Jade Shames and Ben Bronstein: Art in Board Games #20
I’ve had a lot of tragic experiences with mental illness, and I have a very dark sense of humor. Knowing that many of the drugs we’re prescribed to make us well also cause us to become sick in other ways, I started to develop a game where you were racing other players to treat a series of diseases...
This week we have Jade Shames and Ben Bronstein, game creators who are launching their first game, Side Effects.
Hello, Jade and Ben, thanks for taking the time to speak to us. Firstly, could you tell us a little bit about yourself?
Jade: Sure. I’m 31, and I live in Brooklyn. Oh, also, I came up with the concept and most of the game mechanics for Side Effects, a mental-illness-themed card game. In my day job, I work as a copywriter. And I also write and play music.
Ben: I’m the illustrator and designer for our company pillbox games. Outside of that, I work as an illustrator, retoucher and production artist in advertising. I also like to cook and bake.
Now we know a little more about you, I have to ask, as a child what did you want to be when you grew up?
Jade: Superman.
Ben: Spiderman
So how did you first get involved in making board games?
Jade: As far back as I can remember, I’ve been making games. I used to find old boardgames in the trash and glue paper over them just so I could use the boards to make my own games. I remember working really hard on a game called Diamonds which had something to do with poker cards and a board, and I remember that I was obsessed with the idea that the whole board flips upside down during a portion of the game. I think I saw a commercial for a game that did this, and I thought it was the coolest thing in the universe. Sadly, I can't find any game that exists today with this feature. If you find one let me know.
Ben: I’ve always been a fan of a lot of game genres. Especially more artistic/experimental games like anything by Fumito Ueda, TiNYTOUCHTALES, Monument Valley plus the board game Secret Hitler and wanted to work on one, but this is my first proper project. Jade showed me and a few friends a test play deck he had made and I told him I’d love to do the art for it.
When you are working on the art of a board game can you give us a quick overview of your creative or thought process and has this changed at all since you first started?
Jade: I was never a designer. Working with Ben Bronstein has been a real treat because he IS a real designer and his illustrations make the game. He approached me, asking if he could help design the cards, and when I looked through his portfolio I thought I had won the lottery. It was a perfect match.
Ben: The creative process started with some research on historical game design and also pharmaceutical packaging from the late 19th, early 20th century. During this research, I made some exploratory sketches, mostly comped together digitally. After I was happy with some of my designs we reviewed all the images as a group, made proofs and then playtested them, gradually refining the designs.
As the game started to mature, I weaned myself off looking at reference points, more focusing on refining the existing designs we had in a direction that revealed itself through play and testing. It was a really interesting process because I had to focus on keeping a consistent style through all the cards, all the while making sure the game was as clear and playable as possible
You were involved in the creation of Side Effects, so could you tell us a little bit about what that involved and what were the biggest challenges you faced?
Jade: The biggest challenges were balancing the feedback we were getting with what we wanted the game to look and feel like. You can’t just ignore feedback, but it’s how you choose to solve the problems it presents that makes a successful project. For instance, I would often get suggestions for new cards. But to add new cards meant sacrificing the simplicity of the game mechanics, and they would add to the time it took to explain the rules. I knew from the get-go that the rules should be super easy to learn. On the other hand, I got feedback that said some of the copy was difficult to read—that’s an adjustment that made the game easier to play and didn’t sacrifice our overall vision. So, sometimes you have to say, “Ok, we’ll use this feedback to make changes.” And sometimes you have to say, “No, we have to preserve our original intention.” Knowing when to use which is tricky.
Ben: I completely agree with Jade here. We wanted to keep the game fairly casual which means refining the rules down to a certain level of simplicity which was not easy. If we did everything someone else suggested it would have been a mess. While making the art of the game, the biggest challenge we ended up having to let go of was making the cards be ambigrams. We thought it’d be great if the cards read both for the active player and the opponent. Though an interesting idea, in execution it became very limiting as the skeletons and words would always need to be symmetrical. What was preserved from that exercise is the text message on both sides of the cards and the design still being far more symmetrical than most games. The other interesting challenge was making the game functional for colorblind players. We played with a friend that was colorblind and that’s what inspired the symbols for each disease.
