Hello all,
We are really happy to open our series of articles on our fans with one of the most creative and funny artist within the community, known as Kaxen by most of you. So here is her interview as well as some piece of her work.
Could you please introduce yourself to the community and the rare people that don’t know you already?
I’m Kaxen. I’m an art major who is a fangirl on the side. I’m mainly focusing on doing animation and comic books. Ideas jump into my head and they pop out as comics.
How do you ended up creating a comic on Altair and now on Ezio?
Altair seemed pretty cool. I wanted to draw him. At first I was only planning on doing one since I thought Altair was difficult to draw. But now I am at 200+ comics… Playing around with the Assassin’s Creed universe is very fun.
What appeals you in Assassin’s Creed franchise?
I like the parkour the most. Assassin’s Creed is one of the few games where I spend more time messing around than actually following the storyline. But I like the story too. And sexy assassins. Sexy assassins always make life better, unless they’re stabbing you…
How long does it usually take to create a comic strip?
The single panel comics don’t take more than an hour. The longer and more complicated ones don’t usually take more than two. I draw pretty fast.It’s getting ideas that sometimes takes a while.
What are your future plans and upcoming projects related to Assassin’s Creed? And in general?
I will probably keep going with Ask Altair (Desmond and Ezio) and drawing tons of comics and maybe the occasional animation. Machiavelli will definitely show up. He is one of the few things I remember from school so he must be awesome. And someday Leonardo Da Vinci will turn around. Aside from Asassin’s Creed, I have another comic about dragons vs. airplanes called Under One Sky.
Thanks again to the lovely Karmen, for her time and talent. Atmon
Straight from Comic-con, the Ubisoft community developers have brought you the Assassin’s Creed 2 panel featuring Yannis Mallat, Chief Executive Officer, Pierre Raymond, president of Hybride Studios, and William Reymond, film series co-writer. Enjoy!
Following the announcement of the Assassin’s Creed 2 short films, Yannis Mallat, Chief Executive Officer, and Jade Raymond, Executive Producer, have done a very detailed Q&A answering many of the questions raised by the community. The entire Q&A can be found below. Enjoy!
• What is Ubisoft’s strategy on the convergence of film and video games?
(YM) Our Convergence strategy has one main and clear objective: to expand our video game brands and to develop them on additional platforms to provide a global experience to an extended audience. Convergence doesn’t only mean film and video games. It is open to all platforms and mediums that could support our franchises.
Over the past few years we have built our strategy step-by-step by developing an internal structure that would allow us to reach our objectives. First, back in 2007, we created Ubisoft Digital Arts, our internal digital content development team. A year later, to accelerate our strategy, we acquired Hybride Technologies, one of the industry’s most renowned VFX creators that worked on Sin City and 300. Between these two major steps, we also signed up the AVATAR deal which is another element of our convergence strategy since we are working on both the games but also directly on some of the movie scenes.
Most recently, we have also created our Comic Book publishing house to support the creation of some Assassin’s Creed 2 comic books and we also have other initiatives under way. We are convinced that the deepness of our brands can be transposed on other mediums and this is exactly what our approach is on Convergence.
Yesterday at the San Diego Comic-con it was revieled that Hybride Technologies are producing a series of short films based on Assassin’s Creed 2! The panel at which it was announced was entitled “Assassin’s Creed 2: Video Games and Hollywood Converge”, and focused on the the bridge between video games and film.
“Ubisoft has detailed our vision for convergence over the past two years. Now, at Comic-con, we are exclusively revealing one of the first building blocks to this strategy: Assassin’s Creed 2: Lineage,” said Yannis Mallat, chief executive officer at Ubisoft Montreal. “We’ll be discussing the links between the game and the short film series with some of the key players of the project. We are thrilled to be able to share the results of our efforts with the Comic-com audience.”
Hybride Technologies, the visual effects studio behind 300 and Sin City, along with Corey May, Assassin’s Creed 2’s scriptwriter are working together to bring the fans something spectacular!
Then join the Assassin’s Creed Twitter experience and compete to assassinate your targets the fastest. Take part in a real time social battle using only tweets! Collect points, unlock weapons and work your way up the leaderboards.
A couple of months before launching the Assassin’s Creed 2 website, we talked about our wishes and ideas. One of the first things we talked about was the incredible talent lying within our community. I am not only talking about all the drawings and fan art we saw popping up everywhere over the Internet with the launch and success of Assassin’s Creed. I’m referring to all the videos, web comics, costumes, banners, wallpapers and other crazy stuff that you guys are creating!
We loved them and we thought that it would be a good idea to use the official website to highlight some of the coolest things you are doing, and therefore highlight the artists behind them! So basically don’t be surprised if you got an email from me or other official from Ubisoft asking if we could do an article on your work. We’ll also create a new thread on our official forums titled “show me your skills”, so if we haven’t published any of your work, and you think we should have, here is the thread to claim your place! Raymond Holley
By Diego Pacheco, a talented young artist from Guatemela, go on deviantart and follow his work! dyio.deviantart.com
This one’s really got a manga flavor and you’ll see that this young artist from England does not only like anime… He is also gifted as you can tell from viewing his stuff on deviantart here ninjatic.deviantart.com.
Below is an exclusive interview with Game Director, Benoit Lambert, who worked on the combat systems and weapons that will be available in AC2!
- Could you introduce yourself and explain what is your role in Assassin’s Creed 2 team?
My name is Benoit Lambert. I am the Game Director working on Assassin’s Creed 2. I’m working hand in hand with Patrice Desilets, the game Creative Director. My role is to overview the game design and make sure all of our gameplay mechanics respect Patrice’s vision.
My objective with Patrice is to offer an exciting and consistent game experience where we find the proper balance between story, gameplay, character progression – roughly, between emotion and fun. I am also closely working with the mission team so we make sure to properly take advantage of all the features we have worked on, all the variety that we have.
- What kind of weapons were available during the Renaissance? How did you use them when building the game?
The Renaissance was above all a cultural revolution. It took place in Europe roughly between the 14th and 17th century. The Renaissance Period makes the transition between Middle Ages and the Modern era. Numerous cultural aspects of the society were strongly affected such as art, politics, science, economics, religion….
Still as far as weapons are concerned, many of the medieval weapons were still in service during the Renaissance; swords, mace, war hammers, axes, halberds, bows…
Venice, of course, was also a harbor for seagoing exploration and had trade opportunities with the middle and far east so we also kept in mind we could have scimitars and daggers for weapons.
Besides, soldiers & mercenaries at this time were not only carrying weapons but also were wearing a wide range of armor types. We obviously took all this into account during Assassin’s Creed 2’s pre-production phase. This important variety of weapons offers lots of potential when it comes to offering more depth into our fight system. (more…)
We know that you are waiting for new information on Assassin’s Creed 2, and we are really happy to be able to share the first of our six Dev Diaries with you!
In this video an Assassin’s Creed 2 team member and a historian we have worked closely with will give you more details about our main character Ezio Auditore Da Firenze. You’ll be able to learn where he came from, more aobut his back story and well… Watch him in action in a sweet double assassination!
All you have to do is click here and watch the video!
