Loading screen made for Slayer of the Fearsome set.
This week I talked with Philipp Horsch, one of the newcomer Workshop artists. Philipp, or “Der-Besitzer” as you can find him on Steam Workshop, is a passionate and talkative young man who shared with me his thoughts about his creations with a lot of enthusiasm. I could say for sure that he is one of those rare people who put tons of love into what they do. I saw in him that sparkle an artist has when he presents his work to the world. What made me esteem him even more, is the story behind each set he creates. As you can read in the interview below, every set is perfectly placed in a world created for it and for it alone.
Tell us something about yourself. What is your story, how did all the Workshop thing begun?
My name is Philipp Horsch and I was born and raised in northern Germany near the cities of Hamburg and Kiel. After I graduated from highschool I moved to Berlin, which was, at that time, the only city where I could study Game Art and Animation.
I graduated in 2009 and worked in a small company in Berlin for two years. After that, I started to make my way as a freelancer 3D artist, which is what I am still doing.
In 2014 an old friend of mine came to me with the idea of making Dota 2 sets, which I had also thought about because I had been playing the game since it was in Beta. So we put our heads together and started concepting.
Which was your first item and how did you feel after submitting it?
Our first item we ever submitted was The Primal Dreadnought for Faceless Void. Initially, we started with a Sven set, but soon ran into some problems and decided to lay it on the ice. So we took on Faceless Void and wanted to give him a full armor, but at the same time an agile badass look.
We came up with this background story, that he would travel the universe in an everlasting search for the ultimate opponent. On his multidimensional search, he would eventually reach the worlds on the rim, where the Obsidian Destroyers have their origin.
Of course, the Primal Dreadnought slew them all, for there was no worthy foe among them. That's why you see a destroyed Obsidian Statue in the loading screen's background. It also explains the armor`s material, which he crafted out of those very obsidian plates he found there.
We were really excited after the final submission and reloaded the Workshop page like a million times!
Which was your most popular set and which one do you love the most?
Our most popular set was the Slayer of the Fearsome for Huskar, which was also our second submission. We wanted to give Huskar the look of a fearless hunter, who crafts his gear out of his most famous trophies. Also, we loved the idea of the mohawk, which really gave us some headaches. So we decided to go with this jungle slayerish look and ended up being very satisfied.
We got lots of very nice comments and constructive feedback and even made it to the Dota 2 main page for some time. This brought us loads of views and made this set the most popular so far.
The most loved one, however, is our Clockwork set.
What do you love about your job and what do you hate?
I love being creative in any way and already started drawing a lot into my prep school books. Also, I am a big gaming enthusiast since I got my first NES console, so 3D game art was the way to go for me. The modern 3D tools provide me with the necessary freedom and I love that you can build literally anything with them.
As a freelancer, I can work from home or anywhere else, so that's a big bonus in my opinion. Being your own boss is, of course, advantageous too, but comes with its own hurdles. The Dota 2 workshop is a great opportunity for me to share my creativity in a game that I really love and to bring my own touch into it.
What do I hate? Uhh..... Apart from sometimes unexplainably stubborn programs, unexpected crashes and seemingly endless nights in front of the screen, nothing really.
What do you think about the feedbacks you receive? Do you count them?
We always love to see the reactions after we submit something new and we're more than happy about the lovely comments, as well as constructive criticism. We read every one of them and try to answer to any question being asked. And yes, I think we do kinda count them.
Now about your awesome Clock set. It`s WAW. Truly love it! From where did you take inspiration? What was on your mind while you were working on it?
First of all, thanks! Really glad you like it!
We came up with the idea of clockwerk as a mining robot/bulldozer, so we sat down and went straight to concepting. Clockwerk as typical offlaner needs to look tanky and the roll cage, ram shield, and hard hat suited this look perfectly. We didn`t want to make him look too modern so we tried to bring everything back to a fantasy universe and use older gear driven mechanics. His jaw is meant to represent an excavator's shovel and his shoulder pads remind vaguely of high profile tires while his eyes glow like a friendly old VW Beetle. The screws are to support the tinkered look, typical for his race.
Bob the Builder, Bumble Bee, and Wall-E were some some of the names that often came up during the concepting phase.
After a few iterations in 2 and 3D and a lot of testing, we decided to go for this adorably cute angry robot look. The concept was overhauled a couple of times until we got the look right. Since a bulldozer tends not to be the most gentle of vehicles and is often used in demolition scenarios, we finally gave him the name: One Man Wrecking Crew.
If you like this Clockwerk set and want it in the game, don`t forget to vote for it here.
Do you have any other concepts?
We have some additional concepts which were abandoned or postponed that I'm happy to share.
Nature`s Prophet:
The Earth Mother's gift was the theme we came up with for our very first creation. It was supposed to be a standalone item and was only about the staff. It was created but never made it into the Workshop.
Sven:
We thought Sven should finally look like he`s supposed to. Like a Viking berserker in blood rage with a brutal big sword. Unfortunately, we ran into some technical problems since the game was still pre Reborn and the development tools were not that well documented. We still think this is a very fitting theme for him and might someday decide to finalize it.
Ogre Magi:
We wanted to give Ogre Magi the look of a Celtic druid, which we still think is an awesome theme for him. We postponed the creation of this set to a later date because we chose another hero to work on.
Razor:
A sadistic dark knight with a scalpel-like blade whip was the idea we came up with for Razor. This set is almost complete but still needs some adjustments here and there. It was created between the Faceless Void and Huskar sets but is not yet in a representable condition.
For all the concepts and submitted sets, I would like to mention my colleagues and coCreators:
Steffen Hammerschmidt (Goretex)
Concepting, Modelling, Texturing
Deryl Braun
Loading screen art and promotion material.
You can check and vote for Philipp`s Dota 2 cosmetics here. You can also find him on his personal site or Facebook page.