Recently, Managing Editor Jon Wood visited the offices of The Chronicles of Spellborn in The Netherlands. Today, we present an article about the concept art and general artistic style of the upcoming MMORPG.

"Beauty is more than skin deep."

It's a cliché we've all heard once or twice in our lifetimes but when it comes to video games, for some people, the way it looks can make the difference between buying and enjoying a game, and leaving it on the shelf.

While visiting the studio for The Chronicles of Spellborn, I had the opportunity to sit down and talk to Romano Molenaar, one of the game's Concept Artists, about the overall style of the game, as well as the process that gets that look from concept to the screen.

When production began on The Chronicles of Spellborn, the thought was that they would try to create a photo-realistic world for their players to enjoy. This means that everything was supposed to look "real", from the characters, to the trees, to the architecture. Somewhere along the lines though, a decision was made that the look of the game didn't match the feel that the developers wanted their world to capture, and a new look was born, dubbed by the team to be the "Spellborn Style".

Read the whole report here.

Spellborn has long caught my eye, certainly. It ranks third in visual appeal for me behind Vanguard and Climax's would-be Warhammer Online.

Originally posted by -Inferno-
I wonder if the actual ingame model looks like that. The huge head looks a bit weird ;)

I'm a big fan of TCoS, and like that they are getting some attention here at MMORPG, but is it possible to get a little more meat and potatoes out of these write-ups?

I was hoping for some insider info, considering the writer took a trip out to The Hague. I mean, we got a picture of how the team works together...cool, sound is going good...ok, art department is on track....nifty, but how is the actual game? Is the combat fluid and fast paced? Is it a contender with AoC? Any solid info on the mines area, or PvP system? Any in game maps? Any word on a US publisher? Any shots of some high-end armor? Sigils?

The current articles just seem a little fluffy to me.

Just love the art style. More european than really any mmo before. Great color palette and shapes. And looking at the shots, the lightning is great too.