Art of Blizzard Entertainment gallery opening snapshot tour
On Saturday, Jan. 12, I was fortunate enough to attend a party Blizzard threw for its book, The Art of Blizzard Entertainment, and the gallery showcasing it. While the book will not be released until Feb. 12, attendees were able to purchase it and have it signed by many Blizzard artists, including Chris Metzen (senior vice president of story and franchise development) and Nick Carpenter (vice president of art and cinematic development).
Gallery Nucleus, located in Alhambra, CA, hosted the party and will be showing the gallery of prints -- all from the book -- until Feb 3. The party included live demonstrations of artists, a raffle, a scavenger hunt, as well as the signings of the books and a selection of prints that could also be purchased. Libations were provided in the forms of a health potion (nonalcoholic fruit punch), a mana potion (vodka and some tasty blue stuff), as well as some beer and other drinks. Darkmoon Donuts -- small and chocolate covered -- were the food items available.
The gallery was in a space big enough to hold the Blizzard artwork on display, but too small to accommodate the large crowd that showed up to ooh and ahh over the prints and the book. The room was packed to capacity, with most of it being taken up by the signing line. There was also a line waiting to get inside that went down the block, around the corner and down the street ... in the cold.
Yeah, yeah, you people who have winter weather will laugh, but we Southern Californians find 44° F about 30 degrees less than the way we like it. It's quite telling that so many people were willing to wait outside in that weather. (There was wind, too. Brrr.) Unfortunately, I do think the cold kept the cosplay away.
I was able to peruse Art of Blizzard Entertainment, and found it much more tempting to my pocketbook than I originally thought it would be. It's not just a vast collection of art over the years and across the game titles. Sam Didier (senior art director), Chris Metzen and Nick Carpenter all comment throughout the book -- with the dialog being printed next to the picture being discussed. It's like a DVD extra, only printed. If you have any question that these people love what they do, reading them geek-out over their own art will win you over. There is also a section dedicated to games that never were, showing off their respective concept art.
Enough fangirl-noise from me. The snapshots of the gallery are below, and stay tuned for my interview with Nick Carpenter, coming soon.
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