As part of my long-running art feature on The Old Site, I ran a gallery in 2019 about Tankhead, the personal project of id Software artist Emerson Tung (Twitter, Instagram).
Tankhead's premise was simple: what if the vehicles and vessels of the Second World War--battleships, tanks, bombers--were actually huge mechs? The answer was: they would look cool as hell.
Now in 2023, having slowly picked up its own fanbase over the years, Tankhead is ready to make the jump off the screen and onto the shelf, with book publishers Udon announcing that they're releasing a 230-page art book next year (though it's already available to order now) based on the property.
Given I love the designs so much, and with the book announcement coinciding with the launch of this website, I figured Tankhead would be the ideal subject for the debut of a new regular feature here on Aftermath, Platform, where I just...keep looking at cool shit that video game artists are making, and showing it off, only now with interviews as well, because why not.
Luke Plunkett: Can you tell us a little about yourself and what you do for a living?
Emerson Tung: My name is Emerson Tung, and I'm a concept artist working in the entertainment industry. I'm currently the lead concept artist at id Software. I've worked on games such as DOOM (2016) and DOOM Eternal and franchises such as Warhammer 40K, Warmachines and Transformers.
LP: When did you first start working on tankhead stuff? And when did you realise, holy shit, I might actually be able to do stuff (like release a book) about it?
ET: I drew the first ever tankhead back in 2014, at a bar in San Francisco during a "drink and draw" event. I didn't really think much of the drawing at the time, I just suddenly had the idea of drawing a robot with a tank turret for a head. Within that year, I did four tankhead drawings and thought it could be a mini side project I worked on for fun from time to time. It wasn't until 2017, when I had about ten designs done that I decided to start taking the project a little more seriously. The final book ended up having about 100+ tankhead designs.
LP: [Eds note: every image in this post is a page or poster from the book]
LP: What are the main creative inspirations behind the idea and designs?
ET: Besides the obvious military vehicles and historical references, I was also inspired by my favorite shows and games: Gundam 08th MS Team, Advance Wars, Metal Slug, Zoids and Armored Core, just to name a few.
LP: Why did you opt for a fictional universe when the designs were so clearly based on historical vehicles?
ET: We went this route because we wanted to have more creative freedom when building out the world. The tankheads, while having clear real-life inspirations and references, are themselves fantastical, and we (Tankhead's book is a collaboration between myself and writer Tim Popelier) found it befitting to give them an equally fantastical world to live in. While some of the locations and lore were inspired by their real-life counterparts, just like the tankheads, we've re-imagined them in a way that would fit the mechs: awesome locations, megastructures and over-the-top technology that aren't really present in the real world.
LP: How long has it taken to put the book together?
ET: Almost a decade, which is way longer than what I expected. I thought it would take about seven years, tops. Looking back now though, I think it would've taken way longer if Tim hadn't joined me as a writer on this project. I'm eternally grateful for him taking a chance and deciding to go on this Tankhead journey with me.
LP: Do you have any plans (or at least hopes) for anything more with this universe? Action figures, an animated series, board games, video games?
ET: I don't want to say too much as I don't want to count my chickens before they hatch, but I've been working with some manufacturers on action figures for a bit now. We're also in really, really, really early stages of developing a tabletop board game. Not sure if anything will come out of it yet, but what we have so far has a lot of potential to be a really cool one.
