Senior artist Patrick Ho walks us through the process of creating player respawn tubes for SOE’s upcoming shooter MMO PlanetSide 2.

In PlanetSide 2, players will vie for control of territories across a large open world. Players will probably die a lot over the course of the game, so the respawn chambers they reappear in better look good. SOE senior artist Patrick Ho walks us through the process of conceptualizing these chambers in the video below.

Five Questions with artist Patrick Ho:

What are you drawing?
I'm creating a concept paint over for the "Player Respawn Tube." The Player Respawn Tube is where players are rematerialized after confirmed KIA status through the use of nanite rebirthing technology. I design all of the surface detail for this object including color, materials, and effects. This serves as reference when our other artists textures the actual model.

How long did this actually take you?
Two days.

How did you get your job?
I started my career as a freelance illustrator and graphic designer after graduating San Jose State University back in 1989. I freelanced for just over ten years and it was a tough gig. It got to a point where I really needed a steady income, so I landed a job with a start up game company and for the next three years transitioned from traditional media to digital. I jumped over to SOE to be a character artist in 2000. To complement my skills as a concept and texture artist, they trained me in Maya to build character models and I've been doing it ever since.

What do you use as inspiration while drawing?
Definitely toys, comic books, movies, and other artists (both in and out of our industry). But my biggest inspiration comes from almost everything Japanese. They really have a great design sense. When I was in high school, comic book artist John Byrne was a major influence on me during his X-men and Fantastic Four days. Today there are so many talented artists both old and new, famous and not, it’s hard to say. I'd probably have to go with Japanese artists like Katsuya Terada and Takayumi Takeya that stand out in my mind as current favorites.

Do you listen to anything while drawing?
Not as often as one would think, but I do. I'm an old school R&B guy, so my musical tastes lean towards bands like Earth, Wind, & Fire. I also listen to Jazz and House.