The War Within Art Blast Spotlight: Bayard Wu - Hero & Villain Character Portraits

Posted 2024/10/13 at 1:44 AM by Jaydaa

ArtStation MagazineThe War WithinPrincipal Illustrator, Bayard WuWar WithinDragonflightPandaria RemixHero & Villain Portraits of the War WithinAlleria WindrunnerFaerin LotharXal'atathAnduin WrynnThrallArt BlastArtStation

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Comments

Comment by Valrath

i don't like them. They look like different people. We have like 3 versions of the same characters. That is weird. Nothing against the artist tho. Respect.

Comment by BlockyNewt

Would be cool to see these used for loading screens.

Comment by Alesthes

These look absolutely fantastic, a beautiful and consistent throw back at the early modern European portrait tradition and its exploration of character through light, shadow and expressions.

Comment by Velariana

Agree with the commenter above me, all of these are stunning. Faerin kind of reminds me (both in this artwork and in game) of Leah Harvey, who plays Salvor Hardin in the tv series Foundation.

Comment by Tessella

i don't like them. They look like different people. We have like 3 versions of the same characters. That is weird. Nothing against the artist tho. Respect.

To be fair WoW has in-universe played out over at least a decade. Some needed to change to reflect that. Specially Anduin.

Comment by Tyrantqt109

i mean the art is nice but the characters are just boring lol irreleveant, just crying, should have died 3 expansions ago

Comment by Arexith

ok but where is the plot? in the next expansion? Nothing happens plot-wise. Another dragons.

Comment by Eiohaz

Bayard Wu is an amazing artist

Comment by TheRealArchon

ok but where is the plot? in the next expansion? Nothing happens plot-wise. Another dragons.

Comment by Chaxton

There's a guy in my neighborhood with a face that's UNCANNILY similar to the Faerin depicted here. Well, minus the scars and blind eye anyway. I was thrown off when I saw that, because I thought for a second that his facebook profile image was posted in the middle of the image. Gonna have to show this to him and see how he reacts lol.

Comment by shadowfel

bayard wu's work for wow is beyond epic, the dude just doesnt miss and is one of the reasons why wow's artstyle just doesnt age, his df patches & sunwell keyarts are my favourites

Comment by shadowfel

bayard wu's work for wow is beyond epic, the dude just doesnt miss and is one of the reasons why wow's artstyle doesnt age, his df patches & sunwell keyarts are my favourites

Comment by LunarD3ATH

i mean the art is nice but the characters are just boring lol irreleveant, just crying, should have died 3 expansions ago

Being tortured in literal hell does that to you.

Comment by Kerathras

Still don’t know why they felt the need to completely change Alleria’s model when she already had a perfectly good one and meanwhile there are dozens of key NPCs that have never had even one unique model, let alone multiple.

Comment by Aova

Bayard Wu's art is incredible. Whether Blizzard, Warhammer, MTG--doesn't matter. Freaking phenomenal work.

Comment by DragonGuardian

It sucks that his art is so good because I hate him as a person.

Comment by Reverand

ok but where is the plot? in the next expansion? Nothing happens plot-wise. Another dragons.

i understand its boring at the moment, (pure hopium here) but let them cook, the lich king wasn't good because he just appeared, it took 3 games of build up before we faught him.

on the otherhand,

where TF did iridikron go? its time the big bad's didn't have plot armor and we just straight up built an army and #$%^ on them.

Lich king was never good. And the expansion just started literally 5 weeks.

Comment by DawnArcana

I love how some people here conveniently forget how f'd up the warcraft universe is and how much terror the npcs have gone through, even through childhood, to think that they all need to either be happy or angry 24/7 and never show any weakness or sadness because apparently it's boring to be anything else.

Also yeah the xpac just started. It's all buildup and showing Xal getting more angry/going to try new things since we just toppled her first pawn & destroyed her mirror thing. Honestly it was mostly exposition/catch up for returning or new players to know who everyone is and get to know the new factions too. Idk wtf these people expect?

Comment by Drageras

I expect legion. I expect Blizz to be able to match their work from 8 years ago. The end of raid cinematic was garbage in game quality. Why?

Comment by YeOlChum

ok but where is the plot? in the next expansion? Nothing happens plot-wise. Another dragons.