What was the inspiration or core idea that drove your work on Side Effects?
Jade: I’ve had a lot of tragic experiences with mental illness, and I have a very dark sense of humor. Knowing that many of the drugs we’re prescribed to make us well also cause us to become sick in other ways, I started to develop a game where you were racing other players to treat a series of diseases. I think my decision to focus on mental illness was birthed from my frustration that people don’t like to talk—or even address—mental illness. So, I guess you can say it’s part satire, but mostly I wanted to make a fun game that looked cool and could be played at a bar.
Ben: For the art, we looked at a lot of apothecary/booze labels, art deco and nouveau poster design, and tarot cards. Initially, I made some variations of the two most common types of cards of the game, diseases, and medications, and eventually refined those into two hero designs that all the later cards matched. The art was mostly built in photoshop and some illustrator, and then very importantly we printed and playtested the cards numerous times (even rounding corners by hand) until we arrived on the design that we have now.
What are you currently reading, listening to, or looking at to fuel your work?
Jade: Hmm, that’s a difficult question. For Side Effects specifically? Maybe Miss Lonelyhearts, Tom Waits, Art Nouveau, old medicine and liquor bottles, medical textbooks. The game mechanics of Mille Bornes definitely inspired part of the mechanics of Side Effects.
Ben: Comics artists are a big influence for my artwork, Adrian Tomine, Chris Ware, David B, Winsor McCay are a few I looked at in the context of the game, along with the earlier mentioned inspiration. Also, I’ve recently discovered and been super inspired by Tinytouchtales iOS card games.
What advice would you give to anyone wanting to work in the board game industry?
Jade: Make the game you’d want to play.
Ben: Don’t worry about or try to compete with what other people are making.
Do you have any current projects underway, or coming up that you’d like (or are able) to tell us about?
Jade: You can check out a short story I wrote for the X-Files expanded universe. It features me, as a character, having a bad weed experience with Mulder and Scully. The story is called Give Up the Ghost and you can read it in X-Files: Secret Agendas. My album, CONDUCTOR, is available online. I’m working on a short, animated film based my short story The Backward Astronomer, which appears in the 2013 Fall/Winter issue of HOW art and literary journal. And, of course, I’m really excited to debut the Side Effects expansion packs, which should be coming out sometime next year. But it really depends on if we can get the funding we need during our Kickstarter.
Ben: I’m always working on freelance illustration projects and sketchbook-ing, links for those things are below, and like Jade, I’m very excited to be working on future games.
Finally, if we’d like to see more of you and your work, where can we find you?
Side Effects and related game projects: Pillboxgames.com & twitter.com/pillboxgames
For Jade’s other work: Jadeshames.com & twitter.com/jadeshames
For Ben’s work: Benbronstein.com & instagram.com/benbron
And if you’re not into the whole internet thing, we all live in Brooklyn, NY.
Side Effects is available on Kickstarter until Thursday, December 7th, 2017 via this link.
(All images and illustrations supplied by Pillbox Games 2017)
Chris Quilliams: Art in Board Games #19
[..] I had the opportunity to work on Pandemic Legacy with my Z-Man team. I knew about the Legacy system at the time but had never played Risk Legacy, so I really knew nothing about the game mechanics. Everybody knew the game was going to be special, which really added to the excitement. So because of that there was a bit of extra pressure [..]
This week we have Chris Quilliams an artist who has worked on games such as Pandemic, Pandemic Legacy, Carcassonne, Merchants and Marauders, Flick ‘Em Up! and Azul with companies such as Z-Man games and Plan B games.
Hello Chris, thanks for taking the time to speak to us. Firstly, could you tell us a little bit about yourself?
Sure no problem, starting at the beginning, I was born in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, Canada. My family moved to Winnipeg, Manitoba when I was about 3 years old and that’s the city that I really grew up in. Ever since I can remember I’ve always loved drawing, from what I’ve been told starting at about a year and a half. My grandmother and father were both very big influences and both of them were artists, so I had constant inspiration around me. Through school I was always the class artist and after high school I went through the fine arts program at the University of Manitoba wanting to become a comic book artist. In the last couple of years of University I focused heavily on sequential art, especially in my thesis year.
