I was reminded of the forum avatar projects I was part of back when I was an ArenaNet Creative Partner for Guild Wars 2. It reminded me that I don’t think I’ve ever shown the original batch of avatars I drew.
Much of these are older artworks – especially the ones before 2022. I remember this was a really fun project for us to work on as fans of the game. I’m still sentimental over a few of these because of this, despite some of them showing their age!
I’ve shown the second and third batches on socials before (but i think this is the first time for this blog, now that I’m using it again :D ) – the first and second rows in the image above. I remember posting those, and the original batch (2018’s) was so long ago, that I thought I had only done these 6. I only remembered I had drawn 3 additional avatars during the first time they ran this project, which I think I was only reminded of when I happened to see them being used on their official forums some time after.
I don’t have the original files for the 2018 batch (at least not on my current PC), and found these when searching through my emails for when I submitted the files to ArenaNet. I completely forgot I had drawn two versions of Cadeyrn – which according to the email I wrote at the time, I apparently drew both because I couldn’t decide which to go with. The top version is the one which is used on the forums now, which I’m glad about as it’s clearly stronger as a sized-down avatar compared to the alternate option.
I do love Cadeyrn as a character, and since I didn’t remember I drew this at all, it was fun to see a new artwork of him I had forgotten about!
As of this post, these avatars are still live on their official forums. I still get a kick when I see them being used!