Huge Ass Version (7111 x 4000 px) on Inkbunny: CLICK HERE


Needed a new desktop wallpaper so I drew this in like 10 minutes - okay just kidding. :P

This was a huuuuge undertaking. And this wasnt even a commission!

But let start from the beginning:

I fucking love Guild Wars 2.
For me, this is the first MMO that really knows how to keep me entertained.

It is not a boring grind of mundane fetch quests and long, drawn out leveling. Instead the game encourages me to play with others, rewards me for just running around and exploring things and is set in a stunning and beautiful world with lots of interesting places and characters.

Plus I totally dig the Charr race :P

At first I was a bit sceptical if they could portray them as more than just warhungry beasts.
But the game really won me over with the Charr being just as diverse as you would expect from a real nation. They fight and bicker among each other and have different opionions about war, peace and every other topic that could come to mind.

So with me playing a basic Charr fighter called "Kriegsbestie" ( meaning "Warbeast" in german) - I really grew fond of this game, as it never treated me like I was just some sort of glorified errand boy.
And the more I played, the more attached I got to my character, with his personal story and all that.

Eventually I decided, I wanted to draw a picture of him - because lets be honest, how cool is it to have a drawn picture of your ingame character? :P

At first I was thinking about a basic picture, maybe having him out of his armor taking a skinny dip in some pond or have him sit by a fireplace or something.
But then my eagerness got the better of me and I wanted to portray him in full armor - with all details included.
So instead of having just a basic character picture, I wanted to turn this into a memento of him, for me to look back on.

I am currently at level 64 and so this is Warbeast as he appears in the game right now. During the time I drew this, I actually found some new pieces of armor, but I actually used transmutation stones so the look of the armor wouldnt change, just to keep his look constant until the picture was finished. :P

When realized how much work drawing all the details would be, I came to the conclusion that I had to try another method of handling the colors and lines.
Instead of using regular lineart, I jumped immediately to the coloring and shading process, taking one picture element at a time and working on it until it looked right.
Through that I managed to give him this hand drawn look, that is iconic for a lot of the Guild Wars 2 artworks.

I am really quite proud of how the character turned out and how close I was able to stay to the original. I made some alterations here and there, but mostly I stuck to the armor design of the game.

With the background, I got a lot of inspiration from the beautifully drawn loading screens of Guild Wars 2.
I was really eager to draw him standing on an edge overlooking a battlefield with lots of fire, carnage and destruction. But then I realized that his pose was just way to passive for such a background.

I chose this pose since I wanted to make sure, that I could portay this character as close as possible, and I was afraid that a too complicated pose might have frustrated me and would have made me quit the picture, so I settled with something basic.

In the end I decided to draw a more calm background, trying to mimick the Guild Wars 2 style here aswell. I think it came out really well and I will try to draw more backgrounds this way.

In retrospect, this was a great opportunity for me to try something new in terms of technique and style and I am really proud of how well this picture turned out to be.

If you read through this whole block of text, thanks for the interest! :) I hope you enjoy this picture as much as I did when I drew it!