Space Chickens!

When I first met Dan White and Dan Norton, the brains behind Filament Games, Space Rustlers was just a few paragraphs of text in a wiki. The Dans knew what they wanted in general, but hadn't yet hammered out the specifics.

At our initial meeting, I asked them to explain the concept of the game, and they said, "in a nutshell...space chickens!" I immediately pictured chickens (arguably, not the brainiest of creatures) looking pathetic and helpless in hi-tech spacesuits. The potential for comedy was immediate and obvious. I scribbled pages and pages of space chickens, starting with a fairly realistic look but soon transitioning to a sillier, more whimsical feel...a feel that soon spread throughout the artwork, infecting even the villainous rustlers. Prototype Pete, the sinister robot, ended up getting noodle-like arms and legs with over-sized gloves and boots. And then there's Tin-Nose Tom, whose nose got shot off in the war. And, of course, everyone's favorite chicken rustler extraordinaire, the Space Weasel.

When the Dans saw my concepts, they burst out laughing...which was, I think, the finest compliment they could have paid me.