The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt Artbook

SKELLIGE
Skellige looks and feels drastically different from
Velen or Novigrad. This is a wild, uncultivated
land mostly untouched by human presence. We
took as a starting point the depiction in the
books of the Skellige Isles as a place similar to
rocky coastal areas of northern Europe: the
Scandinavian fjords, Scotland, Iceland, and the
Orkney and Shetland Islands. While creating the
concept sketches and drawings on the basis of
which these locations would later be modeled,
our artists drew inspiration from these regions’
geography, flora and fauna, and medieval
architecture.
The Skellige Isles also differ from the mainland in
terms of the colors used. Here the warm browns
and dun greens of No Man’s Land, and the red
bricks and sunny yellows of Novigrad, give way
to cool sea blues and rocky gray cliffs, accented
here and there with a pocket of dark green
woods or the white of snow and sea foam. These
colors fit the overall inhospitable mood of the
islands perfectly.