Arnold Ayala

Arnold Ayala was credited for "Initial Concept Art," "Texture & Lighting," and "Concept Art" in Legacy of Kain: Soul Reaver.^{[Soul Reaver]} He worked for Crystal Dynamics. Ayala, Amy Hennig, and Seth Carus were the three individuals recognized for creating the character of Raziel.

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Ayala contributed to Crystal Dynamics' Pandemonium! from 1995–96.^[1]^[2] In 1997, he joined Hennig and Carus as the concept artist on the Shifter project, which developed into Soul Reaver.

He wrote of his role in the team:^[2]

Created the overall vision for the “Soul Reaver” project. Responsible for creating most of the characters (as well as the main character), backgrounds and environment concepts. Develop the production pipeline for character creation and diffuse maps on environments. Supervised and tutored the Art team. Liaison between the Art team and the Programming department regarding proprietary tool issues. Built 3D characters and levels by using 3D Studio and 3D Max. Textures were created in Fractal Paint and PhotoShop.

―Arnold Ayala^[2]

According to Hennig, "Raziel evolved through a close internal collaboration between me, Seth Carus (a fellow designer), and Arnold Ayala (the concept artist). We went through many, many iterations of character design before we were able to collectively stand back and say, "yep, that's him."

Other characters conceptualized by Ayala included Kain, Melchiah, Turel, Zephon, the Melchahim, the Rahabim, the vampire hunters, and a variety of cut enemies.^[3]^[4] Brett Hartshorn described Melchiah as "Arnold's Skinner Boss."^[5] Ayala also designed the Human Citadel and its Water Glyph Altar, Zephon's lair in the Silenced Cathedral, and the cut Undercity.^[4]^[6]^[7]

After Soul Reaver, Ayala moved to Shaba Games and a succession of other studios, notably playing a part in Bungie's Halo 3 and 2K Marin's BioShock 2.^[1]

In 2009, Ayala uploaded "an accumulation of art content from previous projects since 1994" to a WordPress portfolio, including concept art from Soul Reaver.^[2]^[8]