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Kemp Remillard

@kemptron

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Atreides Assault Ornithopter

This asset was concepted later in the development process once we had determined what all of our vehicle classes would be and how they would be assembled. The vehicle construction system and modular part load out was full developed at this stage and we knew exactly what we needed out of the design. I wanted of course to create something that clearly looks like an upgrade from the Scout, screams “assault” and built for attack. Also really wanted to keep the same sort of design beats that were established with the Scout like the forward leaning geometric canopy and hunched shoulder configuration along with the broad and flat tail. As was pretty well established at this point in our Art Direction to concept pipeline, I asked master Sheng Lam to work up some additional concepts with all of this in mind based on a block-model I'd created along with some of my earlier concepts for the class. He knocked it out of the park as usual so I went to work mixing together the final design over a refined block model for the final concept. My geometry was pretty rudimentary and used mainly for establishing volumes, which I then drew and painted over in Photoshop in a blender generated background.

Rubén Arema Mero was in charge of building the entire final vehicle / texturing with Karl Mario Garibay Froede providing 3d Art Direction. Material support was provided by Íñigo Cebollero and Massimo Caggese. Technical Animation by Johannes Holweg and VFX support by Claudio Croci and Javier Perianes.

As usual, and especially at this point in development, everyone did an absolutely fantastic job translating this into the final in-game asset. After talking to a few fans and players of the game I’ve come to learn that this is a fan favorite and all I can say is you love to see it :) by @kemptron

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11 days ago

Dune Buggy Pt. 3
(Dune: Awakening final Atreides Dune Buggy 2.2)

As the process moved along during the production of Dune: Awakening the vehicles classes and their progression for the player became more defined. It was determined that my initial “buggy” concept was more of the weight and class of a Tank and that the “Buggy” vehicle would be more just that. Less of a tank and more like a Jeep/Hummer utility vehicle that you could have your friends ride along in and would be more of an open-air configuration and less armored so you could hop on/off. The design would also need to look more agile and quick than the initial design. We’d done some development for the Harkonnen version by that time that would ultimately go on to share the same chassis and tracked wheel configuration across the faction designs. They would not all necessarily look the same, but needed to share the same bones, bounding boxes and tech-art parameters as the Harkonnen version.

So I went to work trying to adapt the hull design and specifically the front end to fit the lighter body and track set. What you see here are some final sketch attempts and what might be possible with the track set for ultimately what we arrived on. Then, as had become part of my Art Direction process, I asked the indomitable Sheng Lam @8bitwizard to do another pass using my original design and a few other variations just incase he came up with something that might work better or that we might use as another modular option as we were still toying with the idea of allowing for more in-game customization for the hulls. Ultimately I did (selfishly) go with the version based on my design for the base-level vehicle but used his take on the design for the final-final look. The talented and skilled Filipe Igreja (artstation.com/filipeigreja) at Nukklear would go on to create the final glorious asset with the help and supervision on the 3d side of the implacably quality-driven Karl Mario Garibay (art station.com/Kmgaribayf).

(description continued in this post!) by @kemptron

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2 months ago

Taking a lil' break from dune to show some un-used work for League of Legends from around 10 years ago. This character was called "husk" that was described as this:

"Cancelled champion for League of Legends. Husk was eventually split to create Camille and Kai'sa. She was intended to be a mercenary from Zaun, the leader of a team called "H.I.V.E", comprised of other mercenaries, outlaws and bounty hunters. She was to be Caitlyn's ex-partner, defecting to Zaun after Caitlyn betrayed her by paralyzing her from the waist down during a shootout."

Had a lot of fun experimenting with this character and the fun possibilities. Like a lot of fun stuff it never went anywhere but that is what we call concept art. :D by @kemptron

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2 months ago

Dune Buggy Part 2.1
(Part 1 of part 2, out of 2, in part 2 🤔)

The Atreides Dune Buggy

As was mentioned in my previous post, the Dune novels make mention of both “Groundcars” and “Tanks” but are vague about how these specifically look. Early on in Dune: Awakening we were experimenting with some kind of a combination of both, with the idea being that you might initially craft a “groundcar” and ultimately have the option to upgrade it to a “tank”. The aim was to try and not be locked in by a clear distinction of what constitutes a tank in the real world, something I definitely nerd out about and get specific with! :D So I started concepting something that might read as an agile armored car but also look tough and heavy, best of both worlds!

As was also mentioned in the previous post, we really wanted to depart from normal real-world wheel chassis setups. The Ornithopter is the vehicle at the forefront of everyone’s imagination when it comes to vehicles in the Dune story, but the Spice Harvester is also described as “bug-like” by Herbert. As such, I thought it would be fun and cool to work in animalistic qualities to all of the vehicles, or as many as I could. I imagined this thing as a big 4 legged creature that would jump over the dunes like a large cat with limb-like articulated struts that house the track-sets.

