Heya! It's me, Imoen!

It’s time to reveal the winners of The Faces of Baldur’s Gate I & II: Enhanced Editions Contest: Ashley Rich & Andrew Lim! Congratulations, Ashley and Andrew, you’ll get your portraits transformed into the art style of Baldur’s Gate by Mike Sass!

LETTER BY MIKE SASS

Big Congrats to the winners and finalists of the Baldur's Gate portrait contest!

It’s really exciting that D&D seems to be having a renaissance, with the new movie and games coming out. We are delighted that there is a loyal community around the BG games and we are happy that together we keep the franchise alive.

There were hundreds of portrait submissions for this contest. I went through them all and made a shortlist of about 20 that were great options for turning into BG characters. It may seem like the winners were chosen because of costuming and props, but that's totally not the case. Two of my favorites were simple faces with hand gestures, which had good expressions and contained the feel and attitude of the old illustrations. While we appreciated the efforts to gather props and costumes, this was not the biggest factor in determining the winners. The winning entries were a consensus by myself and Beamdog, and had a level of uniqueness, effort and surprise that grabbed our attention.

Ashley Rich: What a great, well-considered pose! Ashley has conceptualized a character that has lots of potential in a fantasy world. The overlap of the hand and gem are a great way to keep the details inside a closely-cropped small portrait format. And of course, the eye-glass element is really cool. Great job, and congratulations!

Andrew Lim: Wow! This submission demonstrates perfectly that the props are helpful, but not what makes a winner. His firm expression, hand gestures and complexity of pose are the big thing here. Andrew has a great look that can't be ignored, congratulations!

Again, thanks to everyone that submitted to this contest. We could literally show dozens of great entries that all had usable aspects and were perfectly good. We appreciate all the considered efforts you took; The winners were not easily chosen and there were many others that I am disappointed I could not use. However, the winners deserve the accolades, and we hope you agree!

~Mike Sass

CHARNAME BIOGRAPHIES

Want to learn more about Andrew and Ashley's character backstories? Read below.

Andrew Lim:

My character is a human barbarian of the Uthgardt Bear Tribe. Hailing from the Cold Wood, he stands as one of the vigilants of his tribe that protect their people from the dangers of the untamed wilds therein. Warriors of the bear venerate the animal not only for its strength and majesty (particularly owing to the dire bears in the region), but also for its ability to endure in the harshest of climes. He fights to protect his tribe as well as to earn the favor of the Great Bear, which is its "blessing"--contracting lycanthropy in order to become one of the Great Bear's chosen that maintains the bear's noble heritage and bearing in order to better protect the tribe. Like the rest of his warrior kin, he constantly pushes the borders of his rangings, riding on a knife-edge of danger that may earn the recognition of the Great Bear, or claim his unworthy spirit into the depths of the Cold Wood, never to be seen again.

Ashley Rich:

Feldy (Feldspar) is a human rogue from the Merchant Guild - specifically, her job has been that of gem cutter/appraiser. She greatly enjoyed her moderately comfortable life in the guild, but was recently sent out on an expedition whose purpose was to restore a late mage's abode. Discovering all she could about the runestones there and possibly bringing some back was supposed to fastrack her apprenticeship, but of course, nothing ever goes to plan...