One of my biggest influences was a friend I met at a local comic book convention, Doug Wheatley. In the early days before we were employed as artists we would hang out and just try to develop and hone our skills. It’s funny how in those days we would look to the future at our possible careers and of course now I look back at those days with such fond memories... now that we both have our careers. Haha!
My first big break I guess came from Beckett, a trading card company, I did some stints illustrating sports comics with Mickey Mantle and Cal Ripken Jr. but it wasn’t full time work. That would come later when I started illustrating for Games Workshop working on their Black Library line. Doug has since gone on to become a well know artist working many years on the Star Wars comics among many other things.
Recently I’ve held an office job for Z-Man games as a staff illustrator, so I’ve been living in Quebec (where the company is located) for the last five years. I’m married to my lovely wife Annie, we have two dogs and now I work in Rigaud Quebec at Plan B games, a fairly new company to the game industry. We have some amazing games coming in the production line developed by our incredibly experienced, talented staff.
Now we know a little more about you, I have to ask, as a child what did you want to be when you grew up?
I’ve always wanted to be some kind of artist, I can’t remember a time when I wasn’t driven in that direction, it was just a given. I think anyone in my family would say there was never any doubt. Ever since I can remember I obsessively wanted to draw. There was even talk of holding me back a grade in my kindergarten class because I didn’t care about anything besides drawing and painting. I didn’t want to learn anything else. Of course there are times when I don’t feel like drawing but it’s rare.
So how did you first get involved in making board games?
I first got involved in the game industry through Zev Schlasinger. At the time he was the owner of Z-Man Games in the U.S. I had illustrated many Conan RPG covers for Mongoose Publishing over a few years and I guess they had made a deal with Zev to use that art for the Conan card game he was creating. After he produced this game he contacted me to work on some of his other productions. I started with another card game called Shadowfist and this game was the reason that Zev started his company. After that it didn’t take long to develop a client base in the tabletop industry, especially after I worked on Merchants & Marauders which won the Board Game Geek art award in 2011. I found this gave a real lift to my career and it became much easier to have a steady workflow.
When you are working on the art of a board game can you give us a quick overview of your creative or thought process and has this changed at all since you first started?
Well, at the beginning of my career I was illustrating comics for a short while as I mentioned before. I’d get a script, create thumbnails planning the frames per page for composition and storytelling, and then render tight pencil drawings from the thumbnails. Other people would ink and color the work though, and I found the art would evolve into something that I didn’t recognize anymore. When I started on the Daemonifuge storylines for Games Workshop I was able illustrate the work to full completion, having the confidence to ink the pages as well as use ink washes for tone. I’ve never been a great inker but I found this completely satisfying. This process is quite different than what I go through now though.
When I began game illustration I started with rpg covers and interior art, and this creative process is much more similar to what I do now. I was paid a lot more for the covers and as such I could spend more time developing a refined image. I would not only do several thumbnails, but also color guides and sometimes even character designs, as well as research and gather references. I really believe in the process. For the interiors I would just go straight to the drawing, get approval and then start inking. The goal was to keep the time limit down because I was paid a lot less for these. Then, when I switched to game illustration I would create multiple thumbnails and color guides, again a very similar process to my rpg work. All this pre-visualization work could easily be edited without affecting the final draft.
I developed a nice working relationship with Sophie Gravel the then owner of Filosofia. They had just purchased Z-man games from Zev and she had really liked my Merchants & Marauders illustrations, eventually offering me a full time position to work for her company. I accepted and within two months moved to Quebec, Canada to work in the Z-Man games office and I had to adapt once again. Here I was working closely with a team of people (keep in mind I worked in isolation for 13 years) and had much more interaction, which I really wasn’t used to. This included playing the games, but also a lot more constant changes to the artwork. This meant the art evolved quite differently. Another thing I had to get used to was a 7 or 8 hour work day as opposed to 12-14 hrs a day.I now prefer working with a team rather than being in seclusion as I find the process much more exciting compared to when I was on my own. It also means that my work has become much more of a team effort throughout the process. At first it was difficult, but now I find I really rely on the feedback and creative influence from others and produce a lot more work in a shorter period of time.
