The next piece of art you’re greeted with is none other than an under-construction power armor hung up in a garage with the series’ other iconic character sitting nearby: Dogmeat. But it’s made to be ugly, made to tell the story of the Wasteland, made to depict the junkyard adaptations that man has had to build in order to survive. Don’t get me wrong, there’s beauty in power armor. It conveys the cleaned-up refinements that go into the crafting of such a hunk of junk-looking suit of armor. The other half shows the fine grid lines that depict the bumpy surfaces and curvatures making up the power armor’s helmet alone, which only hints at the rest of the suit. Half of the power armor is made with brushstrokes. The cover also conveys the breadth of tools used in Fallout’s artistry. You have to lock the world out in order to go out into the world. But the fact that you’re willing to step inside that steel monstrosity makes others imminently aware that you do not intend to go down without a fight. Everything from Mother Nature to human nature wants you dead. The world is hostile in every way imaginable. The cover to the Art of Fallout 4 conveys this message in a single image: That of the iconic power armor helmet. The textures are wracked with radiation storms, sunscorched and slipshod, or shot up and ran down. Fallout’s artists have to first craft something brand new, then deconstruct it to look either slapdashed together or over 200 years old. In fact, crafting new-looking things is easy compared to what Fallout’s artists do.

With as trashed as the Wasteland can appear, there’s an art to its construction.

Fallout 4 art and art