Hi everyone, Felix here, Concept Artist on Company of Heroes 3. My goal is to share with you the design criteria, process and challenges of concepting the largest unit variety to date in the CoH franchise.  

Early on it became apparent that three criteria where fundamental to creating successful units for our next installment. Additionally, we needed a workflow that allowed us to make the ambitious number of units in CoH 3 while also allowing for efficient implementation.

First, historical accuracy. Through research and reference gathering we are trying to stay as authentic as possible. This is the initial step. We do research pulling from various sources to gather as much reference material as possible. We need to make sure we have something for each unit requested by our game designers and references that also help drive an overall vibe, look and feel of each faction.

Secondly, unit Identification. It is important for the game that each unit be as recognizable as possible. To quickly differentiate each unit’s purpose, we try to make them unique looking and readable from a distance. This is sometimes referred to as “glance value.”

Lastly, distinct faction. Having variety between the armies and not only making them look different, but also feel unique and interesting from one another was another key factor in designing them.

When gathering as many references as possible, the research is driven by our designers, who ahead of concepting visuals have created briefs that include the unit description, their name, what weapon they have, what their abilities are and their gameplay purpose.

Below is a sample of some of the references that were gathered for the Italian units.
After getting the references we create a full faction using small thumbnails. This step helps ensure that each unit has distinctive characteristics. The goal is to help the player see which units are on the battlefield from a distance, but also in the middle of the action.
Once the quick thumbnails have been approved by Design and our Art Director we create detailed concepts of each unit and provide the references along with the detailed concept. These are sent to be modeled and implemented in game.

Below are examples of the completed unit sheets for the British faction and Italian units.

Below is an example of an historical inaccuracy. The reason is that the red cross is a protected logo and needs to be kept out for legal and ethical reasons.

Our community’s passion on this subject is very much appreciated. We like to hear your feedback. Thank you for helping us fix errors and omissions! Sometimes it can be tricky, but our intention is always to find the best compromise between unit identification, distinctive factions, and historical accuracy. Take care everyone, much thanks for your support and care for this franchise!  - Felix

Really cool Felix! Thanks for sharing -- some wonderful eye-candy from the studio's artists.

Out of curiosity, will there be winter/summer uniforms similar to CoH2? And will you also post the Unit Sheets for the US and Axis forces upon completion?

edit ~ I understand that the Germans are still a work-in-progress; but from what I see -- there are no Tank Crews with their distinct wool black wrapover jackets featured.

I'd think their Totenkopf emblems wouldn't be shown; but surely the jackets are no issues? For what it's worth,any member of the German Panzer or tank hunters wore black wrapover jackets; while assault gun/self-propelled artillery wore a similar jacket in field gray colour.

It's great to see the process of research going into the art of this game. However, there are things that have rung bells to me as I've seen them. I wondered if you'd seen my response to the last mood wall at the end of one of your earlier threads here, particularly regarding anacronisitic photographs and the unit design for the Foot Guards? https://community.companyofheroes.com/coh-franchise/company-of-heroes-3/forums/1-general-discussion/threads/1551-company-of-heroes-3-art-vision-life-at-war-and-cinematic-realism?page=2#post-8979

  When I get the chance, I'll definitely look over the ones from this thread too, as I'm quite passionate about uniforms and I'm keen that one of my favourite game franchises do justice to them and their authenticity.

Ok, I've had a look at the British uniforms on your unit cards and, though they look lovely, I do have some comments.

Commander

  This chap looks nice but does he have an infantry frontline role?  If he does, I would personally suggest you give him an infantry regiment beret, rather than the one he's wearing which is the Royal Tank Regiment. (Almost all the officers in your research from the art-vision thread are tank officers with Royal Tank Regiment berets. Montgomery is the only infantry officer that wears one because it was a gift and, being the highest ranking officer in the field, he can get away with it).

  Personally, though, I'd just swap the beret with a peaked cap if you want to keep the regiment more ambiguous. 

  S.A.S

   The SAS seem to be almost entirely based on this photograph colourised by Paul Reynolds here (https://www.thesun.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/nintchdbpict000329903408.jpg?w=1880). This is NOT an SAS soldier; he's a British Commando wearing a green beret with the gold-thread version of the Commando patch and a green Commando pullover, teaching U.S. Rangers (most likely in England in the run-up to D-Day). 

  The SAS wore a tan beret featuring the SAS patch like this (https://www.epicmilitaria.com/media/catalog/product/cache/634ea6c23db42e1680ad89f3b6a71733/1/4/1490-british-army-sas-beret-with-badge-1.jpg), although in Africa they mostly wore the Arab Keffiyeh. I doubt they wore the Green commando pull-over (which is not a V-neck, by the way) much in Italy, though I suppose it's not wholly impossible. They definitely didn't wear them in Africa, however.

  If you change the Guards correctly, then you can make the SAS distinctive enough with their tan beret (for Italy) or Keffiyeh (for Africa).

