Hello Wyndforge! Perhaps first you
might like to introduce yourself, and tell us a little about your
artistic work.
Hello and thanks for the opportunity
to broadcast my work to all my friends in Europe! As you know my
name is Wyndforge, but my friends call me “Wynd” 
Outside of
Azeroth, I live in Los Angeles, California, right in the heart of
Hollywood. I”ve lived here all my life, but have had the pleasure
of visiting Europe during many of my travels, mainly Austria,
Switzerland, England and France. By the way, there is probably no
city in America that can match the beauty of Donnersbach Austria
and Lucern Switzerland, two of my favorite European cities. I think
it is largely because of my travels that has given me a real
appreciation for history and art, and it sometimes guides me to do
my artwork.
When and in which game did you get
started with your custom character portrait creation? Your work
reminds us of custom airbrush paintings on cars, and graffiti – was
this perhaps a source of inspiration from the “real world”?
I started by pure chance on EverQuest
back in 1999. Believe me, when I first started the portraits look
nothing like they do now 
If you go to my
“”About”" section on my website, you can see
the very first portrait I made. Compare that with what you see now
and you will see how it evolved so much, as I feel like I learn
something new with each portrait I do.
Honestly my source of inspiration comes from pure “emotion”
and not from a particular art technique. What I mean is, I will
look at a player”s character on screen, and try to get a “feeling”
from that character, and then try to tell a story about the player
just by having him or her pose in a certain way. For example,
“”Shoken”" is a Tauren warrior who means
business, so his pose shows him stomping on the ground daring
anyone to come near him.
“”Grielva”" on the other hand will slowly and
stealthily sneak up behind you to deliver one swift killing
blow.
The quality of your works is
remarkably good – did you visit an (traditional) art school or
university, or did you teach everything yourself?
I actually do a lot of 3D graphics in
real life, and I was self taught in that regard. Back in 1991 when
I was in college, there were no classes available in 3D or computer
art. I knew that is what I wanted to do in life, so I had to teach
myself and build my first portfolio on my own. I first learned a 3D
program on the Commodore Amiga, and later learned 3D Studio (today
it is called 3DS Max), as well as Alias (now Maya). 3D software is
great because you not only learn how to create 3D models, but you
are also forced to learn Photoshop and other programs that require
you to paint your own textures.
Can you make a living doing this
these days, or is it still mainly a hobby?
Oh no, it”s just a hobby. The
commissions help keep my computer running fast and my graphics card
up-to-date I love MMORPG”s in general, and believe it or not,
being “Wyndforge” is just part of the game for me. You can say I
role-play as a real traveling artist who meets other heroes from
all over Azeroth to paint their images!
For which games do you currently
make, and for which additional games do you plan to make your
custom portraits in the near future? Can we expect images for
Blizzards upcoming blockbuster “StarCraft 2″, although it”s not an
MMO with personal avatars?
I often get asked if I will do
someone”s portrait for LOTRO (Lord of the Rings Online), or Guild
Wars, etc. Who knows, maybe later I”ll feel inclined to venture to
other games but right now my heart is in Azeroth. It”s simply
amazing how Blizzard has brought real people from all over the
planet, to live and adventure together for a few hours a night in a
digital country with a population of 10 million And it doesn”t
look like it”s slowing down either. As long as people keep playing
WoW and as long as I keep getting requests, this is where I”ll
stay.
Let”s talk a bit about the image
creation process. Each picture is a custom character portrait – do
you visit every player on their home servers, and make shots of
different poses before you start your work, or do you have them
send their own screenshots as templates to you (i.e. from server
regions outside your home country)?
For the most part, yes I do try to
meet people online to make that personal connection, even on the EU
servers. The photo shoots are always a lot of fun, because it makes
the player feel like a model For about 30 minutes I tell him or
her to cast spells, emotes, duel a friend, etc. while I crouch and
take screenshots in 1920×1200 with full antaliasing. One time, the
player I was doing a portrait for brought me a gift – a full set of
leather armor so I wouldn”t look like such a n00b when I took their
photos. It was awesome.
