In the last few years, the Mooncolony team has partnered with Blizzard Entertainment, supplying the illustrations for several Hearthstone 2.5D cinematic trailers. Hearthstone is Blizzard Entertainment’s free-to-play online collectable card game (CCG) that builds upon the lore and world of the esteemed World of Warcraft (WoW) series. With many of the team being big World of Warcraft fans, we were excited to take on another Hearthstone cinematic.

The Hearthstone: Scholomance Academycinematic trailer reveals a 135 collectablecard expansion for Hearthstone, set withinthe halls of the prestigious ScholomanceAcademy under the watchful eye ofHeadmaster Kel’Thuzad.

The illustration process begins as soon as we receive the final storyboard and brief. For any cinematic project, we typically break down each shot into components. For example, one artist might focus on the line work, while individual characters are assigned to different artists, and another team member works on the backgrounds. Fortunately, many of our artists had already worked on Hearthstone, which makes it easy to achieve a cohesive look and feel across the entire project.

“This was my first gig for Mooncolony. I did most of the backgrounds, and after that, I did all of the backgrounds for the next 7 or 8 expansions! It was a fun experience, and I think the team did a wonderful job.”

In World of Warcraft, Scholomance is a classic dungeon. Also known as the School of Necromancy, it’s an academy for prospective necromancers of the Scourge. In this fun Hearthstone twist, we see Scholomance at a time when it was a fabled magic college, run by headmaster Kel'Thuzad before he became an evil lich.

“It was great to work with different formats and aspect ratios than the usual card art format.  It allows you to show much more of the world and actions, rather than just a single striking action pose.”

Watch the full trailer and see our illustrations come to life here!