  Elite Guard

  I've mentioned this all before in a previous thread but berets, at this point of the war, were generally worn by officers, tankers and special forces. The Guards Division, while highly renowned, are still just infantry regiments. I love that they're in the game, but please get rid of their beret (which is the incorrect colour anyway) and replace it with the Mk.II helmet. Please also get rid of their sidearm and their scarfs; The blue contrast was quite jarring to see in-game and, from what I could tell, their whole appearance is based on a drawing of a Scottish officer in the book Men-at-Arms The British Army 1939-1945 (2). If I'm wrong, please do tell us where those blue scarfs came from.

  If you're looking for 'glance value', I suggest you give them camouflage netting on their helmets, maybe the British Army issue leather jerkin as well and put either the Coldstream Guard Star or the Guards 'Grenade' as their interface insignia.

  Sniper

    I have no idea to what extent that Denison suit existed before D-Day, so I'll just say that the Sniper looks very cool. However, I think the pouches on his webbing are from the First World War. I'd recommend you just give him the standard infantry webbing, or a bandolier.

    LMG Crew/Bren Gun

 Again, we have an infantry soldier wearing a beret (A tank regiment beret, no less). They should just be wearing a Mk. II helmet. Furthermore, I've noticed from your previous art research wall that the grenades on his strap (which look like American phosphorus/smoke grenades) are based on a photograph taken in the mid-1960s (During the Aden Emergency, roughly 20 years after the events of these game). The British did not even have smoke-type grenades until the No.77 Phosphorus Grenade in 1943, which do not resemble their American counterparts.

  Jeep Crew:

  Once again, unless the jeep crewman is an officer or part of a special forces unit, I really think he should just wear a Mk.II helmet.

  Relic, I can't overstate how important it is to the authentic depiction of British forces that you get the berets right. The only ones I consider to be correct are the Glider Commandos (who look excellent, by the way) and the tanker. Furthermore, the image of the standard soldier wearing a beret in combat is very much one associated with the Cold War. In WW2, berets were worn by a very specific set of units, which I've mentioned further up.

  Furthermore, please be careful about your sources! I saw on your art-vision card from your previous thread there were various of images from highly unreliable sources, such as images from EA's Battlefield V (which was notoriously inaccurate in its depiction of British uniforms) and also the possible misinterpretation of other sources (such as that 1960s photograph, using tank officers to design an infantry officer and basing an entire design of a unit on a single photograph, like the SAS or the Guards. Even your research into the Sikh soldier had a picture of a soldier from the Free Indian Legion, which fought for Germany!)

  I realise you have to account for what you call the 'glance value', but there is a danger of depicting characters in a way that represents those units in name only. 

Some positive comments though:

    Division Patch

   Nice touch with the epaulettes. Thanks to the Hollywood depiction of the British wartime contribution largely being set largely in Europe, it's a little known fact that the division patch was indeed worn on the shoulder epaulette when serving in Italy (unlike Europe when it was worn on the shoulder sleeve).

  Pouches

  I do like the pouches and webbing on many of them. You can tell what gun they use by what they're wearing, such as the Guards who have Thompson pouches or the LMG crew with the Bren gun pouch.

  Rifleman/Tommies

  Love the default soldiers as well as the HMG crew. Sometimes less is better when depicting soldiers in uniform and they look just as I would expect them to. I hope they'll wear shorts for their North Africa version!

  Medic

  I fully understand the reason why the medic's colours are reversed and it doesn't bother me in the slightest. The Medic looks great.

  (Last thing I'd say on a very very minor point; unlike the Americans, privates did not wear rank insignia.  A single chevron in the UK indicated a Lance Corporal. You'd probably only have one or two Lance Corporals in a squad/section, so they don't all need to have one.)

  Thanks again for the transparency on your development, particularly in your art direction. It's very exciting to see concepts for Italian soldiers as well.

This looks really cool. Any word on what the ANZAC, Ghurka, Canadian, and other "Auxilliary" troops will look like?

Wow @Felix_Re ,

@TartanClad That is an impressive breakdown you know your history. Relic... +1 what he said. Lol.

I understand they want to keep it realistic but c'mon do Italians have to have feathers on their helmets. What Italian military uniform designer even back then thought feathers were a good look. It looks so silly IMHO. The flamethrower Italian with gasmask it's like imagine wearing that thing during a chaotic real life battle what an awful real world design.  The German paratrooper Italian Folgore looked really good to me perhaps because it's closest to modern day soldier but Tartan was that ammo clips pouches on front and back as form of armor? I guess for fellow soldiers to grab off your back? It appears to be unreachable unless removed. No wonder Italians lost defending their own country running around with feathers or limited view gasmasks and ammo packs on back unobtainable to soldier.

I also thought the artwork actually makes the uniforms look way better than they actually did in side comparisons. The real photos the uniforms look raggedy and unimpressive but the artwork makes them look more full and better looking.

Keep up the good work.

- Art of War

I want to help on the concept of the italians, there are several inaccuracies.

DeFly wrote:

I want to help on the concept of the italians, there are several inaccuracies.

  I appreciate that there are other people here dedicated to authenticity and correcting research. (Someone who's even more detailed than I am!)

The help of our mates will help a lot in the design of the models of each unit. I think Devs should providing more units (that are allowed to be disclosed) an image of those small thumbnails wall, imo.