2011-01-25 Interview: Doug Chaffee [BattleCorps Exclusive]

[roosterboy]

Read answers from artist Doug Chaffee

Longtime BattleTech illustrator Doug Chaffee answers a few questions for BattleCorps.com.

[Rim Worlder]

very disappointing in how brief it was.

would like to have seen questions / answers re;

early influences and art direction.  if/how they might have changed to current and with different Art Directors over the years.

Style and composition evolving over several TROs / Source books.

do artists ever get involved in the design / fluff process or do they just get the final stats and have to work in with those.

Are designs purely the artist's own creation or do some designers already have their own vision of the mech / vehicle / asf  that they try to work with the artist to get it into print.

[Daishi411]

i'm really not into these interviews, they lack any interesting info, and i fell like you could have interviewed any btech fan and stuch chaffee's or any other person's name on and it wouldn't change. if these are going to be done it seems like they should start to be done right, and get some more unknown info out of the people developing btech products, instead of the usual Q: what is it about btech you like so much A:big stompy robots!

[DarkISI]

There is only so much you can ask without risking an NDA breach.

Don't see these interviews as a way to get information about BT itself, but rather as a way to get to know the people working on it.

[Daishi411]

that's exactly what i'm suggesting, i don't want btech secrets and i never said i did, so i'm not sure where you got that idea from, but i do want to know who the people are that are making the products. take your interview for example, i don't know you any better than i did before, since i already knew your position, and that you're a btech fan, and i can infer you like BA cause of your avatars. so i literally learned nothing at all, that's all i'm saying 

[DarkISI]

Yeah, you are right about that. If you are active in the forums, you should know us well enough. So the interviews really aren't that useful for you. But people not very active here don't know much and that way they get the change to find out a few things.
Not very much, there is only so much stuff you can put in there, but at least a bit :)

[Tizona]

I also find the interviews somehow lacking. Specifically, Chaffee's looks like a constatation of why he's a graphical artist and not a writer :P

I'd like to read more about the kind of things already mentioned. Not about current or future products, but how is like the work they usually do, or why some past product X was so gratifying to work in, or the opposite.

[DarkISI]

That's actually a good idea. Had I thought of it, I would have just put answers to them in my interview, even with them not being asked. :)