Icewind Dale artwork

[Hellfire]

Whats up folks!?
I would like to know if someone knows how to find some artwork from Icewind Dale I and II, specially the characters art.
Those ones are great, but they are very difficult to find.
My original icewind dale CD is totally wrecked, and I don't know how to buy a new one unfortunately.
I think some art was made by Justin Sweet, and some by Jason Manley. I don't know if there was any other artist.
The art is gorgeous, It was one of my biggest inspirations to become an artist.
Thanks a lot!
Cheers.

[Eerin]

Since I had all of these in my inspiration folder, I figured I might as well post them up for you. (If I shouldn't put these up or anything, please tell me, and I'll take them down).

I love Icewind Dale's art (and the game)

[Hellfire]

Thats it!!!!
Great Reply Eerin! Thank you a lot.
This artwork is just awesome, isnt it??!!! Better than Baldurs Gate in my opinion.
Both games are amazing.

I've found a couple of very big images on the internet. I'll post one.
I think this one is from Jason Manley.
(I also would like to say If I shouldn't put this image, please tell me, and I'll take it down at once! In this case, I already apologize.)

[Prometheus|ANJ]

It's signed in the corner.

I used to try and mimic the Baldur/Icewind stuff when it came out, but fell short.

[Hellfire]

Yeah, you are right Prometheus, it is from Jason.
Which makes realize he is one of my favourite artists, really cool.
And I still try to make art like this.

I like a bit more the art of the first baldurs because I didn't like the more manga influenced aesthetics of the second one.
Personally I prefer a more western heroic style.
Like this Joseph Solomon painting.

[Jason Manley]

omg i am so embarrassed. that stuff was made in my first days out of ringling...so funny.

that male human fighter image..the big one...was done on a pentium two single 233mhz machine with a tnt1 video card (sixteen megs I think). I couldnt use brushes larger than five mm in diameter without it chugging, thus all the cross hatching...did that image almost four feet tall and it was a major pain. Painter four.

[Jason Manley]

I don't think it is, but the artist looks similar to Justin Sweet.

Justin and I worked together for years at Black Isle. I learned painter four and the digital side from him. I remember the very first painting I made at work he said...man you use the same compositional devices as I do. I said yeah..is traditional composition. His figure was far better than mine. He also had to match the vibe of the IWD portraits so there is cross over for sure. We were all learning together at that time, which is why some of his early pencil sketches resemble puddnheads gesture drawings, or some of vance kovacs work resembles justins. I remember seeing justin paint some icy green into puddnheads paintings and that color stuck with puddn throughout his career. It was a big hodgepodge of ideas there at that time. Justin was the art director and the leader of the pack. We all added something to the mix though.

If not for that learning experience with that group there would be no CA and no MB. The whole point of CA for me was to recreate the learning Android, Justin, Kevin Llewellyn, Vance Kovacs, John Dickenson, and the rest of the guys had going there at BIS. Once we all left we were like islands...ca was meant to put even more concept artists together for learning...I guess it worked out. hehehe

So yeah...the IWD experience is what led to you all being here on this site. I learned the message boards and community development stuff at Black Isle and met Pontemonti who ran DB FORGE and Icewinds of Dale news sites...who later set up the ca forums for us and helped us maintain the entire site for about two years.

Black Isle was invaluable...and it was the only studio with very concept art heavy teams and was the first studio putting out digital art that looked traditional. Good times back then....I was soooo green to the industry but within the first four months was bumped from intern to one of the two lead artist spots on that project...i was in charge of all art quality and crits aside from my normal work. Believe it or not the portrait and environment work Puddn and I were doing actually got that game bumped from a very small budget to a near AAA funding level so we had time to do a better job on the game. It was originally scheduled to be out in six months to help fund fallout 3. But once the marketing teams saw what we were doing they gave it the bump...which caused four more iwd projects to hit the market (counting Trials of the Lure Master) and Fallout 3 to get shelved. Crazy how that all worked out. We were shipping games in nine to eighteen months back then...crank style..full crunch!!

