The Elddar race was the first of the hero characters designed for Everquest Dungeons. The creative director had a clear idea where they wanted to go with these characters who were essentially the Elves of this time period. They needed to be slender yet athletic and one with nature. We used Native American and African tribes cultural influences as inspiration for their character designs.
Concept art by Shan Qiao
Concept art by Shan Qiao
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Concept art by Jerad Marantz
Concept art by Farzad Varahramyan
Concept art by Farzad Varahramyan
After many iterations we were able to establish the physique and design their gear based on nature to accentuate their stature.
Concept art by Farzad Varahramyan
Concept art by Farzad Varahramyan
i had several concept artists work simultaneously and independently to explore the look of the Elddar. I was most interested in an outsourcing company in Taiwan, On Point Creative to get a more Asian-centric design sensibility.
Concept art by On Point Creative
Concept art by On Point Creative
Concept art by Shan Qiao
Once we found our base character designs for the Elddar and their different character classes we did some color studies. I picked color color combinations from a book compiled by an author who established a catalog of color combinations that worked best for clothing, specifically kimonos.
Concept art by Shan Qiao and color studies by Norris Lin
Male archer Elddar character design.
Concept art by Farzad Varahramyan
Male druid Elddar character design.
Concept art by Farzad Varahramyan
Female archer Elddar character design.
Concept art by Farzad Varahramyan
Female druid Elddar character design.
Concept art by Farzad Varahramyan
The majority of the features of the final character design were derived from this take.
Concept art by Jerad Marantz
The final designs were an amalgam of several concept artists using the base body and design from the previous final design.