Beamdog’s The Familiar on Giving Old Concept Art New Life

In 2016, the folks at Beamdog had a neat idea – to publish a CRPG/Baldur’s Gate-themed digital magazine. They called it The Familiar and ran it for a grand total of two issues. Now, there’s an announcement on the developer blog that further entries in The Familiar will be posted there from now on.

The current issue revolves around a mix of fan and concept art. A number of work-in-progress NPC portraits for Baldur’s Gate have been found and Beamdog’s fans took it upon themselves to finish the job. The dev blog post shows a few examples of this and I have to admit, they look quite decent, ready to be imported and used in the game.

Here’s a bit from Julius Borisov, Beamdog’s Community Manager:

For many players, the story of a character begins with the quest to find the perfect portrait.

Avid RPG fans will often spend hours and – in many cases – even days thinking about a future characters’ backstory, attributes, adventuring party, and relationships. All this must be summed up with a single piece of inspiring art to envision as the face of the hero throughout the coming adventure.

We’re always astonished by the level of enthusiasm, creativity and care for detail among the Baldur’s Gate community. And now, thanks to our amazing fans, players all over the world can enjoy their favourite characters with entirely new portraits.

[…]

From what we’ve heard, this is only the beginning. Work continues with coloured portraits for concept versions of Viconia and Anomen. We can’t wait to see what the community comes up with!

It’s amazing to see fans still managing to find new easter eggs, dialogues, details, and portraits in the Baldur’s Gate games. What will they find next?