(Continued in post..) by @kemptron

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3 months ago

Dune Buggy Part 1

Here are some very early concepts for what would eventually become the “Dune” Buggy. Being able to traverse large pieces of the map was identified as a necessity very early on, but in order to fulfill the system for player and map progression we would need to offer something to the player to craft before you could build up to achieving an Ornithopter for personal use. Ultimately the “Sandbike” would become your first option, but having something that would allow you more options than only a single passenger or module was a nice next step while working up to building your flying machine. The Dune books make mention of both Tanks and a “Ground Car”, but are pretty vague about the specifics of what those were.

From the official Dune Wiki: “Groundcars were traditional vehicles of locomotion on a planet's surface. Groundcars could combine traditional wheels and antigravity floater bulbs or suspensors and even jet-pod modification. Due to the fact hat Holtzman shields would attract Sandworms and Sandstorms could disarm shields, Groundcars on Arrakis were mostly without antigravity systems and shields or were limited in use to the areas secured by the Shield Wall. ”

My first idea of course was to reference the wheels on “Dune Buggies” in the real world, which sometimes would feature really large and wide wheels to grip the sand and not sink etc. Some of these have large paddle like treads on the tire to further scoop out the sand when moving forward. Also, I just really like utility cars or trucks like this with giant wheels and suspensions :).

These types of sketches were intended to quickly get the idea across and come up with a bunch of options as quick concepts. So I bashed together some rough 3d blockouts and drew/painted on top of them in Photoshop. It was still early stages so lots was yet undecided, including what the guns or troopers would look like.

Ultimately it was decided that we would try to avoid just using wheels as this felt very real-world / present day and opted to go with the tread-set configurations you see in the game. The last two images in this post were an attempt to push in this direction, and a quick Cross-Section! by @kemptron

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3 months ago

Carrier Ornithopter Part 2

Once the parameters for what the size of the Carrier Ornithopter would be and what it would do were more defined, we asked Sheng Lam to work up some ideas. I wanted to achieve a design that would really communicate what it’s purpose would be through the over-all shape on first glance. Much like the CH-Tarhe/S-64 Skycrane. So the shape would be something broad and flat that almost looks like it would “hug” whatever it was trying to transport once it had attached and retracted the cables into the hull.

One of the over-arching theme/ideas that Luke (Luke Kopycinski https://koppa.carbonmade.com/ ) and I established very early on is that we needed to make the designs of all of the vehicles practical, but also really push the ‘weirdness’ factor and attempt to arrive on something that looks unconventional compared to how we might see something like this in the real world. In this instance, placing the flight deck in the middle on the top (while not entirely practical) was more unusual than expected. Also, I’ve always been a firm believer that a good vehicle design is a character in and of itself and puts off a “personality” with it’s over-all shapes, but in particular the front-end forward-facing area. Additionally, I aimed to have all of the vehicles convey an animalistic quality, with the obvious reason being that the Ornithopter from the original books has wings that flap like a bird/insect. Furthermore the original Large Harvester was described as a very large Beetle. This rule was not 100% for every asset, but would ultimately carry over to assets like the Dune Buggy and Sandbike (more on that later). I wanted the Carrier Ornithopter to look and feel like a giant Albatross that was slow but determined, sturdy and stable, and able to lift just about anything like a giant “Sky Crane”. This theme also needed to be clear from the player view on the ground so we took extra care in making the underside look like a specialized piece of machinery, especially in terms of placing the landing gear outside of the area where an item would be carried and held. by @kemptron

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3 months ago

Presenting!.. The Harkonnen Scout Ornithopter for Dune: Awakening

In the early stages of Concept Development, we decided we would really push the contrasting bio/organic shape language of the Harkonnen vehicles, tech, characters, etc to starkly contrast against the rigid geometric look of the Atreides, with the player introductory CHOAM assets using a middle-ground shape language . While referencing the movie designs, I wanted to invoke the ideas of insects, especially with the Canopies, while using more bird-like themes for the Atreides versions.

One of the best aspects of being the Associate Art Director for stuff like this was the ability to brief and guide Funcom’s network team of Concept Artists for such assets. Then seeing how they approach the task and what approaches they would take that I would have never thought about myself. While this was actually a challenge at times needing to make a decision about how conclude the design, it was also a privilege to get to pick and choose what would ultimately be used and roll all the best ideas into a final design.

As always I worked closely with Mario (artstation.com/kmgaribayf) to finalize design choices and work out any and all issues for game-play and in-engine implementation. The final asset was sculpted in 3d by the immensely talented Rubén Arema Mero (artstation.com/theartof_ram).

The power team that helped to concept the Harkonnen Scout includes:
Sheng Lam @8bitwizard
Brian Wells @brianiswells
Virtuous @virtuosgames

Ultimately this became one of my favorite in-game assets and it was a real thrill to finally see players flying it around in the game. Of course none of this would be possible without the talented and skilled team of Animator, Material, and Tech Artists at Nukklear and Funcom. Thanks for everything you guys!