On your website, there”s a
detailed description how you put it all
together, and you”re saying that you sometimes take body parts
from many different – like 100 – shots until it all fits. Wouldn”t
it be easier to use the popular WoW Model Viewer for your works? If
not, is there a reason why?
In fact, I sometimes do use WoW Model
Viewer, and thank goodness for it! Sometimes it”s hard to meet
people online, especially those in Europe, because of the time
differences. So I sometimes switch to WoW Model Viewer, even if it
is just to get a certain arm or weapon angle that I miss in person.
The reason I don”t use WoW Model Viewer for ALL my portraits is
because I still enjoy meeting people online and making that
personal connection. I think it even carries over to the portrait
in some way.
While you compose your images, do you
already have a certain composition in mind, or do just try out
different things – incl. parts or backgrounds from different games
- until you think it looks good?
I almost never have the composition
in mind until I meet the person. I have the player try a bunch of
actions and then hone in on one or two that I really like. I “shoot
from the hip” as we say in America. Sometimes, in the middle of
the photo shoot, I”ll even open up Photoshop, copy the screenshot
over, and then decide what arm/leg/weapon angle I need. I would
then Alt-Tab back to WoW and have the player do more actions until
I get that angle.
Sometimes though the player already has an idea of how he/she
wants the pose to look like, so I do my best to accommodate their
request. For example, there is one portrait I am doing right now
where the player has some fantastic ideas about the shot. She wants
her player”s back to be shown while she”s looking over her
shoulder, as her pet stands protectively in front of her. I think
this one is going to be a fantastic portrait – and it”s all due to
the player”s amazing ideas.
One thing to note – when I did my EverQuest portraits, I never had a problem using other game backgrounds like from Morrowind or other RPG”s. But with WoW, I quickly learned that WoW players only want backgrounds from Azeroth
The first few
portraits in the galleries (
Amrod and
Teemull) which use backgrounds from Oblivion
will be the last you”ll ever see of that!
Once you have assembled the character
from different shots, cleaned up the result from the remaining
original backgrounds and composed it into the scenery of your
choice, the work on the effects magic begins. Are these effects all
hand-painted, or do you also use special f/x programs to generate
them?
All the effects are done in Photoshop
without the use of 3rd party filters and effects. I use a handful
of techniques that quite honestly have evolved drastically over the
years, and continue to evolve today. I will say this: Most of the
effects begin with the airbrush tool. The rest? That is classified
top secret Wyndforge material
Since your work is all custom, can a
customer make special wishes regarding the theme, or even details
like the background and special f/x?
Yes, see the earlier question. As for
backgrounds, I always ask the player if there is a particular
background that is special or sentimental to them, and try to
incorporate that. For the
“”Shoken”" portrait, Shoken plays almost
exclusively in the PvP arenas, so that background was at his
request. As for effects, sometimes players will specifically tell
me that they want something more fiery red or bluish purple.
Your work screams for computer
desktop themes for gamers. Any plans to make a complete WoW theme
for Windows and/or Mac in the future?
Wow, I never actually thought of
that. But I think it would be great to have an automatically
updating screensaver that loads the 10 newest portraits and
circulates them as your wallpaper or screensaver. I”m just an
artist though so I”d need someone to code that. If someone wants to
write a theme-pack, I”ll gladly provide any custom images they
would need.
Artistic work bases on inspiration -
what are your sources? Do you have certain favorite artists,
painters, filmmakers, musicians? Do you listen to music while you
make the portraits, and if, which music/artists?
Great question. There are so many
artists out there that inspire me it”s hard to keep track. I love
visiting
Deviantart
and
Conceptart.org to see what other artists are
doing, and that gives me tons of inspiration – I really do think
those artists help make the world a prettier place. If I were to
pick one though, it would have to be
Brom. Many
times when I look at other fantasy art, the words “cool, nice and
wow” come to mind. But when I look at Brom”s work, the words “BAD
ASS” come to mind.
