Call of Duty Zombies

Call of Duty Zombies!

I was fortunate enough to work on COD Zombies during the World at War DLC period on Der Reise, later art directing the snowbound Call of the Dead DLC for Black Ops. As a life-long horror fan, this was amazing! I was able to use my knowledge of all those movies mom told me would rot my brain.

Below is the story of how one such level was built, "Call of the Dead", and the process I used to help visualize the creative direction and guide the team to completion.

Final screens of the maps I was involved in as art director, with Call of the Dead being my most extensive contribution.

Call of the Dead Trailer

This trailer was done out of house, but it perfectly captured the horror theme we were aiming at - specifically horror movie icons and films from decades past, with a strong dose of George Romero. My part was bringing a boatload of horror movie knowledge to the art style, from blood color and viscosity to Hammer style lighting.

Overview Art Direction Guides I kicked off the project with these location and color guides. Telling a story through set piece and color, these guides help shape the visual narrative throughout the level. I wanted each portion of the map to serve as a 'diorama' of sorts, entertaining as well as informing players of where they were.	Locale Art Direction Guides Continuing the idea of small 'dioramas' building into a cohesive narrative, I built these guides to shape the entire level experience. Inspiration came from classic horror films like The Thing, setting a clear tone for the team to relate to.	Level Overview Concept Art Using my guides, concept artist Daniel Chang was able to paint this high level look at the entire landscape.	Frozen Stairwell Concept Rough designer geo is transformed into a moody concept that perfectly captures the horror and tension needed. The art direction guides proved invaluable when bridging art and design together, a process we would repeat for each and every room, exterior, and vista. This is has been a good practice when developing maps concurrently with art and design.	Celebrity Character Concepts My first assignment to direct the look of CoD style characters...but these had an added layer of challenge as we were using well known celebrities. I worked with character artist Mike McMahon to develop these concepts, and we were looking for more of a 'zombie survivalist group' appearance that accented their known screen appearances.	Concept to Final Asset Eventually the creative direction came down to have them more closely mirror their well known costumes as the story had changed, so we made them look familiar enough to anyone that they'd be able to pick out who there were. Well maybe not George Romero, but in real life he really is a big guy!
Zombie Character Concepts Working with character artist Michael McMahon, I drove the ideas and look for the new batch of German navy zombies. We wanted them to look less rotted as they have been in the freezing ice for years, adding seaweed and fish-gnawed flesh to drive the nautical look home. On the right is the final quality level we were able to achieve.	Moonbase Conversion Direction Sheet I was tasked with converting an abandoned Zombie level I had previously art directed, set in WWII occupied Paris. We needed to repurpose the design in, around, and under the Eiffel Tower into a moon base! Although I wasn't able to see the level through to completion, my initial direction was held to and served as the foundation for the map.	Cosmodrome Makeover I joined this map's development near the end, helping bring it to final. One idea I had was to frame the experience in a frightening electrical storm, which I painted over the normal level to show how this could look.	Zombie DLC Logo Concepts Various logos I created for the levels as inspiration during development.	Zombie Unit Logos A couple of unit patches I designed. The one the left, for the Cosmodrome level, represents a secret Soviet faction bent on using the Moon as development of their super soldier experiments. The Nazi symbol on the right is for the WWII unit that developed the N6 toxin that eventually led to the creation of the Nazi Zombies.