Among the skins featured in Overwatch’s first Lunar New Year event were Palanquin D.Va and Tal Ana, which generated much hype especially from Overwatch fans in Korea. Palanquin D.Va fused D.Va’s mech with Gama, the Korean rickshaw from medieval era which was available only to the noble class. Ana wore a traditional Korean mask called Tal, and both characters wore Hanbok, the classic Korean attire.

We had a chance to meet Blizzard’s concept artist David Kang, who mainly focuses on weapons but also made certain popular Overwatch skins from Ribbit Lúcio to recent Tal Ana and Palanquin D.Va. He shared with us the general work process as a concept artist, the stories behind Overwatch heroes’ weapons and skins, and what he wishes to create for Overwatch in the coming years.

Would you like to tell us who you are for those who are not familiar with your name?

My name is David Kang, and I’m a concept artist on the Overwatch team. I draw 2D with Photoshop, and it can sometimes be stressful because it’s the first step, but it’s a lot of fun. I was born in LA, but my parents are both from Korea.

What brought you to Korea? Are you having fun here?

It was a nice time to visit Korea because I recently finished the project that I was working on. I also had this plane ticket I bought when a good offer came up awhile ago. I wanted to travel around different places in Korea and see for myself the traditional architecture and the country itself, for reference and inspiration. I went to many places in Korea and saw historic sites, such as the ancient temple and palace. Korean traditional design really fits my style, so I really enjoyed the trip. I wanted to try on a Hanbok, but didn’t have time for that.

That reminds me of your recent creation, Palanquin D.Va. How did you come up with the idea?

I grabbed a lot of Hanbok pictures online as references, and I have also seen my family members wear Hanbok quite frequently when I was a child. I put a lot of effort in making it the right Korean attire, and had my concept art pre-approved by Blizzard Korea before developing it further. D.Va acts a little like the princess figure, so I thought Korean Gama would fit well with her image. I was glad to hear that the Korean community liked it. Also, the traditional Hanbok has a long skirt, but I shortened it for D.Va because she is a mobile character that runs around a lot. I wasn’t entirely sure if that would be okay, but there wasn’t much issue about that, so I think it turned out alright.

Can you tell us about the most challenging ones among the skins you’ve worked on?

I think the most challenging skins are the nationalistic skins, like D.Va’s Palanquin skin. I did a lot of research on the clothing, and I wanted to get it right so that it doesn’t offend anyone in Korea. Also, about Tal, the mask skin for Ana, there was a lot of back and forth with that mask. The idea for the Tal mask came from my friend Hakseon Lee on our team. The hard part of it was that she was a female character, while the most famous Tal mask was the male mask. So I tried to come up with a mixture of the female and male mask. It’s a mixture if you look closely. It’s neither the male mask nor the female mask. I also knew people would be freaked out, especially the non-Koreans. I was also hoping Korean players would actually like it, so I’m pretty satisfied.

Regarding nationalistic skins and how Overwatch tries to represent different cultures around the world, how is Overwatch finding the balance in representing specific culture through certain features but not going too far to be stereotypical?

We try to make sure it’s okay. We send the concepts to our sister companies like Blizzard Korea, Blizzard Taiwan or China. We try to get it approved before it goes into the game, which also involves a lot of the back and forth that I mentioned before. We also have a lot of different nationalities at our company, so whenever we do something related to someone’s nationality in the company, we usually ask them first before it goes to the sister companies like Blizzard Korea.

How does the general work process flow for you, with Photoshop and 2D painting?

When I get a task from the designers, I start “referencing” what they want, gathering pictures online for the concept. Then I try to match the art to what the designers want. For example, if they want tank, I’d gather a lot of tank references and draw the tanks on photoshop. Then it goes back and forth in between the concept artists and the designers, and it changes from time to time until we get a final design. That’s when it actually gets modeled into 3D. After that they put animations to it, and it goes into the game. There’s a whole bunch of changes that happen [throughout the process].

How long does it usually take for a skin to be created?

It takes about 2~3 months for a skin to be made. It also depends on what kind of skin it is. If it’s a legendary skin where there are a lot of changes in the geometry, it takes longer. An epic skin would take maybe 2~3 weeks for the concept, but a legendary skin would take 3~4 months, depending on if we make it in-house or if we outsource, because we also outsource a lot of the skins.

Is there a skin that’s not related to Korea that you’re nonetheless proud of?

I’m really proud of the D.Va and Ana skin, but Winston’s Yeti skin is also something that I really wanted to make. I really wanted to do it ever since Yeti Hunter Mei came out earlier. I think it turned out pretty nice. I also heard it was really popular. I play Tracer a lot, and I designed the Mach T Tracer and T. Racer which have my name on the skin. She has many logos on her body with that skin, and there are 4 logos that say “Kang.” They’re there because I made that skin.

Moving away from the skins, would you like to tell us about the weapons you created, so that when the players are firing the weapon they know David Kang made that weapon?

I made weapons for the cowboy, Soldier: 76, DJ, Ana recently… That’s my main focus as a concept artist. The weapons. I also do skins and maps. One of the maps I worked on was Hollywood. They wanted me to do Hollywood probably because I was born in LA and I know the most about what it looks like. I think they were pleased with the outcome of the map.