You were involved in the creation of Pandemic Legacy season 1 and 2, so could you tell us a little bit about what that involved and what were the biggest challenges you faced?
After working on the relaunch of the very successful Pandemic franchise I had the opportunity to work on Pandemic Legacy with my Z-Man team. I knew about the Legacy system at the time but had never played Risk Legacy, so I really knew nothing about the game mechanics. Everybody knew the game was going to be special, which really added to the excitement. So because of that there was a bit of extra pressure, although I think it was the healthy kind of pressure. Luckily, I had a good team and 100% trust in my art director Philippe Guerin. His understanding of the visualization needed for games is incredible.
The hardest task was coming up with a concept for the box cover, which was the largest undertaking of the art process. We already knew there were going to be two different boxes for the game and that they would need to be fairly large to house all the components. On top of this was the pressure of a tight deadline, I had come up with a few ideas but they didn’t really showcase the thematic concept. Finally, Phil talked to me about a clock concept (this is where it helps working with a team) and this changed the entire direction of the artwork. The boxes would now be connected as a single image. This got me really excited because it meant I’d get to work on an epic cinematic image.
The next phase was to incorporate the games storytelling and thematic nature into the concept and I decided to focus on the drama of certain situations. After this a style had to be found as well. We go from style to style with every project and this is probably the most difficult part of my job but also the most fun because there’s always so much exploration and learning.
What was the inspiration or core idea that drove your work on the Pandemic Legacy games?
Pandemic has a very cinematic universe. In fact, I can imagine Pandemic Legacy as a film series because in my eyes that’s really what the games are. This is a game about heroes and heroics, trying to work together and save humanity. There’s a bit of a dark undertone to the game too but that wasn’t quite right for the illustrations. The game had to focus more on the characters than the viruses. These are just regular people, doing real world jobs, but on a global scale. The viral threat and the tension caused by it is something I had to be able to incorporate within the compositions.
What are you currently reading, listening to or looking at to fuel your work?
I’ve been listening to Schoolism podcasts a lot for both inspiration and knowledge. Schoolism is a really great website that offers cheap art courses for a monthly fee taught by world class professionals. It’s an amazing source for art education.
What advice would you give to anyone wanting to work in the board game industry?
I work in a lot of styles, so I have to understand style and that comes from understanding art fundamentals. When I worked freelance I had pretty much no time to practice so now that my day job affords me more time in the evenings I’ve been trying to work on different learning exercises, both digitally and traditionally. The nice thing about this is I can work on creative ideas of my own, as well as study what I consider the great artists and illustrators. When I’m not dealing with certain fundamentals at work I can practice for an hour in the evening. It’s amazing how fast you can get rusty.
Do you have any current projects underway, or coming up that you’d like (or are able) to tell us about?
Yes! There is a great new game we’re producing at Plan B Games by Michael Kiesling called Azul. It’s being released at Essen this year. The theme comes from the Azulejo tiles of Portugal. It’s really an abstract game but with this theme it’s been given a special feel. It’s not typically the type of illustration or cover work that I do and for this project I was able to design the titles on the box as well, which I’m not always apart of. I’m usually just so focused on the illustration alone. As a team we were really happy the way the design and art came together.
Finally, if we’d like to see more of you and your work, where can we find you?
You can find me at: https://chrisquilliams.deviantart.com/
If you go to Boardgamegeek you can see my page as well with all the games I’ve worked on.
Thanks so much for the interview Ross.
(All images supplied by and belong to Chris Quilliams. 2017.)
Tristan Hall: Art in Board Games #18
I wanted to play a beautiful classical RPG adventure game that recaptured the feeling of playing Dungeons and Dragons in one evening, which meant epic adventures, meeting strange people, going on quests, exploring ancient places, enlisting allies and overcoming enemies and obstacles and finding great treasures, and no game I’ve played before..
