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Around this time of the year, we send out the ArenaNet holiday card. We always design a card that’s both reflective of the season and of Guild Wars, but this year we decided to feature characters from Guild Wars 2. Concept artist Jamie Jang volunteered to make this year’s holiday card, and the results are charming! Let’s take a look at how Jamie put the card together.
Early on in the process, Jamie decided she wanted to design a card which features stockings for each of the five iconic characters from Guild Wars 2 and the upcoming Guild Wars novel Edge of Destiny: Logan Thackeray, Rytlock Brimstone, Zojja, Eir Stegalkin, and Caithe. They are Destiny’s Edge, five heroic individuals who answered the call and rose to fight for their people – and on this card they are just as cute as heck!
“I had this idea of stockings hanging over the mantel,” Jamie Jang says. “Since these characters are going to be the center of the new Guild Wars 2 novel, it made sense to create an image where they are the focus and the subject.”
The next step was deciding how to actually make these stockings. Jamie decided to physically create the stockings and photograph them for the holiday card, rather than making a digital image.
“I thought if I created the image digitally it wouldn’t look quite right,” Jamie said. “A digital image can have a very cold flat look to it, and I knew it wouldn’t capture all the tangible warmth and cuddliness I wanted.”
She had an idea of how she wanted the stockings to look, so Jamie loaded up on material from local arts and craft stores. She dissected cute little Santa and snowman fabric dolls for parts, and made what she needed from scratch. “There was a lot of sawing and gluing,” Jamie said.
She cut and pasted and stitched different elements together, and the results are soft and adorable, but with a distinct Guild Wars 2 vibe.
“I’m excited!” she said. “I think they’re really cute, and it’s nice to have some actual stockings at the end of the day that we could hang in the lobby.”
Everyone around the studio chipped in to sign the holiday cards, which the Community Team shipped out last week to a wide variety of fans, friends, supporters, and colleagues. It’s just a small way for us to say thanks and happy holidays to our friends.
Jamie said, “It’s a great feeling that we have such a fantastic community that loves and supports the game we love making. I hope our fans like the card, and hopefully it will end up on mantels and fridges in many homes.”
