User:Hagrin Frost-Eye/Sandbox2

Hagrin Frost-Eye/Sandbox2
Hagrin Frost-Eye/Sandbox2 as the Bethesda Website Wizard
Race	Man	Gender	Male
Appears in		bethsoft.com, Daggerfall Preview, Daggerfall, Battlespire, The Dragon's Eyrie, Morrowind Advanced

"The secret of the Universe is revealed to me, yet the path of your soul is a mystery. You must start your journey on one of these paths, Choose wisely, brace one else this be your last."
—Malthar's introduction at the bethsoft.com web portal circa 1995

Malthar the Mage, the Dragon Keeper, the Magician, Uncle Creepy, Cousin Eerie, or simply Malthar, is a powerful wizard whose made small appearances in various forms across The Elder Scrolls series, starting as the bethsoft.com Website Wizard and greeting visitors beginning in 1995, before briefly showing up again in the Daggerfall Preview in the lead-up to the game's planned August 30, 1996 release date. Malthar's most noteworthy appearance is in Daggerfall itself, where his likeness appears in every Mages Guild hall ~WRITE MORE~.^{[citation needed]} ~BATTLESPIRE~. ~NOONANMOD~. The wizard would also later serve as the keeper and guide of developer Mark Jones' portfolio and website, The Dragon's Eyrie.

The Elder Scrolls

bethsoft.com Website Wizard

A detail from Bethesda's first Website intro page. This guy has a long and somewhat murky past. When Bethesda first approached the artists there to come up with something for their new web page we were working flat out to get Daggerfall completed. For my selection therefore I reused many graphics from the animation sequences I was working on at that time , [sic] but we still needed an introduction page. The webmaster at that time wanted to have some kind of 3D wizard, but time constraints meant we only had time to create a 2D one.

—Mark Jones on Malthar's inclusion in The Elder Scrolls

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Daggerfall Preview

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The Elder Scrolls Chapter II: Daggerfall

In Daggerfall, Malthar appeared as the portrait and NPC sprite for the Mages Guild member representing the Travelers League and offering teleportation services to high ranking guild members.

An Elder Scrolls Legend: Battlespire

Clarentavious the mage. One of the characters you meet during the course of Battlespire. The image here comes from the dialogue screens. A variation on this theme appears on my title page, which has a combination of old man Chimere and Clarentavious. This was done in my own time and I will eventually design the old Bethesda web-mage in 3D.(See gallery for more detail) Here though Clarentavious has a similar animation to the old man Chimere and will gaze into the light at the end of his staff before answering your questions with a knowing look.

See Also — Clarentavious Valisious

Old man Chimere. An example of my character design from Battlespire. The old man Chimere was rendered using Alias once again. After experimenting with Alias' particle hair system on Daggefall [sic], of which the horses mane and tail are examples, I decided that for most of the character in Battlespire I would use the traditional "sausage" hair. This gave me more control, and for the resolutions we were going to use, looked better.

In the animation from which this image is taken Chimere would look deep into the flame and then raise his head and wag his finger at you in a stern, knowing sort of way. All of the dialogue animations were saves as "FLICS" an Animator Pro animation format. This had the benefit of giving us very clear, crisp animations without taken up too much space on the CD, albeit they only had a pallete of 256 colours per FLC. Depsite the realtively small size some had to be taken off the CD as the Segue and Intro animations were so big. This gave less variety to the final dialogue sequences but no one seemed to notice.

See Also — Chimere Graegyn

Morrowind Advanced

While Malthar was adapting to his role as caretaker of the Eyrie and in semi-retirement from appearing in games by Morrowind's development and release, the wizard would make one final appearance within The Elder Scrolls series in developer Gary Noonan's Morrowind mod Morrowind Advanced in the form of a skeleton named: Corpse Clarentavious Valisious within the Shade Perilous.

~WRITE THE REST AND ADD PICTURES~

The Dragon's Eyrie

"So, Welcome to the Dragon's Eyrie, take a look around. My dragons will keep an eye on you to see that you don't stray too far."
—Malthar's advice to visitors of the Eyrie

After these appearances - Malthar would be tasked with the role of keeper of the The Dragon's Eyrie and its dragons. While carrying out these duties, the wizard's relationship with his creator would be hinted at through posts Malthar himself would make; The keeper showed great care to showcase his creator's artwork to visitors, even if the wizard personally thought it wasn't very good. Malthar would simultaneously be satisfied that Jones' artwork kept him happy and fulfilled, while deriding his tendency to get caught up in making the art, which caused the artist to frequently neglect his "dragonly" duties and chores for the Eyrie.

