Icewind Dale: Environment Art-8001 Short Tower

When I worked in Black Isle I was tasked with taking scene models and texturing, lighting, and/or hand painting environment screens. This image represents the entire explorable scene. When playing the game this image was actually several screens worth of background art. Usually I would place a couple of basic textures on the 3D model, render a few passes in different materials (like rock and stone), then I would paint the rest quickly by hand in photoshop. All of the lava was created with careful placement of orange lines and an occasional color dodge. I completed one of these scenes every 3 days. The game was originally released on June 29, 2000, and re-released on steam on October 30, 2014