Dune: Awakening is out on PC now and available soon for Playstation 5 and Xbox Series X|S on September 22nd 2026! by @kemptron

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4 months ago

Great session yesterday with awesome model Danny @_wolf.child_ . She’s great! Sketch was 20 mins and drawing was 40 mins. Had a failed attempt that I threw in the trash. Doesn’t happen often but it sucked. Sometimes you have to start over to get it. taken in Atlanta, Georgia by @kemptron

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6 months ago

Here’s a bit of album cover art that I made last week for my good friend Austin Darnell’s new solo country album titled “Time wounds all Heels” under the name “Dusty Inkwell”. Check out the links below to listen to his great tunes!

Unfortunately there’s a sad and silly back story to this that is reflective of our dismal current future world, soon to be over-run by our robot overlords. Our good friend @mr.grahamshirley created the original album artwork / design using a photo of the sculpture “Dying Achilles” by Ernst Herter which was sculpted in 1884 for the Empress of Austria Elisabeth. It now resides in the Achilleion Palace located in Corfu, Greece. Initially, Graham used an image of an etching of the sculpture that he found in a book published sometime in the 1940’s. Unfortunately it is unclear to determine when this artwork was created. When Austin attempted to submit his album artwork for use on Spotify, it was rejected as a copyright infringement by the AI bot review. Copyright law is complicated and varies from country to country. Sometimes the “100” year rule applies, while the USA specifically says anything created after 1923 is public domain now. The UK and EU stipulate that rights are released 70 years after the death of the artist.

So as a potential fix I re-drew the image referencing the etching and trying to make it more ‘graphic’. In hindsight I should have referenced a photo of the actual sculpture. As a possible result, this was also rejected! We even tried sending them just the raw line-art and asking for a human review, but no dice. So Graham whipped up an alternative for Spotify because time was running short. Copyright stuff has always been a headache in the art world, with a lot of ambiguity around the rules. In the end I got to brush up on some classical anatomy and have a perfect excuse to promote my friend’s new album!

Check it out! It’s real good!
Dusty Inkwell, Time wounds all Heels
https://www.instagram.com/dusty_inkwell/
https://soundcloud.com/austin-darnell-21605236/sets/time-wounds-all-heels
https://open.spotify.com/album/6y5tcBppOYEis4UHH3kBk8?si=equNhjm8RNCRC3RoqQE8Yg

this too!
https://www.instagram.com/howdiesallaround/ by @kemptron

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6 months ago

Artemis II GOOOOOOOO! My father was 13 when he watched the moon landing in 1969. Humans have not been back to the moon or close to it in my entire lifetime and I’m not young anymore. So cool! by @kemptron

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6 months ago

Great time was had with awesome model Isabella @iz.z.diaz on Saturday with the group. Long pose 80 mins for the drawing and 20 mins for the sketch. Continuing the tradition of pairing Nu-metal butt-rock with figure drawings. Coincidentally “In the end” was played at the session. taken in Atlanta, Georgia by @kemptron

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6 months ago

Behold! The origins of the "Carrier" Ornithopter for Dune: Awakening.

One of the requested vehicle classes was for an Ornithopter that you could use to primarily move your Spice Crawler/Harvester across the vast desert to the Spice Plumes, but also to just generally transport other stuff like Dune Buggies, Bikes, Tanks or Cargo. We settled on the idea of a cable system that would attach to just about anything you dropped it down on using some sort of sci-fi magnet-style clamps.

My immediate thought was about the Sikorsky CH-54 Tarhe, also known as the S-64 Skycrane. I love how silly the thing looks like it was missing it's guts, but also that it looks exactly like it does the thing it's supposed to do.

Also, fun fact, the CH-54 is "named after Tarhe, an 18th-century chief of the Wyandot Indian tribe whose nickname was "The Crane"". US helicopters have a tradition of Indian tribe naming conventions so it fits.

Initially we toyed with the idea of making this an Atreides vehicle but landed on using the universal CHOAM look/feel for the baseline asset.

Ultimately the final design would be concepted by the Indefatigable and Magnanimous Sheng Lam @8bitwizard , as would many of the vehicles among lots of other things. His work is absolutely incredible and delightful, so if you don't know now you know. I still can't believe we were fortunate enough to get him on board with the project early on and keep him for as long as we did. He really does deserve the title of GOAT.

These concepts represent my 'idea' attempts before handing the asset off to him, which I would then take back and flesh out for Mario and the 3d team at NUKKLEAR. They did an absolutely fantastic job on the final model/asset, and this bird would go on to feature a lot in the trailers to dramatic effect.

Next post will be the next steps and more of how the conceptualized donuts were made 😊 by @kemptron

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10 months ago