Guild Wars Wiki:Projects/Concept art

Concept art project The objective of this project is to produce a comprehensive, organised concept art collection for this wiki at Category:ArenaNet concept art, the subcategories of which should be intuitive and navigable.

Contributors Add * ~~~ to this list if you are interested in helping out! Santax (talk · contribs) Konig/talk Eellis (talk) Tasks Collating Status: Complete I've created an archive of GW1 concept art images from trawling ANet's concept artist websites. Not all of them are here - some animation reels etc. can't be uploaded to the wiki, and GW2 concept art was generally ignored when going through the websites. That said, there's probably some GW2 concept art that's accidentally found its way into here, so be wary of that. If you're in doubt, you can always check gw2:Category:Concept art by artist. Also be wary that Utopia was scrapped late in development and GW:EN had a relatively quick development time, so chances are that a LOT of ideas (and even assets) for Utopia found their way into GW:EN. Finally, watch out for duplicate files - there will be a few duplicates floating around, especially between artist-specific folders and the ca.org folder - just upload whichever is higher quality/higher resolution, and use whichever name is more descriptive. The archive can be downloaded at: btjunkie (tutorial) Magnet link (explanation) MegaUpload (premium account required) Uploading Status: Incomplete What I've been doing is uploading the concepts and organising them by artist (e.g. Category:Art by Kekai Kotaki) and campaign. The campaign concepts are divided into character and creature art (e.g. Category:Eye of the North character concept art) and environments and lore stuff (e.g. Category:Factions world concept art). If you're not sure who created a certain piece of art, place it in Category:Art by an unknown artist, and if you're not sure what campaign art is from, place it in Category:Unknown campaign concept art (don't bother with sorting it into world and character art). These are maintenance categories, so hopefully someone will recognise them and place them where they belong. Some files will also want placing into the category for loading screens of their respective campaign; disregard the previous naming scheme for loading screens. The categorisation will be enough. Some files (e.g. armour concepts) might warrant inclusion in a Category:Concept art by profession subcategory. Unlike the others, this need not apply to all concepts, only relevant ones. Organizing Status: Incomplete This is the biggie - it's gonna be effort, but it's gotta be done. For files that already exist on the wiki, the same organization rules apply as above, except instead of uploading new files, you need to be: Trawling the categories for existing ones Uploading higher-res versions when necessary Moving images to fit the naming convention outlined below Adding a delete tag to the redirect created by the move Changing any references on pages linking to the image to the image's new location If you have a duplicate file, simply uploading and hoping the wiki will pick up the duplicate file will not do the trick - although the upload tool is supposed to automatically detect duplicates, even a minor difference between two otherwise identical files will not be picked up. You will also have to check the file (if it already exists on the wiki) to see if the one you have in this folder is higher res/higher quality than the one on the wiki, and if so upload it. Be wary that some artworks have multiple iterations floating about online, and I'm not quite sure how we should handle that. If in doubt, make sure that you are using the most final version of a piece of art. This task is no fun, but it should be easy fromCategory:ArenaNet concept art to see which files need moving. You will need to find a different system for identifying which files need tasks like uploading higher res versions completing. Naming There are two cases you have to consider when naming: 1. The artwork has an official title, or something resembling that. Example, GWNinjaComps_full.jpg or EmperorOfCantha2.jpg. In this case, simply clean up the file name, place the title of the artwork in quote marks, and add concept art at the end. If the concept art is numbered, then put the number after the concept art text - the number does not form part of the title, it merely denotes that there are more than one artworks with the same title. It's very important that you remember that when categorising, you put a pipe after the category, and restate the title of the artwork without quote marks. This is so that the artwork categorises properly within campaign and artist categories. So GWNinjaComps_full.jpg might become File:"Ninja Comps" concept art.jpg, and EmperorOfCantha2.jpg might become File:"Emperor of Cantha" concept art.jpg. The file description for EmperorOfCantha2.jpg might look like: {{arenanet image|concept art}} [[Category:Factions character concept art|Emperor of Cantha]] [[Category:Art by an unknown artist|Emperor of Cantha]] 2. If the artwork does not have an official title, and the filename is extremely generic. Example, Guild Wars Concept Art 08.jpg or (ultimate nightmare time!) 6818509_orig.jpg. In this case, you're going to have to come up with a name for the file yourself. Name it descriptively, so it is as clear as possible from the the title what the artwork depicts, but do not put quote marks in - it needs to be clear that the name you have given the file is in no way officially endorsed. Otherwise, everything is as above. So those two concepts might become File:Stone Summit concept art.jpg or File:Vetaura concept art.jpg. This time round, it's less important that you have the pipe and the art's "title" after the category, because without the quotation marks it will alphabetise properly anyway. Integration Status: Incomplete All of this stuff won't have been for no reason - we can include galleries of concept art on mainspace pages to give a behind-the-scenes look at the development of an area. Nothing else much to say about this task except that it would be simplest if it was done after all the concepts have been organised. Progress It's difficult to keep track of how much is done and how much still needs doing because it is difficult to list files that still need uploading (especially as compared to ones that already exist on the wiki). It is, however, a little easier to find out what files already on the wiki still needs organising. The following categories contain files that need sorting into world or character subcategories or otherwise moving around. This usually means that these files have not been touched since before the beginning of this project, and so need the organisation applying to them that was discussed above. When the project is complete, all these categories should be empty: Category:Prophecies concept art Category:Factions concept art Category:Nightfall concept art Category:Utopia concept art Category:Eye of the North concept art Another way of checking what is done is by looking at concept art by artist. Below is a list of all artist categories. Enclose the text with <strike></strike> tags once the category has been organised. Note that does not necessarily mean that the category is "complete"; it is impossible to tell if there is still artwork out there that needs uploading into that category. All it means is that the existing files within that category are organised according to the specification. Category:Art by AJ Thompson Category:Art by Brant Fitzgerald Category:Art by Daniel Dociu Category:Art by Darren Lamb Category:Art by Doug Williams Category:Art by Hai Phan Category:Art by Horia Dociu Category:Art by Jaime Jones Category:Art by Jason Juan Category:Art by Jason Stokes Category:Art by Katy Hargrove Category:Art by Kekai Kotaki Category:Art by Kevin Dalziel Category:Art by Kristen Perry Category:Art by Matthew Barrett Category:Art by Richard Anderson Category:Art by Shawn Sharp Category:Art by Xia Taptara Random notes If you want an example of a category that's already been mostly sorted out, so you know what you want your final work to look like, see Category:Art by Daniel Dociu. The world and character subcategories when sorting by campaign are new, too, so any art in those should already be sorted. In general, I would suggest uploading the files in the archive first, then hunting around Category:ArenaNet concept art for duplicates and files that need moving, which can be messy. Anything referred to as Delta, Lowlands, Highlands, Badlands, or Nightmare is probably Nightfall. Those were the internal names used at ANet before final names were decided upon (i.e. during the concepting stage) for Istan, Kourna, Vabbi, the Desolation, and the Realm of Torment, respectively. Similarly, anything tagged as Tower or Coatl are probably Utopia, although the Coatl area was later reworked into the Tarnished Coast. Lots of GW:EN and Utopia art overlaps. If you are not sure which category it belongs in, there's always Category:Chapter 4 concept art.