Guild Wars 2 Artists Talk Charr

THE GUILD WARS 2 BLOG KREWE LOVE THE FEMALE CHARR!

Guild Wars 2 Artists Talk Charr

You can really feel the passion and enthusiasm for the task at hand when the three ArenaNet artists most responsible for the look and feel of the Charr in Guild Wars 2, Katy Hargrove, Kristen Perry, and Kekai Kotaki, get together to talk about their work.

Katy Hargrove, the GW2 character artist with the vision that evolved into the Charr, wanted to create something inhuman, iconic, and intelligent as the main threat to humans in the original Guild Wars. After initially considering an Orc-like race (thankfully abandoning that idea as it's been done, done again and done once more), Katy tapped into the human fear of being eaten alive by lions and tigers, and a race of bipedal "fire-worshipping hell cats" was born.

You might recall an earlier blog post that featured Kristen Perry character artist, clothing designer, dye master... ( GW2 Dye System ). This time around Kristen volunteered to create a viable design for the previously unseen female Charr in Guild Wars 2. Faced with the challenge of creating a partner for the brutish, hulking male of the species, Kristen's vision was for a smaller, less muscular, less imposing member of the race which felt just as powerful as their male counterpart. Getting the right balance between having a form that was both recognizably Charr and recognizably female was a challenge Kristen embraced.

Says Kristen...

"When I started designing the female Charr, I definitely wanted her to feel just as fierce as the male of the race. She had to feel sleek and agile while at the same time having an appearance of strength and power. She had to be large and robust, but we could tone down the testosterone by extending her body lines to gracefully flow from the top of her head to tail tip.

Long hair on the female's tail was a very specific thing I wanted to include, as I love the sweeping feel to the long hair, and it's an easy detail to note from behind in telling whether the Charr is male or female."

Other subtle differences between the genders in GW2 are:

Rebuilt sabers on the females hands and feet with a different padding design.
Cool looking horns!
The face and horns given more feminine cat-like features instead of the more monstrous male features.
No breasts! (well, to remain true to the feline form it was six or none... and six would have looked silly).

The final word though goes to Kekai Kotaki, who was responsible for updating the look of the Charr into the time of Guild Wars 2, some 250 years forward. His approach was simple... and we love it!

"Make the Charr badass. And then make them even more badass."

There's more Charr information and videos here... The Charr in Guild Wars 2.

GUILD WARS 2 CHARR