Midnight Auctions

I almost trashed this one and kept it hidden - not just on Artstation, but on any of the channels that I have shared my content over the years. The format and execution of this felt too mercurial, given the dark, clean lines of some of my previous pieces. A lot of my work in this project is meant to enhance or filter some of the obscurities that the limited graphic ability of 1999 contained. This piece ended up feeling a bit like a step backwards or away from that original goal, but the more I looked at it, the more I realized that what I am trying to capture with these is a feeling, and not an examination under a microscope. While the paintings before this had required a great deal of scrutiny and attention to finer details that many may have missed, this glance at a hole in a mountainside....well, it just kind of hit.

For any player who has made the trek to the East Commons Tunnel, they have undoubtedly made it during the night at some point. Depending on the race the player has chosen, this was either an atmospheric jaunt with the occasional look over the shoulder, or a horrifying stumble through pitch blackness, with the only reprieve being the literal light of salvation coming from the largest player hub in the world of Norrath. My other piece, "Air Elemental to Tunnel," is a good outline of the safety that came with those numbers. Not to mention, the potential for profit or upgrades in gear.

In my own return to this area, the population had depleted significantly from my memory of what it was in 2001. The six figures pictured here, while only the tip of a slightly larger population deeper in the tunnel near Torch 1 (T1) and Torch 2 (T2), become the unofficial greeters and a warm reminder that the server isn't dead, and the economy lives.