Chris Lie is Confiction Labs’ Art Director and visionary behind RIFTSTORM, the Occultical universe, and XPSR-24. A 20-year entertainment industry veteran, Chris has worked as a concept artist and illustrator on globally renowned comics, films, and games such as Transformers, Street Fighter, GI Joe, Marvel Ultimate Alliance 2, League of Legends, Smite, Legends of Runeterra under Caravan Studio. He joined Confiction Labs after seeing the potential of Collaborative Entertainment and how it can transform the entertainment industry and spur creativity within the art world.
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From Concept to Creation
Chris started his career as a comic artist creating art for Transformers, G.I. Joe, and Dungeons & Dragons. Eventually, he formed his own company and took on Hasbro as one of his earliest clients, where he was tasked with helping design their Transformers toy line. Shortly after, Chris transitioned to the gaming industry, where he worked on concept art and illustrations for games such as Legends of Norrath, Magic: the Gathering – Tactics and Warhammer 40K.
In 2015, Chris gained the opportunity to apply his creative efforts in the film industry. Chris’s work as a concept artist in films includes The Old Guard, Cinderella, Shazam: Fury of the Gods, and Monkey Man. During this period, Chris’s appreciation for the creative process deepened.
“One of the proudest moments I had in film was working on Monkey Man. We created the concept art for the film; it was my first time to storyboard the entire movie. When I saw it in the cinema four years later, I was incredibly proud of the work we had accomplished,” said Chris.
Seeing his idea fully executed on the big screen was a tremendously rewarding experience for Chris. It was a feeling that he wanted every creative person in the world to experience at least once.
Joining Confiction Labs
Arief and Igor approached him in 2022 with the idea of creating a new game with a new company, using emerging technologies to create something players haven’t seen before. The opportunity to innovate intrigued him, and together they began visualizing what would eventually become RIFTSTORM and the Occultical world. The vision Arief and Igor laid out for the company’s concept of Collaborative Entertainment reminded Chris of that feeling when he first saw his concept art on the big screen and his desire to share the feeling with the world.
Chris believes that Collaborative Entertainment allows every person to share their ideas and vision to become more involved in the creative process. For many years, fine art was ultra-exclusive; digital art has made the craft more accessible to a broader audience. Today, technology has democratized the creation process to enable more people to participate.
Technology has the potential to disrupt a stagnating entertainment industry that is resistant to new creative ideas and concepts. This status quo limits the opportunities for individuals to follow their creative dreams and create and publish original works. Many new ideas can only be realized if they are lucky enough to be picked up by smaller, independent studios. Chris hopes that all forms of entertainment see the opportunity in Collaborative Entertainment to bring their fans into the creative process in a meaningful way.
“Collaborative Entertainment can transform how the entertainment industry works. People from all over the world can contribute ideas and concepts to the IPs they love, to own part of what they create, and even get paid for it,” said Chris Lie. Most importantly, this represents the opportunity to allow every single member of the community to feel that creative pride when they see their idea brought to life.
Finding an Art Style for XPSR-24
As the Art Director for Confiction Labs, Chris has personally overseen every aspect of the Occultical NFT collection XPSR-24 artwork. Chris and his art team have spent two years in the ideation and exploration stage before eventually settling on the right visual aesthetic for the project. Chris wanted to push the boundaries of what was expected from the community about an NFT release.
The team developed a unique art style called Urban Neo-Expressionism, inspired by the late modern neo-expressionist works of wildly expressive artists like Jean-Michel Basquiat but layering it with an urban style inspired by street culture, bringing it closer to the 21st century and aligning that with the visual styles of RIFTSTORM and the Occultical world where everything may contain a double meaning or hidden message.
Chris and his team invested a lot of time into the collection’s art style because in their view, to stand out against projects relying on simple derivative artworks, the artwork to speak to the holders on a deeper level, to build a connection. They feel that Urban Neo-Expressionism closely reflects the Web3 counter-culture and is also a testament to Web3’s potential of pushing art forward by providing artists with more platforms and entry points into the industry. Overall, the XPSR artwork hopes to mirror the Web3 community’s hopes and goals.
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