Blood: Behind The Scenes

[Fil]

I figured it might be interesting to collect and preserve some behind the scenes, a lot of it resurrected from Final Caleb's old Posty thread, along with some new stuff. Mostly me geeking out over Kevin Kilstrom's work, but feel free to add to it:

So first, some

CONCEPT ART
============

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About this last one Kilstrom had to say:

"This was the first sketch I did at #monolith after I got my first #wacom tablet. Blood was the first game I worked on and had a blast making!"

Technically, I suppose these aren't really 'concept art' per se, as they don't really show off a design from different angles, but was also 1996 so who cares. Might be the term wasn't even invented yet.

But let's go ahead and assume they were, so Kilstrom could build these:

THE STOP MOTION PUPPETS
=======================

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Caleb's first birth:

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Creating the gargoyle:

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This is a shot of the gargoyle being redone with a new body and better skeleton. He was the first model I made for the game and the initial skeleton didn't hold up that well. The more models I created, the more I learned about what works and what doesn't. So I went back and redid him. You can also see the newly cast body of the hell hound (without legs), lying next to him.

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PART 2 - pending

[Fil]

And of course, the Dark God himself

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Now the following pictures might be upsetting to some users, so view at your own risk!

Recently Kevin has been unearthing some of the puppets, and their current-state is not always pretty:

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The Blood Gargoyle
This was the first character I made (and then remade) for Blood. He was very fun to animate and it was quite the learning experience. Unfortunately, after 20 some years, he is falling apart.

There was a time, many moons ago, when video games were made with the help of Polaroid cameras, video cameras, acrylic paint, liquid and foam latex, and clay. Good times!

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I still live...again.

The Caleb model from Blood is one of the few that is holding up and not disintegrating...although he's not really flexible anymore.

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Crudux Cruo!

The cultist from Blood. He's still quite posable because deep down...he's secretly a Power Ranger. Once I had the ability to get characters into the game, I started looking for any opportunity to get the models built as fast as possible. I ran over to Toys R Us (RIP) and grabbed a couple Red Rangers that looked like they had enough joints to get the movement I wanted.
Another cool thing about the cultist character was the ability to do pallette swaps on the robe so we got a lot of mileage out of this one dude.

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The Blood Eel

I really enjoyed sculpting and painting the eel. Unfortunately, he gets shrunk down so tiny in the game that much of the details are lost.

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The Blood Hellhound
The idea for this guy was as simple as a skinless dog that breathes fire. I wanted a beefy creature so I loosely based the design on the demon dogs in the original Ghostbusters (just without skin). It was fun animating a four legged monster.

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Blood Cerberus
It was probably Nick's idea to have Cerberus as a boss. We cut him down from the traditional three heads to two which made animating him much easier but you still had to kill both heads to beat him so he had a lot more animation frames than the average character. He was fun to make and is still holding up relatively well for being so old (just like me)!

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Butcher Zombie from Blood

Time has taken its toll on this guy. He lost one hand and is about ready to lose the other. I guess that's probably a common problem with zombies...you start to rot and body parts start falling off.

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Blood Gillbeast

Just get this guy out of the water and then he's easy to beat.

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The Blood Voodoo Doll

Who would you like to use this on?

This was a fun/funny weapon to use in multiplayer!

SOURCES
========
Final Caleb
Willis
The Blood Wiki
Every website Kevin Kilstrom has ever visited and I could stalk him

[Fil]

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Some earlier iterations of the logo

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Early 3D renders of the tommy gun and the spear gun. I always just assumed they would use toys and photographs for those, but apparently that wasn't always the case.

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[Dzierzan]

Shadow Gun (or maybe Dark Gun) from Alpha and its firing animation. The leaked Alpha has missing frames for this weapon.





The sprites can be seen in the The Spriting Dark Carnival thread.

[Fil]

Nice! I love the Alpha stuff.

Legend has it that the spidermodel has broken long ago, but I just noticed the picture has Fear in the background.

[Dzierzan]

There's also something interesting regarding the Tommy gun. Kevin answered once to someone (I forgot who) that Tommy gun was actually a real gun and that it was rented. However if you deeply compare test render of Thompson and its final form, you can see those are exactly the same 3D models. So maybe they rented the guy and made 3D model according to that gun.

Also wish Kevin would show pictures of Napalm Launcher and Life Leech. I am sure both were done by him as well (at least the Leech).

[Fil]

I asked him to unearth everything he might still have.

He stopped replying though. It's possible I came on too strong. Might be because I also asked for a few hairs, a vial of his Blood, and asked if he could include me in his will.

[Fil]

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Blood Beast Mode!

The original plan was to have the ability to transform into this monster when your Bloodlust meter reached a certain point. You would be stronger and faster than normal and only have your claws as weapons. Sorta like the Hulk, I suppose. Then, as your killing spree came to an end, you would transform back into the regular Caleb.

I built a monster claw to use for the player view weapon but that has since disintegrated.

I used to love battling these guys in the Plasma Pack levels. They have a big long-range STOMP attack that would damage you if you were in their sight.

[Dzierzan]

I pulled this guy out of storage today. He's not looking too hot (he's really starting to fall apart). I think he's pushing 22 years old. Tchernobog stop-motion puppet from Blood.

[Umnir]

I pulled this guy out of storage today. He's not looking too hot (he's really starting to fall apart). I think he's pushing 22 years old. Tchernobog stop-motion puppet from Blood.

These are like holy relics that should be placed under a glass dome in some temple.

[Fil]

And finally, we see the Axe zombie!

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kevinkilstrom
The Axe Zombie from Blood

The original design for the zombie was much more skeletal and decayed but I remember George B from 3DRealms suggesting that it be more muscular and threatening so I changed him up. I also ended up using a Power Ranger as the base figure (just like the cultist). I initially was not a fan of the idea of a muscular zombie but I think it's important to keep an open mind about different ideas especially when you are working with other folks. Looking back, I think he turned out to be pretty cool.

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[Tekedon]

There's also something interesting regarding the Tommy gun. Kevin answered once to someone (I forgot who) that Tommy gun was actually a real gun and that it was rented. However if you deeply compare test render of Thompson and its final form, you can see those are exactly the same 3D models. So maybe they rented the guy and made 3D model according to that gun.

Also wish Kevin would show pictures of Napalm Launcher and Life Leech. I am sure both were done by him as well (at least the Leech).

That was me. He replied on a post on Facebook I think and he said they rented a real tommy gun and it was so cool. Shotgun was supposedly also a real gun he seemed to remember, pitchfork was also real. I also found the tommygun answer a bit strange, I think it looks like a 3d-model. Maybe he remembered wrong, I would not blame him.

[Fil]

Kevin posted a few new ones:

[Dzierzan]

The spider model is really in a good shape (no pun intended) considering how bad others look.

[Lizzieborden]

Yeah that spider is creepy. Then again, I'm an arachnophobe