Posts

During his time as keeper, Malthar would occasionally speak on the current events surrounding the website, as well as the works of his creator, Mark Jones.

Input on Mark Jones' Journal

It has come to my attention that young Jones has been spending far too much time scribbling in his journal of late. This is not something I encourage. The dragons need feeding, and Idris needs his teethed pick [sic] again as I [sic] young goblin got in last night and was, shall we say, snacked upon. Young goblins can be so stringy too. Let this be a warning to you Jones. I'll be keeping my eye on you a lot more closely from now on.
(October 16, 2001)

"Happy Halloween"

"Welcome I, Malthar, the dragon keeper, bid you greetings at this haunted time of year. I've bedded down the dragons for the night, so you're safe to explore. Just don't venture into the west wing... My ward, "Jones", spends his time playing with polygons and pushing pixels, and neglects his dragonly duties. His doodles abound here, and try as I might I cannot get him to stop. Some of you might find them interesting. I, do not.,
(October 16, 2001)

Older Welcome

Within you'll find the results of Jones' 16 years of digital work within the Games Industry. I think you'll agree after viewing it, that he'd be better off mucking out the dragons here at the Eyrie. After all that time you'd think he'd be getting the hang of it by now, wouldn't you? Still, it keeps him happy, and as long as his chores are completed, I have no problems with it. . When not taking care of the Eyrie's dragons, Jones, my ward here at the Eyrie, can be found pushing pixels and pounding polys. If you're interested check out the JOURNAL link on the left. He keeps a journal of sorts there, with ramblings and rantings on his current projects, the most recent being Morrowind , [sic] Dark Age of Camelot, The Elder Scrolls Travels and IHRA Drag Racing.
(January 5, 2004)

"Merry Christmas"

I've bedded down the dragons so you're safe to explore. When not taking care of the Eyrie's dragons, Jones, my ward here at the Eyrie, can be found pushing pixels and pulling polys. Within these pages you'll find a few of the dozens of games he has worked on over the last few decdes. Oh, and Merry Christmas!
If you're interested, some of the titles include Morrowind, Dark Age of Camelot, The Elder Scrolls Travels and Shadowkey. . He's always busy preparing new additions to the Eyrie. Look for "Conquest of the Coast",and [sic] the new RTS "Saga"
(December 12, 2011)

Old Welcome

I've bedded down the dragons so you're safe to explore. When not taking care of the Eyrie's dragons, Jones, my ward here at the Eyrie, can be found pushing pixels and pulling 'polys'. Within these pages you'll find a few of the dozens of games he has worked on over the last three decades. Be sure to check back in the coming weeks... BIG CHANGES are coming to the Eyrie! If you're interested, some of the titles include Morrowind, Dark Age of Camelot, The Elder Scrolls Travels and Shadowkey. . He's always busy preparing new additions to the Eyrie. Look for "Ravensword", and "Exiles"
(September 22, 2015)

Later Welcome

I, Malthar, keeper of the Dragon's Eyrie will be your guide during your stay. I've bedded down the dragons so you're safe to explore. When not taking care of the Eyrie's dragons, Jones, my ward here at the Eyrie, can be found pushing pixels and pulling 'polys'. Within these pages you'll find a few of the dozens of games he has worked on over the last three decades, from DARKMERE, to the ELDER SCROLLS series, and beyond. Be sure to check back in the coming weeks...
BIG CHANGES are coming to the Eyrie!
(January 25, 2017)

Malthar's Gallery

"Greetings traveler, to this corner of the Eyrie. It is here I, Malthar, let my pitiful peon, the young Jones, offer a more focused eye onto some of his 'artwork'. This area is set aside for some projects that might never have seen the light of day, or show some paticualrly [sic] interesting graphics that might not be possible on their resepctive [sic] pages."
—Malthar

Mark Jones would showcase Malthar himself on The Dragon's Eyrie, giving insight into the wizard's creation, history, and presence over the years. This included a sketch of Malthar's face in 2016 and two images with work-in-progress 3D models of Malthar created in ZBrush in 2017. While the model doesn't include the wizard's signature beard or hair, the detailing gives the magician a striking visage. ~REDO~

Malthar Redux

To the right - Malthar redux - About time the old bloke had a redo. Malthar, in one guise or another has been the host of this website for many years. He's a character I created way back in the 1980's and in some shape or form (and perhaps under different names) has appeared in many of the games I've worked on since then. He's my Uncle Creepy, or Cousin Eerie.