[Jason Manley]

It's signed in the corner.

I used to try and mimic the Baldur/Icewind stuff when it came out, but fell short.

oh man...POST THEM!!!!!@@@@

[Anthis]

Wow, just reading that makes me want to work in a similar environment. Inspirational.

[TASmith]

Don't know if anyone remembers me critting videogames before, but I just want to say I played these games in college and loved them all - I'd save just before every encounter just so I could talk to the monsters before fighting them. All in all I'd say that feature made those games some of the best ever made. They're also a great way for students to learn new languages. I bought Baldursgate II in Italian to practice, when I was in Italy.

Thanks again for the games and the site, Jason. Man, everyday I find new reasons to thank you!

[madster]

So, Jason...

Does the Black Isle history have any correlation to the name "Massive Black?" A nod to your roots, perchance?

~M

[JS Neo]

What gorgeous artworks !! I am a huge fan of baldur's gate and IWD series' art pieces. Only find out recently they are done by Justin Sweet and others, which makes me a instant Justin Sweet fan All the beautiful portraits and character art in those games are unprecedented in those days and really brought the level of games to a higher artistic level.

Jason, is it too crazy for me to ask if it is possible for Justin Sweet to do up some tutorial. It would really be awesome to be able to see Justin Sweet painting away

[Moai]

omg i am so embarrassed. that stuff was made in my first days out of ringling...so funny.

Early work or not, that is some formidable figure and color work, Jason.

[alxcote]

Justin and I worked together for years at Black Isle. I learned painter four and the digital...

Cool story Jason

[Hellfire]

Damn! This is awesome!
When would I imagine myself talking to one of the authors of icewind dale's art. This is so cool man!
Thanks Jason for you collaboration. This made my topic became very useful for lots of people.
An environment like black isle should be awesome. I think massive black studio is more or less a contemporary version of that like madster suggested. Good job.
I also have to agree with some guys here.
Mydrako suggestion is superb!
A Justin Sweet tutorial video would be incredible! I would pay 50 bucks for that without regrets.
I would also suggest to see you doing some stuff like that. I don't know your availability because of some many responsibilities, but I would not apologize myself for not asking. I still think those pieces are awesome just as Moai says.
Cheers mate!

[mc2mc2]

Haha guys...
I dunno if you all know this already...but Justin Sweet has a painting video with gnomonology out since July 2008. It's called "Justin Sweet: Painting the Centaur"

The only problem with it is that it is just a video of him painting without any voiceover.

Is it alright if I post a link here Jason? (It can be found on gnomonology's page either way)

[Gib]

It's funny. Some time ago I did a google search, to find out who the baldurs gate/IWD artwork did. I figured out that one of the artists, a guy called J. Manley also run's a website with forum and stuff.....

[Cam Sykes]

Black Isle was and still is my favourite game studio of all time, every game that came out of that place was so deep, and rich. The art, storyline, and gameplay was always top notch. Alot of days spent on "sick" days from school to play those games.

And thanks jason that story was really sentimental to me, and was really interesting to find out how CA.org was born and I owe so much to this site for my current situation. Can't thank you enough.

[Hellfire]

This an old drawing I did trying to make a icewindish style.
This is a quite old, quickly done study. I tried to correct colors and stuff but the structure sucks.
Anyway...

[JS Neo]

Hellfire Looks great !! Since it is a long time ago, ur stuff now must be many times better ! Will go check our ur SB later

mc2mc2 Yah i am aware of the one. But the fact that there is no voiceover make me hesitate to buy it. I would really like hear the thought process while an artist is painting to better understand what choices he make while painting.

[Drin]

What a cool story. I remember how mega inspiration the paintings in Icewind Dale II were. How funny that the game lead to the creation of ConceptArt. Ah, the weird connections in life that are behind the scenes and you might never know!

