There is little more subjective than art and story. We all have our own ideas about what makes a piece of creative work “good” — some people prefer fully rendered paintings, others a more sketchy style. As someone who dabbles in painting, I have a generally critical eye. More importantly, I can appreciate a fairly wide spectrum of artwork.

This isn’t to say, however, that I am consistent in my appreciation of art. That’s the beauty of the medium. There’s no way I can say “the following ten pieces of artwork have been chosen because–” and then give a blanket statement. It just isn’t possible. About all I can say is that, as I was browsing the GW2 wiki’s “concept art” gallery, these 10 pieces caught my eye.

And there weren’t 10 either. There were originally 21 pieces. But in keeping with today’s “theme”, I’ve whittled it down to a final, if un-definitive, ten. It should be noted that these are not scaled… I don’t perceive number 10 as being better than number 1. That would take me many many hours to deliberate over…

Over the next few pages (paginated so your interweb connections don’t grind to a halt) you can see some of my favourites!

Let’s begin!

Number #10

Richard Anderson’s rather distinctive use of colour shines through here in this portrait of what I assume is an Air-Attuned Elementalist. The lightning crackling through the trees, windswept grasses, and the dynamic-but-indistinct gives a real sense of movement to the piece. A fairly limited, earthy colour pallete adds to the atmosphere. The earthy reds and brilliant yellows create a nice contrast with the dark ground and mostly silhouetted figure.