From superb illustrations to original videos, Blizzard Communities from all over the world have showed their unique understanding of Blizzard games by sharing an ever-growing number of fantastic creations. Today, we’d like to introduce you one of those passionate artists. He created the “Running Murlocs,” “Raynor” and most importantly, the original illustration of “Martar the Not-So-Smart” in Mists of Pandaria, he is Yanmo Zhang (注册君).

Yanmo Zhang was born in an artists’ family and inherited his parents’ talents. He started drawing at nine and graduated from the affiliated middle school of China Academy of Art and Sichuan Fine Arts Institute oil painting major. When he was 23, he was promoted as the 2D concept artist and chief artist of the company. After his resignation from this company, he became a freelancer artist and has created lots of fine art for international game companies and publishers.

He started playing Warcraft III in middle school and World of Warcraft since 2006. The beauty of Nagrand, the rain of Ashenvale and the guild he established, all of these makes him a passionate fan of Blizzard. In 2008, he applied for the drawing competition about the Lich King. Although he didn’t win a prize, this very opportunity opened a door for us to see his unique art.

Next, a member of our Chinese community team sat down with Yanmo Zhang to share his stories with us. Here’s the translated interview:

I started playing Warcraft III in middle school. It was funny that at first the only tactics I knew is Archmage’s water elements and footman rush. And in 2006, I became a player of WoW, my first character was an Alliance but slain over and over again by horde players, so I made up my mind and set up a horde Shaman. After that, I created my own guild called ‘暴怒（Rage）’and used 2 years to make it the fourth best guild in my server. I have started playing StarCraft II and Diablo III in college to this day, and of course the newly launched Hearthstone.

It was not only the game itself which attracts me, the art style in each game attracts me more. I still remember my first time in Azeroth, the background music, the stories, every leaf and every stream, all of these made me think, how did those artists in Blizzard bring such life and epic feeling into a game.

When I was 4 or 5, I liked painting everywhere, so my parent bought me a large blackboard and lots of chalk. My father was a Chinese painting artist and he bought me a book as well. Once, when my parents were out, I tried to imitate art from the book out of boredom. And when they came back, my father was shocked and got me a great teacher the next day. I was a grade 4 pupil and others were high school students. The teacher didn’t want me at first, but my father gave him the picture I imitated. Then the teacher looked at it for a while and said：‘Ok, let’s give me a try.’ My father came to pick me up in the evening and asked how did it go, the teacher said that I was a genius and he took me in. He’s really a great teacher and taught me a lot.

It was a very hard experience but I won’t give up.

"12 Years Old"	"14 Years Old"

"My Work in 2008"

"The Fallen Soul"

"Martar the Not-So-Smart"

"Fordring vs. Arthas"

"Tyrael"	"Varian Wrynn"	"Pandarian Mage"

"Raynor"

"Arthas"	"Arthas"

"Deathwing Comes"

"Whitemane"	"Run!"

"Keep Going"