A lot of work goes into the creation of every part of Dungeons & Dragons Online, and even then some people at Turbine go above and beyond our already-high standards. Meet Fred Fields, Concept Artist and the man responsible for many past Forgotten Realms book and module covers. Community Content Developer Kyle Horner sat down with Fred and discussed the work that went into creating his latest imagining of Lolth, Demon Queen of Spiders- an incredible piece of art he took great lengths to get just right.


Kyle Horner: Where did you begin when creating Lolth for DDO?

Fred Fields: Senior Production Artist Pete Anderson and I worked in tandem to simply figure out her proportions.  How big is the human torso portion of Lolth compared to her spider portion? We were asking ourselves, "How big is the spider abdomen? How long are the legs- how thick are the legs?" You know just basic things; I could've done a million drawings and not hit the right one. So Pete sculpted a very rough grey model, and he would sit with DDO Art Director Jeff DePuy, and Jeff would say, "Make that bigger. Make that longer." He got the build he wanted, and having that 3D model gave me the freedom to move forward   and concentrate on other creative aspects of Lolth.

Kyle: So how did you get from those origins to this awesome Lolth art?

Fred:  Once her concept was fully realized Jeff spoke with me about a special project. He had some pretty specific ideas of what he wanted it to be, so the idea behind this illustration is Jeff's.


I sketched it up a couple of times; the huge abdomen, legs and planet- Jeff was very specific. I drew it a couple times, but it basically kept coming back to the same illustration. As I was working on this sketch, several people would walk by and ask if I was going to paint it traditionally or digitally, since I used to do paint book covers and game module covers for TSR and later Wizards of the Coast.

Kyle: Wow, so you and Lolth have a little history.

Fred: Yes, I suppose you could say that. When painting Lolth in the past, I knew very little about her. All I was told was that, basically, she is a Spider Queen. So I said, "Okay, tell me more." I was told, "She’s part spider, she's a Drow and she'll have some kind of a crown." Really, that was all I had for my first attempt back then so when I saw her come up on my schedule, I was pretty psyched about it; I really wanted to work on her and do her justice. I felt like I’d wronged her before.


Kyle: How did this incarnation of her come about?

Fred: I threw the idea past Jeff, "How about if I just paint it? The project is going to take a certain amount of time, so I might as well do what I do best." He was fine with it, so that's what I did for two weeks – I worked at home, because that's where I have my studio set up – and I'd take pictures of my progress and send them into Jeff every day, or every other day, until it was finished. Of course there was a lot of tweaking and re-touching for me to do in Photoshop once the painting was finished.

And, before I started, I sculpted some of the different pieces – her crown and legs – for reference. They are made out of Super Sculpey.

Kyle: Why did you start with a sculpture, was it for proportions or something else?

Fred: Well, when I paint I take photos of models. Since I use photo reference with real people, I generally photograph pieces like this – things that you can't necessarily find, I had to make it. This way I can photograph it in the same lighting as the shots of the actual person. So I'd just hold out a sculpture with my hand and snap photos of it at different angles.



With the model, I basically just set a light up and had her do all these different hand gestures. Earlier, when I drew up the concept of her, I put little baby spiders in the abdomen area, and Jeff liked it. He said to me, "Well, what if it was lit inside, like a red light so you could kinda see 'em." So that's what we were trying to get across. I don’t know what that light would be. She is a goddess and I guess she can light up any part of her she wants.

Kyle: I'm sure people with arachnophobia wouldn't be terrified at all by that idea.

Both: [Laughter]

Fred: That's funny. There was some discussion of arachnophobia when we were talking about Lolth in meetings, and I don't know how you can get around that.


Kyle: Yeah, she's a 'Spider' Queen.

Fred: Plus, if you're playing DDO you’re probably past that.

Kyle: Hopefully, yes. It might be a good way to work your way past that fear. Play DDO, defeat spiders, and fear them no more!

Fred: It's funny, since I used to paint book covers and game modules; everybody kept talking about how this Lolth art was going to have a retro look to it. I didn’t realize I had a retro look, I just paint.


Kyle: Yeah, most everything is done digitally. But I think going with a traditional painting is really cool, because it gives the piece a visual weight and character. Which of all the painting steps do you think took the longest to get just right?

Fred: Her face, because faces are very important. Skin tones, too. I generally take more time on that, because I want it to look correct, and realistic. So I take a little extra care on that.

The planet was actually kind of fun because I'd been doing all this precise work with her face and the last thing I got to do was this planet and its clouds. It was almost like playing. Jeff wanted this big hurricane right in the middle, as if she were manipulating circumstances- or stirring the pot. And, I thought it would be kind of cool if you were watching this and it was a movie and she dragged her claws down into the clouds and it just sort of lit up at the point where her claw pierces the clouds.


Kyle: So how do you feel about working on Forgotten Realms again?

Fred: Oh yeah, definitely excited. You know, I was just thumbing through the schedule earlier today, and there are all these names and places familiar to me. I mean, let's see… I'd say fifteen-to-twenty years ago, but they're still very familiar. I spent a good part of my career working on Forgotten Realms. I'm enjoying returning to it a lot.

Kyle: Are you hoping to get more time with Lolth in the future?

Fred: Concept-wise I'd say we're done with Lolth. I haven't seen everything that Pete (who did the 3D modeling) has done with her, and we have the two versions. I've seen the Eberron version; I've not seen the finished Forgotten Realms version. She's a huge character, and the Eberron version was really cool.

It's always fun to see what the production guys do with my concepts. They bring their own energy and creativity to the project. When Pete was done with the model, it didn't look "exactly" like what I drew, but it didn't need to, because he brought details to Lolth that made her in-game version pretty incredible.


I think, in the end, because everyone was enjoying themselves and being creative we all came up with an extremely cool character. Our Animation Lead, Manny Trujillo, showed me what he and his team had done to bring Lolth to life; her animation is extremely awesome.

Kyle:  I'm looking forward to getting to see that as some point! Thanks for your time, Fred.

Fred: Thank you, too.