More Games Please brings you interviews with the best board game artists and designers. We find out more about their inspiration, the challenges they've faced and how they created the games we love.
All tagged Illustrator
In 2012 I made my first fantasy illustration portfolio and brought it to an artist convention in Kansas City called Spectrum. I showed it to as many artists and art directors as possible. Even though I knew that I wasn’t ready, I made this portfolio as…
I wanted to make a joke about the omnipresent sexism of the 50s era by reversing the roles on the cover. At first, I imagined a woman in a suit near a sold sign in front of a nice house, giving the key to her nice husband with the kids in his arms. I wanted it to be so we could imagine her saying to her husband "see what I bought for you and the kids darling"..
I went through a long time where in my head “Finished art” meant that the art was hyper realistic and perfect. [..] It was a hard time training my brain to be okay with finished art that was polished, but not sterile. [..] that’s where my color choices and strange themes come from [..] me leaning hard into the skid of trying to buck the idea that realism is the only way for art to be truly “finished”.
[..] all these things make sense if there is an art director. Someone who watches over everything and has a vision of how a particular game should look, selecting the right people and paying attention to graphical coherency…
I was turning 30 without a clear path, and absolutely buried in loans paid for private art school, and going through quite a bit in my personal life. I unsuccessfully applied for job after job on my college’s job board for anything art-related…
To tell you the truth, when I started to work as an artist I decided to learn from the absolute basics. I spent almost the whole year, at least one hour each day, just learning anatomy from tutorials on the internet or books…
The Salem witch trials was a dark time in American history and there were a lot of innocent victims, self righteous individuals and perpetrators. Lots of death, fear, lies and betrayal. Mary Warren (the first one I did, and the one I actually initially envisioned as Ann Putnam) was a perpetrator. She’s the one who started the witch hunt. When drawing her I wanted her character to feel ominous. Drawing her also set the tone for the rest of the art in the game.
When Mark and I discussed the art style, Mark had a very specific vision in mind, which can be a double-edged sword! A lot of people struggle with vision and don't know what they want (or don't want) until they see it. Mark knew exactly what he wanted…