This week we have Tristan Hall a designer who has developed games such as Gloom of Kilforth and is producing the forthcoming 1066, Tears to Many Mothers under his company Hall or Nothing Productions Ltd.
Hello Tristan thanks for taking the time to speak to us. Firstly, could you tell us a little bit about yourself?
I am a freelance creative producer - I shoot, edit, and produce videos by day, and I design board games by night. I also run a board gaming podcast called Board Chitless where we interview lots of other game designers too.
Now we know a little more about you, I have to ask, as a child what did you want to be when you grew up?
I wanted to be an author, and specifically to write stories. I wrote a book when I was 24 - it did not do well. So now I tell stories through board games instead. I’m obsessed with stories, and I always have been especially fantastical stories. I think a key moment in my life was watching Ralph Bakshi’s Lord of the Rings when I was 5 - I think it maybe had an even bigger impact on me than Star Wars. So as a kid I wanted to write stories, but when I was old enough to realise you could make those stories into movies I wanted to do that too. Which is how I ended up in the murky world of corporate video production!
So how did you first get involved in making board games?
I played board games and RPGs all the time growing up - my best Christmas ever was when I received HeroQuest and my tiny mind was blown by all the components and promise of adventure. I must have designed a hundred quests for that game. I took a hiatus from gaming in my late teens when I went out doing what young lads do but then rediscovered the hobby in my twenties once I was settled down with my now wife. Which I think is a similar trajectory to a lot of other gamers I’ve spoken to. I got into boardgamegeek in a big way (ninjadorg on BGG), looking for a game that recaptured my roleplaying days of yore, but I couldn’t find one so I started developing one instead. I was also contributing adventures and quests to the D&D games and the Lord of the Rings card games which earned tens of thousands of downloads - I had such positive feedback about them that when I talked about developing my own game people began asking where they could get it. After coercing play-testers worldwide to give it a go and getting great feedback I sent it to a game publishing company and they said they’d publish it. Two years later they’d done nothing with it and we parted ways. My play-testers then told me about Kickstarter, so I posted it up on there to see what would happen, after an incredible struggle we funded, and then I had to go ahead and make the game properly!
When you are working on the art of a board game can you give us a quick overview of your creative or thought process and has this changed at all since you first started?
At first I would give lengthy and detailed descriptions of every individual image to the artists, including the pose, expression, clothing and description of every character, creature or landscape in the game, whilst also providing reference images and example art. As you work through hundreds of images together, this process becomes more and more streamlined until you develop a sort of shorthand of communication. I learned to hand over a huge amount of trust and responsibility for the outcome of the images to the artist. Nowadays, 90% of the time I make little or no changes to submitted art work.
You were involved in the creation of Gloom of Kilforth so could you tell us a little bit about what that involved and what were the biggest challenges you faced?
Well, no one had really heard of it. We had no marketing, so it came from nowhere. People didn’t know who I was, and we had this high target of £48,000 so people weren’t really sure if we could deliver. But the word of mouth was incredible and the momentum just kept going. I think it helped that I’d contributed a lot of fanmade material as I mentioned above, and people who had enjoyed those threw in their support for our campaign.
Funny thing about Kickstarter is that people are less likely to support a project if it hasn’t already funded - even though no money exchanges hands if it doesn’t reach its goal. So you see a lot of projects with artificially low funding goals so that they can quickly get over that ‘100% funded’ hump, which is okay as long as you over-fund enough to cover your costs I suppose. We didn’t have that though, so it was a 27-day slog up to that 100% mark, but once we hit it, we suddenly shot up to 150% funded in the final 48 hours when people realised it was actually going to go into production and they could start getting stretch goals unlocked. It was a real underdog story and I think the backers really connected with that, so it went a bit crazy at the end as people started doubling or tripling their pledges just to get us over the next stretch goal!
I think there was some genuine disappointment when our second campaign for 1066, Tears to Many Mothers funded so quickly...
What was the inspiration or core idea that drove your work on Gloom of Kilforth?
