A brief chat with Guild Wars' chief art director

While Guild Wars has some detractors ("it's not a real MMO", they say) there are a few incontrovertible facts about the game. It's free, it's fast, and it's absolutely gorgeous. The beautiful imagery that we get to enjoy in Arena.net's Tyria stems first and formost from the fabulous art used the series; graphical trickery isn't behind those amazing screenshots. We can blame that fantastic imagery, then, on Guild Wars' art director, Daniel Dociu. Dociu is the subject of a recent interview with the arts and architecture site BLDG BLOG. The site's Geoff Manaugh sat down with the artist for a chat about his work, including his inspirations, background, and how the art informs the game.

Daniel offers, interestingly, that he makes it a point to draw his inspiration from anywhere but videogames. The broad input he gets ("we need a castle here") allows him the opportunity to draw from all kinds of different places when doing his work. He states that he primarily draws from architecture, though he's reluctant to shoose any one style or era. "Rather, I just sort of store in my memory everything that has ever made an impression on me, and I let it simmer there and blend with everything else. Eventually some things will resurface and come back, depending on the particular assignment I'm working on." Click through to the article to read the interview or to see more of Daniel's amazing work. If you're intrigued, more of this style of art is available in this Flickr feed or via our recent discussion of Guild Wars' art.

[Via Rock, Paper, Shotgun]