Enter the Lair of Mere...

Guild Wars: Eye of the North

Otherwise known as GW:EN, Eye of the North was the last chapter and first true expansion of the Guild Wars 1 series. Featuring cold climents and new races of people (and creatures), the armors ranged from environmentally reflective to culturally expressive. There was also the reintroduction of an old friend, a once 12-yr old Gwen that was a companion in the early part of Prophecies, the first chapter. In GW:EN (no allusion there, eh?), Gwen is now an adult and a main part of the storyline. She also can be brought along with your party in the form of a hero, and therefore comes with three armor designs you can quest for. I designed all of the outfits as well as built the character models as you see in the game. Though her game face is different than what you're seeing here, I'm pretty pleased with the results of the outfits.

There was also a Bonus Mission Pack released by ArenaNet that took the player through background stories of key characters. Gwen's history as a prisoner of the Charr that destroyed her homeland as a child is one of the stories you can explore. This takes place before Eye of the North and does explain why Gwen has quite the chip on her shoulder in GW:EN. With all of the inexplicable bugs the previous armor models of Gwen gave me, I was quite happy to give her a few bumps and bruises out of spite. ;} I really really enjoyed creating a messed-up character instead of the pristinely clean and sparkly armors we usually create. This is a screenshot of the final model.

Next are various designs for Dervishes, Monks, Rangers and Mesmers.

Next, I'd like to show a bunch of designs for Utopia. This was what was to be Chapter 4 in the GW series, but it was cancelled in favor of releasing the GW:EN expansion and refocussing on GW2. In the next list of images, you'll also see the origins of the Mesmer Norn armor, as this was the project before the expansion.

Finally, in the interest of offering more variety with an efficient use of existing models, we played around with the idea of texture alternatives. Since these are long images, I'm linking them below. The original existing armor model is shown on the far left. The rest of the designs show what can be done with an established silhouette: different value patterns and designs can drastically change the look of an outfit.

Monk and Elementalist Variations

Hope you enjoyed seeing these! ;} I'm now hard at work on Guild Wars 2.

Oh yeah, and I also did a wallpaper that is available on www.GuildWars.com for the GW:EN release. Here it is below. You can download various sizes of this at the main Guild Wars site. ;}