Artist brings childhood dream to life with realistically scaled Whiterun from Skyrim

Artist Cormac Gunsirt, also known as cormeals, presented a detailed painting of Whiterun from The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim in "lore-accurate scale" – the size matching canonical descriptions from the universe rather than the condensed in-game version.

The digital painting, which took 65 hours of work in Photoshop, depicts the capital of Whiterun Hold as a genuine medieval city with numerous buildings, developed infrastructure, and extensive agricultural lands.

The image shows the massive Dragonsreach atop the hill, surrounded by an expanded Cloud District – a neighborhood represented by just one building in the game. The Wind District sprawls across the slopes with dozens of houses, workshops, and streets, while farms, pastures, and outposts are visible beyond the walls. Even the Khajiit caravans at the main gates are meticulously rendered. A dragon soars above the city in the sky – clearly nothing good will come of this for the residents.

Fan reaction was enthusiastic. Comments filled with jokes about Nazeem, the game's most annoying NPC. Like: "Do you get to the Cloud District very often? What am I saying, of course you do."

The artist admitted creating the work was "harder than expected," but the result justified the effort. Users are begging for a continuation of the series with other cities – Solitude, Markarth, Windhelm, and Riften.

Beyond the opportunity to sit and examine every house and structure, the painting sparked discussion about the scale problems of cities in Bethesda games. User DemolishunReddit noted they can't wait until video games can achieve such scale. But filling such a city with content when there's an entire province besides it – that's a lifelong task.

However, some recall Novigrad from The Witcher 3 and Kuttenberg from Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2 as examples of realistically large cities. Opinions divided though – some players prefer Skyrim's intimacy with unique NPCs, while others want scale and the feeling of a large city, even if most passersby are nameless.

Naturally, all this prompts thoughts about what TES 6 will be like. Obviously Bethesda won't pursue real-world scales – but just imagine a game that massive! Expanses of a new province, major and minor cities, settlements and villages... caves and forests of realistic sizes – completing it would take years!