I wanted to play a beautiful classical RPG adventure game that recaptured the feeling of playing Dungeons and Dragons in one evening, which meant epic adventures, meeting strange people, going on quests, exploring ancient places, enlisting allies and overcoming enemies and obstacles and finding great treasures, and no game I’ve played before or since Gloom of Kilforth does that with simplistic mechanics and gorgeous art. Fantasy adventure games are all about combat and leveling up, and whilst we have elements of that, the key focus of the game is to have a great narrative adventure experience. It is interesting to witness the sea change in the industry now though, as companies like Fantasy Flight are evidently starting to release fantasy adventure games more focused on the stories rather than the fighting, and I really like what Ryan Laukat has done with Near and Far. I think this is a fantastic direction for gaming.
What are you currently reading, listening to or looking at to fuel your work?
I’m reading a lot of history books to keep 1066, TtMM and its sequels boiling over, but also enjoying TV shows like Vikings and The Last Kingdom for a historical adventuring fix. I like to listen to movie and game soundtracks whilst I work - my wife Francesca is the daughter of a concert pianist and an incredible musician and pianist herself. Francesca composes epic musical soundtracks for my games and has created beautiful soundscapes for both Gloom of Kilforth and 1066, Tears to Many Mothers, so I often listen to her play whilst I work. I also love listening to Hans Zimmer and anything by Trent Reznor. The two other TV shows I’m working my way through that are genuinely blowing my mind right now are American Gods and the latest season of Game of Thrones.
What advice would you give to anyone wanting to work in the board game industry?
Go for it! It’s a great time for the industry right now, many are calling it the golden age, as people want to escape from screens and spend time with real people and real components around a real table, being sociable, having drinks and snacks and listening to music or whatever. (I also love solo gaming and play tons of games by myself to get away from the world for a little bit, or to test myself mentally, or to just learn the rules for when I introduce the game to my group, depending on the kind of game I’m playing.)
Make sure your game idea is fully fledged - play-test it a hundred times, and get people you don’t know to play it too. Take on all the feedback you can, and don’t be put off by too much negativity, there are games for everyone but some people simply will not like your game for any number of reasons.
Platforms like Kickstarter can be incredibly supportive and positive if you keep your backers updated and you are open and honest with them. But a badly handled campaign with a quiet creator and/or an unfinished game can quickly descend into toxicity. Stay on top of your project and ask for help when and where you need it.
Do you have any current projects underway, or coming up that you’d like (or are able) to tell us about?
We have a small expansion for Gloom of Kilforth Kickstarting soon to coincide with the reprint of the game. 1066, TtMM is well under development and will be shipped out early next year. We are also producing the sci-fi horror masterpiece Lifeform by Mark Chaplin, which will be Kickstarting early next year. And we have a whole bunch of other projects we’d love to produce if we can continue to keep pace with the amazing support we’ve been getting from our backers.
Finally, if we’d like to see more of you and your work, where can we find you?
Follow us on all the social channels!
www.hallornothingproductions.co.uk
facebook.com/gloomofkilforth
twitter.com/ninjadorg
instagram.com/ninjadorg
youtube.com/tristanhallrocks
(All images supplied by Tristan Hall)
Mr Cuddington: Art in Board Games #17
When we started working on Brass, we did not have much realistic art in our portfolio. We were lucky enough to have Gavan Brown trusting us for this big project. However, we could feel people were somewhat unsure that we could pull it off. Brass was already loved by many and we wanted to stay true..
This week we have David and Lina, artists who worked with on games such as Santorini, Charterstone, The Grimm Forest and Brass and with publishers such as Roxley, Stonemaier and Druid City Games.
Hello David and Lina thanks for taking the time to speak to us. Firstly, could you tell us a little bit about yourself?
Hi! David and I are a husband-and-wife creative duo living in Quebec, Canada. We work as one under the name Mr.Cuddington and we specialize in making immersive visuals for board games.
Now we know a little more about you, I have to ask, as a child what did you want to be when you grew up?
