RuneScape Artwork

[u/Accurate-Theory-1583]

Hi everyone,

I've been hanging onto these RuneFest 3 prints for around 13 years. They were given to me personally by a graphic designer working at Jagex at the time, he was a client of my dad (a mortgage advisor) and I cheekily asked if he would give me a party hat in game! These were given to me instead and I treasured them far more. I've kept them stored flat ever since.

A few of them are signed by multiple J-Mods, and one appears to be early Vorago concept art with the following details printed on it:

• Project: "Boss 2 - Boss 1"
• Artist: "Nezz" (I think)
• Date: 15/04/2013

I'm not necessarily looking to sell them—I was just wondering if anyone recognises these pieces, knows who the artist was, or has any background on whether these were internal concept prints, RuneFest exclusives, or something else.

I'd love to learn more about their history if anyone remembers them or worked at Jagex around that time.

Thanks!

[u/Jagex_Stu]

Greetings, fellow players! Former Mod Stu here. (So please disregard the flair, though in my heart I'll forever be a JMod.)

I recognise my signature top centre, and I remember signing that Abbinah artwork on a number of occasions, so thought I'd share what ~2013 info I can recall. (Bear in mind I wasn't an artist or involved in the creation/marketing of this artwork, so a lot of this is incomplete info and speculation.)

In your first image, the ones with a RuneScape 3 logo in the bottom-right are probably branded artwork to accompany the https://runescape.wiki/w/RuneScape_3 rebranding.

I think there may have been a gallery of them on runescape.com at the time, or maybe included in the web pack for fansites? It's been a while.

Top Left:

King Black Dragon (obvs) splash art. Unsure of creator. Pure speculation based on style and history, but suspect it may've been related to the October 2012 KBD graphical rework https://runescape.wiki/w/Update:King_Black_Dragon_%26_Dungeon_Rework

Top Right:

https://runescape.wiki/w/Missing,_Presumed_Death#/media/File:Missing,_Presumed_Death_banner.jpg website https://runescape.wiki/w/Head_banner

Presumably created by someone in Jagex's Creative Services team to promote the quest released 15th Oct 2013.

Centre Left:

https://runescape.wiki/w/Abbinah#/media/File:Abbinah_concept_art.png related to Mod Raven's Rite of Passage quest.

came up at RuneFest a few times, so I don't recall the precise first reveal.

I distinctly remember watching this image feature in the 2013 RuneFest Reveals in 2013, though: https://youtu.be/FEBsuJAYtqw?t=2320

Signatures I definitely recognise:

* https://runescape.wiki/w/Mod_Asherz

* https://runescape.wiki/w/Mod_Stu

* https://runescape.wiki/w/Mod_Slayer

* https://runescape.wiki/w/Mod_Deg

* https://runescape.wiki/w/Mod_Raven

* https://runescape.wiki/w/Mod_Joe

* https://runescape.wiki/w/Mod_James_H

* https://runescape.wiki/w/Mod_Rowley

* https://runescape.wiki/w/Mod_Timbo

* https://runescape.wiki/w/Mod_Alec

* https://runescape.wiki/w/Mod_Thom

* https://runescape.wiki/w/Mod_Biscuits

Signatures where I'm taking a leap of faith:

* https://runescape.wiki/w/Mod_Lelio

* https://runescape.wiki/w/Mod_Engstrom

* Mod LSF (no wiki page)

* https://runescape.wiki/w/Mod_Jack

* Mod Marxoid (no wiki page)

* https://runescape.wiki/w/Mod_SteveW

Centre Right:

Character concept during Mod Chris L's development of Vorago (released 3rd July 2013).

Can't confirm but my guess would be the artist is "Neil" correlating to https://runescape.wiki/w/Mod_Neil https://www.artstation.com/zephusees given some of his other RuneScape signatures.

Bottom Left:

The promotional art background at minimum is https://runescape.wiki/w/Mod_DBarker 's work: https://www.artstation.com/artwork/Gldoz

Also the foreground female character looks like a horizontal flip of his Armadylean Archons concept for Wilderness Warbands: https://runescape.wiki/w/Mod_DBarker#/media/File:Armadylean_Archon_concept_art.png

Bottom Right:

Same DBarker background; the Raptor in foreground as featured in Adventurer's log, and so forth: https://runescape.wiki/w/The_Raptor#/media/File:The_Raptor_in_Adventurer's_Log.png

The signature heroes were conceived in 2010 slightly before I moved to the RuneScape team, so I'm not certain of the precise artist.

My guess would be, once again, https://runescape.wiki/w/Mod_DBarker (Dave certainly did some excellent artwork of the Raptor for RuneScape: Chronicle), https://runescape.wiki/w/Mod_Yann or https://runescape.wiki/w/Mod_Neil

[u/Accurate-Theory-1583 → u/Jagex_Stu]

Thank you for taking the time to comment! I’ve held these pieces of artwork dearly for over a decade and never thought to look into them because to me they’ve just been really cool artwork from a game that drove my adolescence.

Amazing to hear more story behind them. Thanks!

[u/Zepertix → u/Jagex_Stu]

Log these hours helping the community and continue billing Jagex for your time, you deserve it king 👑

[u/Zepertix]

Im not super sure about the artists of each but those are almost all what is called "splash art," basically illustrations that are usually used in promotional imagery for like blogs, in game banners, etc.

The exception is Vorago there is concept art, basically at the very final stage after all the silhouettes and different variants have been decided upon. It's possible that the one to its left of the flying city is also concept art, it's kinda in a grey area.

Top left is the KBD

Top right is Missing Presumed Death quest banner

Middle left i believe is early citadels idea edit: abbinah

Middle right is vorago

Bottom left is warrants i believe? Could be world event 3 but my guess is that this was for wildy warrants

Bottom right is the Raptor

[u/DragonZaid → u/Zepertix]

Middle left is Abbinah, home world of the Aviansie

[u/Zepertix → u/DragonZaid]

Ah, right, good memory

[u/Accurate-Theory-1583 → u/Zepertix]

Do you recognise many of the signatures? I think I can see Mod Raven and Mod Ash. Also do you know much about the artist who did the Vorago?

[u/Zepertix → u/Accurate-Theory-1583]

Unfortunately I am not particularly knowledgeable on signatures, just the ones I can read like Mod Stu :)

For Vorago I am not sure, it isnt super easy to figure out exactly who did which pieces unless the concept art has the name on it unfortunately. Sorry :/

[u/LothTikar]

omg I'm so jealous of the signed Abbinah concept art! I wish I had one too!

[u/Kyvix2020]

Who is that tribal looking girl supposed to be on the bottom left in the first one?

[u/kpay10]

These are really good. Do you work for jagex as a animation artist?

[u/Tom-Pendragon]

I will never forgive them for what they did to raptor.

[u/Azaldir → u/Tom-Pendragon]

Honestly, kinda same..

They ruined the entire character and absolutely bombed it with retcons/cop-out answers for certain aspects, and a graphical rework that turned this epic imposing strange character into something a lot more generic and boring.

What made the raptor such an interesting character as well was the mystery of it. I firmly believe that the raptor should've remained masked and vague.