Skyrim artist reveals he modeled the look of the game's giants on his dad

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Artist Jonah Lobe's father probably wasn't quite that tall, but you can still easily see the resemblance.

That's a tweet from character artist Jonah Lobe, who worked at Bethesda Softworks on Fallout 3 and 4, Oblivion: The Shivering Isles, and Skyrim. I imagine it's not unusual for digital artists to incorporate real people into their work, and the case of Skyrim's giants, Lobe found inspiration in his father's looks.

Lobe followed up with another tweet containing a photo of his father, and I'd have to say the giant is a pretty faithful recreation. Lobe's dad is perhaps not quite as tall as the mammoth-herding giants of Skyrim, but you can definitely see the resemblance.

I didn't take up Lobe's invitation to retweet, because I'm honestly not sure if I've ever actually killed one of Skyrim's giants. I typically avoided them while playing, because I appreciate any creature in a game that doesn't always attack—and if you kept your distance and didn't mess with their mammoths, giants would often leave you alone. I also avoided them because when they did attack, I'd usually wind up in orbit.

Lobe no longer works at Bethesda, but to see more of his art you can visit his website here.

Christopher Livingston
Christopher Livingston
Senior Editor

Chris started playing PC games in the 1980s, started writing about them in the early 2000s, and (finally) started getting paid to write about them in the late 2000s. Following a few years as a regular freelancer, PC Gamer hired him in 2014, probably so he'd stop emailing them asking for more work. Chris has a love-hate relationship with survival games and an unhealthy fascination with the inner lives of NPCs. He's also a fan of offbeat simulation games, mods, and ignoring storylines in RPGs so he can make up his own.