Real Pictures hidden in Skill Icons?

It's not a secret Anet has put some "personal touch" into their game. Heck, I praise them for it. I've seen ALOT of special things, such as the rock in Pre-Searing. (SS+HH I think it says, not sure) -Referring to the 2 devs who got married I think?-

Anyways, I recently was looking into the "High definition" skill icons, and I've noticed some "real life" picture. Now, 2 things are either going on:

Or it actually is pictures of Anet crew they put in there

Or the graphical team once again showed their amazing abilities in creating real-life details within something as small as a skill icon.

Any ideas on this?

Judge yourselves from these few examples:

Same guy in these pictures?




Same girl in these ones?




Insanely real life details on this old man:


I am intrigued by GW art. No doubt GW is one of the best looking MMO's out there. (It's a bit outdated, but it most definatly set a new standard for MMO's) And the Art (Non quality related) is amazing, especially the Factions one...

If I am not mistaken the guy in your first few pics is a developer.

all developers have their own unique way of leaving a little of themselves in their games, this is the way GW has elected to do it. pretty nicely hidden too, unless you look at the high-def version some pics are hard to see, others like the pic in gaze can be seen clrearly

Ye, I like how the guy with the beard actually is doing well in living up to the skill names:

Look at Gaze of Contempt, and Oppressive Gaze...

Gotta love Anet for their graphical skills (Graphical team anyways) and the many "easter eggs", if you can call 'em that way.

I have always noticed the real-life photo manipulation going on in the skill icons, but it's really great to see them at such a high quality.

How did you get them at such large resolution? I'm sure I'm not the only one who would love to examine all the skill icons at this size.

Ye, I hear ya.

I always liked certain skill icons, but seeing them king-size is pretty much re-discovering the game.

Did you know [Bestial Mauling] is actually an animal (Prolly a Tiger) biting a person in the neck?

The tiger is in the left, and the guy is on the botton, he's using both his arms to pull the tiger off.
I spend 2 years asking on vent to people WHAT the icon really was, and no-one ever knew...

Amazing art...

Anyways, here is the link to the t hread. Props to the creator of him, and once again: Graphical team, you guys deserve an award, which you prolly already got somewhere. AMAZING job with GW1, and I hope GW2 will be just as amazing, graphical-wise...

http://www.guildwarsguru.com/forum/s...php?t=10295191

Thanks for the link, I never realised these existed. It looks like Prophecies icons are all hand-painted, and icons from the later games tend to be photo-edits if the design allows for it. The two that come to mind are:




(from http://www.guildwarsguru.com/forum/s...php?t=10298741)

That is very impressive.

Wow, can you just take a person's photo and use it like that??

with good skils and something like photoshop it is possible, but a bit complicated for ppl who havent done it before

Pain is another i'd like to see up close.
I haven't noticed that many real life pictures in those skills :O

The one of frustration fits Izzy perfectly

Here's some extra info on the skill icons btw:

Really nice thread in community works:
http://www.guildwarsguru.com/forum/s...php?t=10295191

People trying to find out what what is:
http://www.guildwarsguru.com/forum/s...php?t=10206095
( Might be redundant now )

Oh I know it's POSSIBLE (that part's easy) I was just wondering at it's legality. I must assume that rights to the shot were bought from the hodlers...

Obviously it's legal, there are staff members in there and professional models.

i wouldn't call most of these high-quality. no offense to anet.

they're great for how small of a visual field their utilization in game warrants, but the full-sized icons show a lot of laziness. most photomanips are rather poorly and sloppily done, although some painted skill icons and particularly those of intricate design like ether signet, etc are very well done even at full-size.

why arnt i in one of those?


I can just imagne some rich ass mofo paying off anet for there face in one of these lol

No, the one of Mila Kunis is a publicity shot for That 70's Show... Staff members, totally fine, model images taken especially for the skills, of course it's legal. My question is purely regarding the image of Mila Kunis.

["it's just a flesh wound!"]
I love this one, they removed the arm and all

It's just a flesh wound!

undertakers gaze of contempt.

there are quite a few of the skill icons (all female) in the mesmer skill set (same person that did tease im guessing) that look copied.

some of them look awfully familiar but im terrible with names.

Whoever is in the tease picture is gorgeous. Do you think she is in any way related to guild wars? Or just a model? Or maybe totally unrelated but they stole her picture from somewhere ^^.

~A Leprechaun~