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Guild Wars 2's Asura Week continues with a look at environmental concepts
Asura Week continues today with another blog entry from ArenaNet's Matt Barrett. While yesterday's update looked at conceptualizing the floppy-earred cutelings themselves, today's blurb is all about their environmental art. Asuran design is heavily influenced by ancient Hindu architecture and features "massive stone columns, intricate, masterful carvings, and a sense of being inside a mountain," Barrett explains, before going on to share several thumbnail sketches and designs for more specific in-game props. While most of Barrett's showcase is in black and white, he does do color pieces as well, primarily toward the beginning of the conceptual process. After that, he says, "it's much more economical to explore designs in grayscale." So what is it that makes Asura tick, according to the ArenaNet's art department? They're "mad with ambition to harness the power of the planet, and they have all the best tools with which to do it." On a lighter note, today's update also features an Asura advice column filled to the brim with pearls of wisdom about everything from lemonade turrets to grawl-infested cabbage crops. Head to the official Guild Wars 2 website for the full Asura experience.
Digital arts workshop to feature Guild Wars artists
Guild Wars fans and aspiring game art designers will be descending on Bellevue, WA at the end of the month to attend FUTUREPOLY's sold-out digital arts workshop. FUTUREPOLY focuses specifically on video game development and offers a series of regular classes ranging in length from one to six months, but this is their first one-time workshop, and was obviously a big hit. The workshop will be five hours long, and feature demonstrations from the regular instructors, some of the top names in the field: Daniel Dociu, Chief Art Director at NCsoft North America (currently focusing on Guild Wars 2.) Jaime Jones, digital artist for titles such as Halo, Guild Wars, Wizards of the Coast and many more. Kekai Kotaki, lead concept artist for Guild Wars 2. Richard Anderson, ArenaNet artist for the past seven years, currently creating cinematic illustrations for Guild Wars 2 Matthew Barrett, creature and environment concept artist Horia Dociu, cinematic director for Guild Wars 2. The artists will present a start-to-finish demonstration of the creation process and discuss their technique. More information about the event as well as FUTUREPOLY's regular course schedules can be found here.