"MAL"

Zbrush WIP - Malthar The Mage

This work in progress is Malthar, without beard and hair of course. I'll update this page as the sculpt progresses, and the hair and texture are added. This is the base model, after about a day or two's work.

My most recent projects have involved relatively low polygon modelling so I wanted to work on something a little more high end.


This three quarter profile is intended to echo my old 'Elven Noble' at the bottom of this page, my first 3D studio MAX piece. That was over 20 years ago!

Side Profile

I'll probably add a skull cap to the model as a variant. When Malthar first appeared under his name in Darkmere he sported a nice silver skull cap. Just like Merlin in the movie "Excaliber". Might be nice to add some designs on that. Eventually I'll use the 3D model as a host for each page of this site.

Other Appearances

Stormlord

Malthar. The little blue guy, with the staff in the screen to the left, (seen here for the first time) is Malthar the Mage. He's cropped up in one form or another in a few games since Stormlord. In Darkmere he got he first starring role, followed by Dragonstone. I used his appearance in Daggerfall as one of the NPC portraits and in the first Bethesda Softworks site. After that he showed up in Battlespire. Since then he's been greeting visitors to the "Eyrie", and is in semi retirement.

Perhaps one day soon he'll make an appearance again!

Darkmere

Here's an earlier version of Malthar from Darkmere an AMIGA and Atari ST isometric game I designed back in the mists of time, and released in 1993. He re-appeared soon after in Dragonstone, and has been popping up under various names since then. This pixel work was created very simply, pixel by pixel. It took much longer to draw this piece of artwork than it did to create the Zbrush model above.

AS [sic] the years go by I start to look more and more like him. That can't be good...

Malthar. Again inspired by TSR, this time Jeff Easley's "The Last Spell" picture, this is Malthar, the mage.A [sic] friend of your father's who has a secret. He features quite prominently in the game.

Again the use of light and shade was a big influence on me in this graphic. It, in its turn, inspired me years later to use it as a base for Bethesda first Web page intro screen. Check out the Gallery for that one. With a limited palette of 16 colours this style works very well. The human eye fills in the dark areas so one has only to hint at the detail there. The remaining colours can then be used for those parts of the image in light. I've also used this graphic as a title for my journal section of this website. Hence the title which was not there in the original piece. Johannes Vermeer is also a great influence on me with his wonderful use of colour and light.

Dragonstone

As with Darkmere a story told in vignette style graphics also informed the player about the background story. Here Malthar, the mage from Darkmere, makes a re-appearance.

Here Malthar finally passes to the the next realm after once again creating the legendary sword that Ebryn used in Darkmere. In a Obi Wan Kenobi kind of cheat, I intended him to reappear throughout the game in spirit form.

Notes

Art Conceals Art

• ~REWRITE~ The main depiction of Malthar across the series, as well as his Darkmere appearance, are inspired and based upon the 1985 painting and cover art, The Last Spell, made for Advanced DnD: Unearthed Arcana by fantasy artist Jeff Easley.
• The sketch of the new version of Malthar depicts a piece of ornamental beard jewelry inscribed with the Daedric letters Meht, Ayem and Lyr; Which spells "MAL" when translated.
• During his time as the Bethesda web wizard, Malthar was shown alongside the Bethesda Softworks slogan "Ars Est Celare Artem" which translates to "Art Conceals Art" from Latin.
• Malthar's silver skullcap in Darkmere was inspired by Merlin in the 1981 film Excalibur, who is based upon legendary Arthurian wizard Merlin.

See Also

• Mark Jones — The creator of Malthar
• The Dragon's Eyrie — Mark Jones' personal portfolio, documenting his work on the series and Malthar
• Daggerfall: Limited Edition — The special edition release of Daggerfall which was advertised by Malthar
• Elderscrolls.com Archive — Further documentation of early online Elder Scrolls content

External Links

• bethsoft.com Archive ca. 1995 on NetControl.net

References

Note: The following references are considered to be unofficial sources. They are included to round off this article and may not be authoritative or conclusive.

Note: The following references are derived from developer mods. They are included to round off this article and may not be authoritative or conclusive.