! Especially all the shiny things that other important people want.

So how does a rampant collector of heads and shiny bits express that personality? How does he show that he’s not afraid to grab the thing he wants and relentlessly protect the things he has?

With a giant Power Klaw, of course! That’s as big as he is. On a chain. That he swings around his head like a flail.

After we landed on that concept, it seemed so obvious in hindsight - but that’s the trick about making something feel logical in the environment and in the story. It takes time and iteration.

Usually, design comes first and the art team follows their lead to bring those characters to life in a unique way. In the case of Gorgutz, the design team wanted to leverage the art team’s muscle to cook up something that felt appropriately over-the-top Orky.

2D Concepts

Ranged concepts

Although our instincts told us Gorgutz was a melee-focused character, we didn’t want to leave any stone unturned. We explored some ranged variants with dual flamethrowers, akimbo Shootas, and even an oversized Deffgun. Ultimately, though, we felt that Gorgutz would want to be up close and personal in a fight.

Melee concepts

We then explored a wide variety of melee concepts. And while we liked these a lot more, they seemed to convey a mindless thug rather than a cunning collector.

But it was the Power Klaw that spoke to us. I did some rough sketches for my concept artist Felix. He and our wonderful team of character artists took it from there!

"Y'know, like with a big giant Klaw for his right hand."





The above sketch, which incorporated a smaller flail, resulted in Gorgutz’ final design - where he wields the more elegant chained Power Klaw.

3D Modelling

From there, all of the work was in the modelling and sculpting. This is where we tend to hammer down all of the smaller details and really bring the concept to its strongest iteration.









The concepts had a lot of rough ideas that didn’t really fall into the Ork aesthetic, so we drew some inspiration from his past incarnation in Dawn of War and gave him some custom Mega Armour.

Gorgutz and Macha are some of my favourite heroes in the game, and he’s insanely fun to play (as all Orks should be). When you see the big giant Ork with the Power Klaw for an arm, you know it's Gorgutz - there's no mistaking it. Our animator brought to life this snarling Warboss with the feral dog-like headshakes and the twitchiness and then the voice acting and dialogue alone is fantastic. He’s such a fun character. I can’t wait for people to play him and see him in the story when they finally get their chance to play as the Orks!