Music? Don”t get me started. When I really want to get in
“The Zone,” I pop on my headphones and drift away to a lot of my
favorites:
RB: Frankie Beverly | Donny Hathaway | Isley Brothers
Hip Hop: Notorious B.I.G. | Eric B. Rakim | Tribe Called
Quest
Rock: Nirvana | The Killers | Rage Against the Machine
Soundtracks: 13th Warrior | Batman Begins | Morrowind: Elder
Scrolls game soundtrack (it”s actually really good)
As the insider knows, the true magic
of WoW lies between the two covers of the art books, which are
filled with finest artworks and concept arts from Blizzards Samwise
Didier, Peter Lee, Justin Thavirat, and others. Do you have any
favorite images there, or a favorite artist?
Oh there”s no way I could pick a
favorite. They”re the real artists that”s for sure, and I”ve
admired them deeply since day one. I think some of the other unsung
heroes though are Blizzard”s Cinematics team that has given us all
those amazing movies and 3D art. When those guys first released…
no,
unleashed the Warcraft III movies, many of us in the
industry couldn”t believe they achieved that quality with 3DS Max*,
as most of the really high-quality CG and animation work was all
done in Maya* at that time. That backed by their amazing team of
concept artists – it simply doesn”t get any better than that.
(* Note: Autodesk”s 3DS Max, formely known as 3D Studio Max,
has been for a long time the de facto standard for game creation
due to its ease of use. The more complex 3D program Maya,
previously owned by Alias and now also Autodesk, is along with e.g.
Softimage the de facto standard in the film special effects
industry due to its refined architecture with excellent modeling,
animation and rendering tools. Although 3DS Max never really made
it into the A-class movies, Blizzard (and some other studios) have
proven that you can create amazing cinematics with it, enough
patience and additional tools provided.)
For the next expansion, “Wrath of the
Lich King”, Blizzard has promised again an adventure of “epic
scale” on a breathtaking continent. What would you personally like
to see – from an artist”s point of view – in this add-on? What
could be better than it is now? Imagine for a moment that you are
the lead designer.
Well if I can be brutally honest for
a moment, the first thing I would like to see is a texture upgrade.
Let”s just get that out of the way right now I feel that too
much of WoW”s art and design is lost in low-res “stretchy” texture
maps. I understand that it”s because of this efficiency that we get
the some of the best frame rates among all MMOG”s, but 256×256
texture maps on 1920×1200 screens, well you do the math. Players
who have invested in fast computers and the best video cards should
be able to get some of that love back from WoW.
Other than that, I really wouldn”t change much except maybe try to add to the world”s scale, as some of the environments feel a bit crowded. If you look at some of Jean “”Moebius”" Giraud”s work, you”ll see he”s a master at depicting an environment”s scale.
I just think it would be great to enter an area and instead of seeing a couple of trees and mountains in the distance, you could step in and have to pause a few moments because the landscape is so amazing and vast that you”re forced to catch your breath. For example: When you watch the Lord of the Rings movie trilogy and the camera pans over Saruman”s tower, you almost get vertigo because of its enormous size with teeny tiny Saruman standing below. I”d like to see more of that in WoW!
Thanks very much for the interview,
Wyndforge. We wish you the best in your future endeavors, and we”re
looking forward to seeing more of your gorgeous pictures soon!
Thank you as well for this
opportunity. A big and warm hello to all my friends in Europe – I
hope you enjoy my portraits for years to come!
If you like to know more about Wyndforge and his art, don”t miss to visit his website!
Appendix
The following portrait shows the 1st prize image for the winner of our “”Death Knight”" – Fun-Screenshot Contest from February 2008. The warlock “Lýcia” of our reader Christian Dittrich has been immortalized on the digital canvas in a nightly “Northrendish” Winterspring scenery by screenshot maestro Wyndforge .
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