David: I grew up making short stop-motion films with my dad's camera and spent a lot of time writing fantasy novels as a teenager. I was very meticulous and would draw detailed maps for all my fantasy stories. I ended up graduating in 3d animation and worked in the video game and film industry before later branching out to freelancing as an illustrator with Lina.
Lina: I always loved art but I wasn't sure how I would make a living out of it. Another thing that was fascinating to me was science and biology so for a while I was aiming at being a coroner. I ended up changing my mind during my last semester before going to college and giving art a try.
So how did you first get involved in making board games?
We wanted to work on a creative project together for quite some time, and at first we thought it would be a good idea to design and illustrate a board game. We quickly realised that game design was an enormous task for us to undertake and that we were not ready for that just yet. On the other hand, sketching the cards had been so much fun! We wanted to do more of it. So we started building a small portfolio in order to get freelance work with established publishers.
When you are working on the art of a board game can you give us a quick overview of your creative or thought process and has this changed at all since you first started?
We generally both work on every piece of art for a game, taking turns until we've pushed it to the best we can. One of us does a sketch, the other does corrections on that sketch. Then we send it to the publisher and get feedback. One of us takes the work from there to an almost finished piece and the other does a final pass of tweaks. We send it for approval, do some corrections if needed, and we are done! Not much has changed about this process since we started, although we've definitely gotten more efficient with time.
You were involved in the creation of Brass, so could you tell us a little bit about what that involved and what were the biggest challenges you faced?
When we started working on Brass, we did not have much realistic art in our portfolio. We were lucky enough to have Gavan Brown trusting us for this big project. However, we could feel people were somewhat unsure that we could pull it off. Brass was already loved by many and we wanted to stay true to the game's essence. We took it as a challenge to widen the scope of our skills and do something that was very different from what we previously did with Roxley (Steampunk Rally and Santorini). We are very glad of the aesthetic we did for Brass, and we realised that those challenges of trying different styles and creating a visual universe for each project was probably the most gratifying thing about our job.
What was the inspiration or core idea that drove your work on Brass?
We discussed a lot with Gavan prior to starting any sketches, and we knew he wanted to do something gritty and somewhat dark but still classy. There Will Be Blood and Peaky Blinders were good sources of inspiration. Also we did lots of research about the industrial revolution and how the manufacturers were operating at that time.
What are you currently reading, listening to or looking at to fuel your work?
David: I just finished The Extended Phenotype by Richard Dawkins. We spend so much time immersed in fictional worlds in our work that I like to expand my knowledge of the real world when I have some spare time.
Lina: I'm reading Guards! Guards! by Terry Pratchett, listening to the ''La la Land'' soundtrack and we recently dived into Bong Joon-ho's films.
What advice would you give to anyone wanting to work in the board game industry?
Play games to know what's out there and make a portfolio that focuses on your strengths. Also don't get too attached to your art, game design can be a very delicate balance and some stuff is likely to be thrown away during the process.
Do you have any current projects underway, or coming up that you’d like (or are able) to tell us about?
We currently have Arydia and an expansion for Unfair in the works. They both are lovely projects to work on. Arydia is by Cody Miller (Xia: Legends of a Drift System) and is an open world, campaign-based, cooperative fantasy role-playing board game. For now only the cover art has been unveiled but we can't wait to show more! We do also have a lot planned for the upcoming year and although we can’t talk about it yet we are pretty excited about the future!
Finally, if we’d like to see more of you and your work, where can we find you?
We just updated our website with lots of projects that we did over the last few years (http://mrcuddington.com/) but you can also follow us on Facebook where we often post our newest pieces! (https://www.facebook.com/mrcuddington/)
(All images supplied and owned by Mr Cuddington).
Élise Plessis: Art in Board Games #16
We’ve imagined another world or reality which is inspired by the one we live in but more dreamlike. Nature has inspired me a lot. There are so many different shapes and colors around us. So much creativity and diversity in the millions of creatures and plants that exist. I wish I could have helped designing them..
This week we have Élise Plessis an artist who has worked with on games such as Onirim, Urbion, Sylvion, Castellion, Nautilion and with publishers such as Z-Man Games, Filosofia and Asmodée.
