Dungeons & Dragons Online “The Art of Lolth” Developer Diary Q&A

Even if you’re not a regular Dungeons & Dragons Online player, you’ll most likely be able to appreciate this new developer diary Q&A on the DDO website that chats with long-time D&D fantasy artist Fred Fields about the work that went into creating the artwork for Lolth to help promote the game’s Menace of the Underdark expansion.

Kyle Horner: Where did you begin when creating Lolth for DDO?

Fred Fields: Senior Production Artist Pete Anderson and I worked in tandem to simply figure out her proportions. How big is the human torso portion of Lolth compared to her spider portion? We were asking ourselves, “How big is the spider abdomen? How long are the legs- how thick are the legs?” You know just basic things; I could’ve done a million drawings and not hit the right one. So Pete sculpted a very rough grey model, and he would sit with DDO Art Director Jeff DePuy, and Jeff would say, “Make that bigger. Make that longer.” He got the build he wanted, and having that 3D model gave me the freedom to move forward and concentrate on other creative aspects of Lolth.

…

Kyle: Wow, so you and Lolth have a little history.

Fred: Yes, I suppose you could say that. When painting Lolth in the past, I knew very little about her. All I was told was that, basically, she is a Spider Queen. So I said, “Okay, tell me more.” I was told, “She’s part spider, she’s a Drow and she’ll have some kind of a crown.” Really, that was all I had for my first attempt back then so when I saw her come up on my schedule, I was pretty psyched about it; I really wanted to work on her and do her justice. I felt like I’d wronged her before.

Quite a few sketches are embedded in the article to give us a start-to-finish presentation, as well.