A Picture Tells A Thousand Words (A Shared Topic Post)

Today’s post is a Blog Azeroth Shared Topic for July 26-31. Nuniel, from the very art-filled and aptly-named blog “The Rambling Draenei Death Knight”, asked us to share a screenshot, fan art, or handmade drawing, and then tell us about it and how it makes us feel. I’ve already done one post on this, focusing on screenshots. Today, I will be looking at art that WoW players have made, include myself! (And while there will be images in this post, hopefully there will be less than last time!)

People who like to draw have a tendency to draw what they like. Ergo, people who like WoW and like to draw have a tendency to draw WoW fan art. I’ll be looking at three different groups of art — Blizzard’s Official Fan Art, my art, and art of other people that I know about and remembered to mention (go go memory!)

Blizzard’s Official Fan Art

If you like shiny art things and haven’t been looking at the official fan art blizzard posts, you need to go there right now and start oogling. There are tons and tons of really well done pieces (otherwise, they wouldn’t have gotten up there, right?) While it’s for ALL of blizzard’s games (including Starcraft and Diablo), the majority of the pieces so far are WoW-related.

Here’s just a short categorical list (with poorly picked catagories) of just some the art you can find there. I’ve linked to some ‘samples’ for you do view (because it would take to long to try to download them all from the site, and I am lazy).

(Note: At the time of posting, Blizzard interrupts all links with a Starcraft ad, which in turn makes it so the link does not go directly the the screenshot. You’ll need to open the link again if the ad pops up).

• Anime/Manga style: These moe, for one. This is sorta chibi, but sort of not (either way it’s a really cute scene, like this one). And this blood elf.
• Chibi Manga style: Like the adorable succubus! Or this adorable Blood Queen! Or the adorable DKs! (If you don’t know what they’re doing, here’s the wikipedia article on it).
• Single character portrait: This undead, or this stained glass-esque troll, or this draenei paladin rescuing an cute little girl. I hope someday that Mishalom will be that awesome… XD
• NPCs: Sylvanas, Varian (sorry! But he does look cool in this), and an emo Illidan.
• ‘Loading Screen’ or Desktop Background: Some angry bosses here (I suppose this could be considered NPCs, as well), Brutallus (Another NPC one), and this group of hunters (not NPCs).
• Battle scenes: Warsong Gulch, An Arena, and a battle… against fish!
• Scantily clad women… oh wait, just look at most of the above links. -_-;;

(That’s the one thing about blizzard’s fan art — they definitely lean towards the scantily clad female ones and masculine man ones. But that’s probably ’cause they have more guys looking over the art than girls. Or they just know what their fans want.)

While I tried to keep the links more or less equal between the categories, some are represented more than others. Definitely the single characters and NPCs (and in the NPCs, there seems to be a lot of Sylvanases sexily striding towards the camera); and the majority of the art is drawn in a more ‘serious’ and less cartoony style. However, there are exceptions, as you see above. In addition, not all are just drawings. Sometimes there are models, statues, or 3d models made from scratch. Recently there were even pictures of little cut-outs of characters that were drawn!

But before this segment on Blizzard’s fan art ends, I’d like to share one of  the official fan art pieces that has captured my heart. I believe I can even call it my favorite believe it or not. I even have it as the background for my new Alienware laptop. You may see this image below.

Power of the Horde, by Tooth

Is it not awesome? I’m in awe of it every time. I love how much detail is put in with such a limited palette. I’ve always like this ‘noir shadows’ style of drawing, especially when it looks good. It takes some skill.

My enamored state when it comes to this picture could be because I identify as Horde, and therefore think only Horde could look as cool as they do in the picture. But even alliance must admit it’s awesome, right?

(It also, for some reason, reminds me of Bleach, which I don’t even really watch. It’s probably because they have a black and white motif).

So Tooth, thank you for making the Horde look awesome.

My Own Art

Now, my art, in my opinion, doesn’t look nearly as cool as Tooth’s does. I assume if I worked hard at it, I could improve my technical skills so I could actually formulate something that awesome on my own. However, I am lazy, so I’ll stick with my “they aren’t stick figures” level of art. Which I don’t mind showing off to you all (After all, it’s my blog and I can do what I want to. *starts singing*)

Anyway, I’d like to share with you a few of my more finished WoW art pieces. I drew them last December (or so), as cards to go along with gifts for our guild leader (Ladybug), and our main raid leader (Rowdy). Who happens to be her son (her adult son, I might add).

(Aside to any guildies reading this — no, I’m not going to buy you anything. But if you want some art, I may be available…)

*ahem*

So this is the first drawing I did, of our guild leader, Ladybug, a troll priest who heals.

Ladybug with her new kitty.

I’ll let you guess what we gave her. At either rate, she liked both the gift and the drawing (I printed it out to send to her, since I drew it on the computer).

As for our raid leader, Rowdy, we got him a gift both he and his girlfriend could enjoy. Since I had that in mind when I drew his card (which was in actual card format by folding the paper to make a card (hardcore!)), it had pictures of both of their ‘toons’.

Here was the image on the front of the card, Rowdy’s tanking warrior:

This is what he does during raids (more or less). We think it helps.

It said something to the effect of ‘When you’re going out to party…”

On the inside was a picture of his girlfriend’s toon… if she played WoW! (She doesn’t, so I took some liberties and made her a blood elf hunter, with her pet as their new(ish) dog):

I really think that if she played WoW, she would be a hunter. And a blood elf, 'cause they're cute.

It had a caption to the effect of “Don’t forget to bring your boss!” Oh ho ho! How funny and clever. I should get into the card writing business, I’m sure.

They liked the present and the card as well. ^_^

Other People’s Art

I’m not the only one who can scribble on paper and come up with some nice looking things. There are many other artists out there, drawing very pretty pictures of the World of Warcraft. Here are just a few sites that I know about — please share if you know more that I should be aware of!

• WoW, Eh? — Drawn by Cadistra, this is a webcomic about WoW, eh? (She’s Canadian). It’s really good; you should go check it out if you haven’t already. You may also recognize her work on wow.com, as she draws Byron the Tauren Rogue (and she does draw good Tauren, which makes me happy).
• Daily Quests — Another delicious WoW webcomic, made by Fyreuni (artist) and Vas (writer). It is also a good time, with a clean, crips art style and humorous jokes. Plus, it has a blog in addition to the pretty comics!
• Complex Actions — Yes, another webcomic. Currently on a mini-hiatus, Silkspinner and (former writer) Talthos make quite a few hilarious jokes, on both WoW and other nerdy things. All of the comics have beautiful, detailed art. Silk’s painting style is not something one usually sees in webcomics, let alone ones that are published three days a week!
• Loreli — An RPer from the Feathermoon server, Loreli also is a very talented artist. Check out her website, as you may see her ‘specialty’, i.e. post-it note sketches.
• Baenhoof — Also known and karnokoto on deviantart, is an artist with versatile styles. Personally, I adore the chibis, such as the one on her twitter account. Cute!

I believe the majority of the artists take commissions, and the ones who don’t have stores where you can buy prints or other stuff related to their comics. So you should check it out if you like their art!

Do you know of any other artists that I (and others) should check out? I’m sure I’ve missed some many. Do you have a favorite ‘official fan art’ piece? Have you noticed any trends in what kind of art is ‘official’? Do you still remember a particular piece that was posted awhile ago? (And do you miss the comic contest? I know I do!) Or have you drawn some WoW fan art yourself? Let me know in the comments — I’d love to hear about it!

-Misha