Prize Winning Cow - Witcher 3, artwork by CD Projekt Red

This delightful image of an apparently murderous cow almost looks like a parody on 18th century animal paintings in its execution and composition. Prize Winning Cow is an official artwork for the world of The Witcher and the Witcher card game GWENT, video games created by CD PROJEKT RED. The artist that made this image is Anna Podedworna. This limited edition Certified Art Giclee™ print is part of the official The Witcher fine art collection by Cook & Becker and CD PROJEKT RED. The print is hand-numbered and comes with a Certificate of Authenticity signed by the artist.

The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt is the third game in the Witcher video game series by CD PROJEKT RED and is one of the most awarded games of all time. The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt is a fantasy RPG based on the stories and books by Polish writer Andrej Sapkowski. Although the video game is situated in a fictional world, it resembles a stereotypical, magical Europe from a distant time. It is also a world clearly influenced by Slavic and European mythology, folklore and fairy tales. With the Witcher games, CD PROJEKT RED essentially builds on that foundation of old folk tales and adds to it with one of the most believable fictional worlds in modern video game history.

In fairy tales good defeats evil, often after difficult quests and much hardship. People get enchanted and then miraculously cured. Those are things The Witcher 3 players will recognize for sure as they step into the shoes of professional monster hunter Geralt of Rivia and take bounties for money, defeats monsters and solve mysteries and disappearances. These stories play in parallel to the main overall quest whereby Geralt in looking for ‘his daughter' Ciri who is being hunted by the mysterious Wild Hunt. This design structure gives CD PROJEKT RED an ideal framework to present players with a multitude of fairy tale like stories that draw on the Northern European and Slavic collective consciousness and resonate far beyond.

Because of this structure, The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt is more that the main storyline with Geralt, Ciri, Triss and the magician Yennifer. What players will maybe remember the most, long after they finished the game are the stories about the Crones, the Red Baron, Johnny and dark quests like The Tower of Mice and Possession. It is all these characters and stories together that form the heart of The Witcher 3 experience. Something that clearly shows in the exceptional concept art for The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt and the upcoming, stand-alone GWENT card game. If you see all those images and illustrations together the richness of Geralt's world really comes to the fore. Even the most common monsters and characters are lovingly detailed and have interesting back-stories and designs. All images are a joy to pore over.

In history, fairy tales have had a great influence on the development of the visual arts. Known European and Russian artists such as Vasili Kandinsky, Viktor Vasnetov and Gustave Dore have made world-famous artworks and paintings with folk tales and fairy tales as a theme. But also contemporary artists such as the animators and illustrators at Walt Disney studios or David Hockney have used fairy tales as a subject. With their outstanding work the artists at CD PROJEKT RED add to this rich tradition. If you would organize an exhibition about fairytales in the arts, the fantastic concept art images and designs of The Wichter 3: Wild Hunt could easily fill an entire room.