Roman Hladik, Lead Artist at 2K Czech, shows off some of the Mafia II concept art and gives us some insight into what went on behind the scenes to create each design.

This is a moodboard of Joe Barbaro, Vito’s best friend. A moodboard like this isn’t necessarily taken from a scene in the game, it is created to communicate Joe’s personality to everyone on the Mafia team – a picture speaks a thousand words. Here we see that Joe is a gregarious young gangster enjoying his life of dirty money. The girl on Joe’s lap definitely isn’t his girlfriend (if you get my meaning). The author of this sketch is Jiri Svetinsky, one of our character artists.

Another moodboard of Joe by Jiri. This is Joe’s flat in Little Italy, he likes to party and keep his neighbours up all night. Joe himself sleeps through the day, usually with some of his “girlfriends”. Maybe this scene is the morning after the night shown in the first sketch?

Source: 2kgames