Warcraft icons illustrate intricate artwork

Almost every expansion, and during some major patches, new icon art is added to World of Warcraft. Most fans will simply glance over these Warcraft icons — after all, the icons seem so very simple on the surface. However, taking the time to really look at each icon, they have grown more and more intricate over the years.

This week, the Warcraft Twitter account highlighted just how intricate some of the food icons are in the game. The following icons are used for Sturgeon Stew, Steamed Scorpion, and Grilled Saberfish:

Each of these look like something I would love to have in my lunch box! The level of detail — such as the vegetables in the stew, the wedge of lemon, or even just the glistening of the sauce on the steamed Saberfish — make these look like something that would actually grace someone’s dining table.

Stepping away from food, how about some of the professions icons? Enchanting in particular has some very lovely, very magical icons:

The fractured look of the temporal crystal absolutely makes it, in addition to the light amounts of shimmering that the artists have portrayed.

Equally interesting are a few of the icons associated with gear. These icons are a sampling of the many rings that appear in the game:

They certainly seem very exotic, or even just etched from a Tectus-shaped rock, rather than just some band that I never see on my character’s hand. This level of detail is quite wonderful, considering the kind of story that it adds to the items. These are not items that we necessarily have models for, so it definitely adds a new level of detail.

Similar to that, many of the archaeology icons are also designed in order to illustrate the lore elements of archaeology:

The Warcraft account has continued posting more high resolution icons, which can be seen by viewing this hashtag. All in all, these were very wonderful for Blizzard to share, as it certainly highlights an element of the game which players tend to not even notice!