Lúcio’s weapon is a rather creative one, especially when it’s compared to the guns and rifles of Soldier: 76, McCree, and Ana. How did your creativity get rolling for that?

I did, again, a lot of thumbnails before going into the details, such as the line drawings. He’s an audio character, so I referenced a lot of speakers and based my thumbnails on musical equipment. When I do the thumbnails the art director usually chooses one of them, and the speaker one was the one he happened to choose, so we went with that one. I agree that it’s one of those guns that you don’t really see in other games, and also the reason why I really like that gun. There is a lot of movement to the weapon, like the woofer vibrating, which makes it feel like it’s alive. It’s pretty cool. I hope people play the character more, although I’m really bad at that character. I feel glad when I see people play Lúcio.

In regards to McCree’s revolver, I noticed that it was a futuristic revolver, but still had classic features, like the wooden parts. Would you like to talk more about that, how you fused classic and future?

The hardest part in making that gun was trying to make it look more futuristic but not look like… I wanted to keep it a revolver, to make it look like a revolver, so I tried my best. I think the little blue lights make it a little more futuristic. I’m pretty satisfied with how it turned out, but it was pretty hard to make.

Matt Boehm said in GDC that the pulse rifle was inspired by American troops’ rifles during WWII, which I suppose is the M1 Garand because of how the clip pops up when you reload.

I got the description of the pulse rifle from the designers. I did some thumbs, and we tried to create something similar to a rail gun, instead of a regular rifle with bullets. I think it’s pretty unique with the moving parts. It was a back and forth issue too, with me, the 3D modeler, and the designers. I think it’s true that it’s inspired by the M1 from World War II. There are also small details, for example the part that looks like a gas pipe, that moves and adds to the weapon’s dynamics. Such details make it look functional and help it look a little bit more futuristic and different from the generic gun you would see in other games.

It’s great that Overwatch is throwing seasonal events with limited-release skins, but when it comes to skins that are not necessarily related to seasonal events, there are not that many other than the ones that come out when a hero is first announced. Would we be able to see more skins that are not specifically season-related?

I don’t think I can say anything about that, but we are aware of what the community wants, and aware of the things they want.

Do seasonal skins ever return after they’re gone?

Um, there’s nothing we can say about that at this time.

There are a lot of fan-made skins for Overwatch, and I saw collaboration skins that had, for example, a hierarch Zenyatta that looks like a Protoss from StarCraft. Would any of those skins come to Overwatch?

I think most of our games have cross-platform skins like that. We currently don’t have any, but I won’t rule out the possibility because our game’s not done yet. We don’t have any plan with that at this moment.

Is there any type of skin that you want to make in the future?

I have a lot of ideas with the skins that I want to make, but we’re not the ones that decide what goes in. It’s mostly the designers that make the decision. If there’s a chance of another Korean skin, however, I would definitely push for that to get in the game. I can maybe make another Hanbok skin for other characters. In Lunar New Year, other characters had Chinese style clothing on them, so if I could maybe make more Hanbok skins for other characters next year it would be nice to represent Korea where we have an important community of Overwatch players. It’s also the land where esports were born.

About representing Korea, some Korean players have been asking for more representation of Korea within the game. Would you like to say anything to them?

I would definitely expect more representation of Korea next year, especially during the lunar new year. I’ll try my best to push for those things as much as I can, because I’m kind of the only Korean in the concept team. I would expect more next year. This year we were really busy, so we tried our best, and next year… Yeah you should expect more.

If you were to portray futuristic Korea in Overwatch, what would it be like?

An urban style map with features of modern Korea would be great, but If I were to work on it, I think I would focus more on the style of traditional Korean architecture [Hanok] because I think it’s really beautiful. I think I would make something like Hanok Village with some technological elements that would make it look futuristic. It is important to make it modern, but I would like to set the main focus on Hanok.

I saw on the internet that you were previously working in a different game studio before coming to Blizzard. Can you tell us how the transition happened? What advice would you give to those that wish to work in Blizzard?

I think I was really lucky in moving to Blizzard. I originally worked in Red 5 Studios, and some of the people there were actually the ones that made Overwatch. Bill Petras and Arnold Tsang worked there for five years on a different game before moving to Blizzard as art directors, and I joined Red 5 Studios after they already left. Then I applied to Blizzard, and I think I got accepted because my art style had commonality.

You have to be skilled and knowledgeable of course, and you also have to be fluent in English. There is also potential problem with visa, because there is a limited number of foreigners that we can hire and issue visa. Sometimes the cap prevents us from bringing the people we want.

Thanks for the interview. Would you like to leave a message to Overwatch fans around the world?

Thanks for playing and loving our game. We will try our best to make more interesting content in the game. Also, please enjoy our esport. I watch a lot of APEX because I like watching Overwatch esports, and it’s a lot of fun. I really enjoyed watching Meta Athena, but their winning streak was stopped recently… I also like Lunatic-Hai, especially Miro.