These trees are some of my favorites I have ever gotten to make. They were concepted by my colleague Servando Lupini who designed such a unique look for them. I knew this one would be a challenge because of the types of materials we wanted to capture in this tree.

The idea behind them was these bulbous trees that are infused with magical anima amber glass that oozes and solidifies out of the bark. Which then forms this sheen of glass that the inhabitants of Ardenweald can use for weapons, armor, and more. The fun part of this project was that I also needed to design depleted versions where the anima has all but left the tree. For the depleted versions, I wanted the glass to resemble oxidized bronze.

One of the things we like to do is reuse some elements of old assets that still hold up to our current art standards to save us time and allow us to generate more assets. For these trees we decided to reuse a canopy made for Suramar by Tina Wang and change up the color. Their design really brought to life the look and feel Servando wanted for the canopies.

https://www.artstation.com/vando
https://www.artstation.com/meldyran