[Emme73]

By the way, who was creating those character portraits in Baldur's Gate 1 ? Like Minsc and all the others ?

[Jasonwclark]

Gallagher was the lead art director on the original Baldur's Gate. Dean Andersen, Matthew Goldman, Todd Grenier, Marc Holmes contributed promotional art and portraits for the sequel.

None of those can hold a torch to the portrait work done for Icewind Dale though, which blows the BG portraits completely out of the water.

Also, that last pic is like waaaay to big for forums, but thanks (I didn't have any that large). Jason has asked before for us not to get too crazy with reposting the old IWD portraits (which is why I apologized for that first one in the other thread) because technically someone is supposed to get a little cheddar when that artwork is used- a couple nickels and dimes here and there. But, since these threads are already so overflowing with Black Isle glory and reminiscences, he'll probably let it slide this time. If there are any extra stories to go around, I'd also love to hear more about what it was like working with Justin Sweet and other the other champions of concept art on the old IE games. You guys did incredible work

[Emme73]

I wouldnt say they blow BG's stuff out of the water, its a different style, I still like both the same way.
One thing I would have loved would have been a Fallout 3 with the Infinity Engine and character stuff a la Icewind Dale, dark gritty, that would have rocked sooo hard.

[Jasonwclark]

Yeah, you know what, I take that back. They're both glorious, just in a different way.

I used to edit in the og Edwin and Jahiera pics all the time, using GateKeeper/ShadowKeeper and the Icewind Dale equivalents. I think (and I'm sure JM could could correct me if I'm wrong but) the IWD art team came more from the Torment side of Black Isle than the original BG. I know on BG 2 they ran into some issues with 'using reference correctly' which might have had something to do with why they hired such kick ass artists for IWD and IWD2... e.g. the infamous Catherine Zeta Jones affair hehe.

They're all still solid gold in my book though.

Also, if you like portraits, there were a lot of really talented people working on custom content for NWN. You can still see some great stuff up at the vault
http://nwvault.ign.com/View.php?view=Portraits.List

edit: hmmm I'm having difficulty viewing the top rated stuff, which is unfortunate since this way you have to wade through like a million photo-paintovers, but I promiss the good stuff is in there.

If you're still playing BG or IWD, you can download a ridiculous number of mods and tweaks from these sites:
http://dragonshoard.blackwyrmlair.net/download.php
http://www.gibberlings3.net/

And for the unscrupulous BG portrait aficionado, you can still grab a lot of oldschool goodness at ironworks
http://www.tgeweb.com/ironworks/bald...ortraits.shtml

[Dan.v.D.]

well i have a couple of those but never posted them for exactly those reasons, but i must've missed that post from jason where he asked not to share them. i can take it down no problem. altho i really feel it's a bit of a shame that many of the best (digital/fantasy/concept) artists of our time are cranking out stuff for like 60 hours a week yet nothing ever surfaces and if it does it's some compressed mini view.

[Jasonwclark]

I'm kind of the same way. Any excuse to show someone those awesome portraits and I'll usually take it.

I say just leave them up until you hear something different from the man.

[Sirielle]

So yeah...the IWD experience is what led to you all being here on this site.

Also in me being here as well as I wanted to paint such portraits since I've seen them in game This and desire to make my own images of Tolkien's Arda put me into drawing again. I just accidentally learned from my friend that you are one of people behind IwD artworks, I knew only of Justin Sweet so far. These artworks are still great source of inspiration to me, thank you guys!

[Prometheus|ANJ]

oh man...POST THEM!!!!!@@@@

It's bad even by my standards back then. I fell into the trap of thinking that I could draw random lines because that's what I (thought) I saw on the reference/inspiration. In reality you must pay attention to conjunctions, figure, detail balance, etc.


Some IWD portraits from 2006 (not quite work safe).

I started on this last night but don't feel like wrapping it up.

[herr ZEBA]

Thanks for sharing these. They are great and help to create the amazing mood of the game. Cheers.