Hello Élise. thanks for taking the time to speak to us. Firstly, could you tell us a little bit about yourself?
Hello. Certainly. I am 34 years old and currently live in Iceland in a very remote area. I am French and I studied graphic design in Paris and Brussels in Belgium. I spend my time between freelance illustration, travelling and part-time jobs here or there such as a waitress, house-keeper, shop employee, receptionist or tourist guide. I’ve always enjoyed working in different places so I like to keep a foot in reality, meet people and get ideas for my drawings. Plus I’m lucky to not have any money problems so can choose to work on any illustration project I like. I enjoy reading a lot, wandering around the fjords and playing ping-pong.
Now we know a little more about you, I have to ask, as a child what did you want to be when you grew up?
I wanted to be a cat but somebody told me it wasn’t an option. So, my next decision was to become an illustrator. Or an explorer. Or a writer who also draws cats and discovers new lands in their free time. I wasn’t totally sure.
So how did you first get involved in making board games?
It really came as a surprise! Shadi Torbey involved me. We met in Brussels at the end of my studies and he took my card, then 3 years later he found it again when he was looking for an artist to draw Onirim. He asked me if I would be interested in realizing the prototype. I loved the idea of putting nightmares and dreams in images as I’m fond of poetry and really love to escape from reality. That’s how it all began.
When you are working on the art of a board game can you give us a quick overview of your creative or thought process and has this changed at all since you first started?
Every game in the Oniverse has a different theme; The Labyrinth for Onirim, The City for Urbion, The Forest for Sylvion, The Sand Castle for Castellion and The Aquatic World in Nautilion. I first stop and try to think about what this implies specifically. Then I try to imagine how that would look in the Oniverse. In fact, I just begin to dream, take some paper and let the pen run. Some of my ideas are really stupid but some are better. Shadi helps me to sort these out and keep it all coherent.
I’m much more organized now than I was before. Drawing the first game in the series (Onirim) took me a long time because I was very impulsive. I didn’t take the constraints into consideration, like what the dimensions of a card were, or the placement of the pictograms. I really just threw some ideas down on whatever I had to hand at that moment. Bus tickets, tax papers, anything really and I ended up having to redo the same drawings multiple times. I now manage to channel my energy in a more proactive and efficient way.
You were involved in the creation of the Oniverse games so could you tell us a little bit about what that involved and what were the biggest challenges you faced?
It’s involved many hours of work, a lot of paint, wax pencil, felt-tip pens, thousands of email exchanges with Shadi and a good coffee machine. During the process I’lI send Shadi my sketches, drafts and later the colored versions and he lets me know his opinions about them. He’s kind of a diplomat so he would never say to me that my drawings were ugly, just something like “It’s nice... but how about we make the creature smaller, or in a different colour, or with bigger ears and we could switch the head and tail around too”.
One challenge we have during a project is working together to try and figure out which of my images will be the most appropriate for the purpose (or the effect) of each card. Shadi might already have a precise idea about what he wants or he might just let me draw freely. The images themselves might end up giving him new ideas which can lead us to new images, leading to even more ideas and so the cycle can continue.
The Oniverse is a series so we’ve tried to keep links and relations between the games. There is a strong connection through the theme and art style but also through some of the characters and places, which can come back or complete each other. We also make references to previous games or give clues about upcoming ones. Mainly, we are just having fun.
What was the inspiration or core idea that drove your work on the Oniverse?
The idea of the Oniverse came from Shadi and it was part of his ambition from the very beginning. We first worked on Onirim and that was the game that opened up the door to the Oniverse, after all, we’d just found the keys and escaped from the nightmares!
It was a surprise for me but it was great to find out that I would have this big playground world to invent in. From there came a lot of creatures, hairy, friendly or mean and their homes, habitats and tempers depending on the game and it’s theme.
We’ve imagined another world or reality which is inspired by the one we live in but more dreamlike. Nature has inspired me a lot. There are so many different shapes and colors around us. So much creativity and diversity in the millions of creatures and plants that exist. I wish I could have helped designing them.
What are you currently reading, listening to or looking at to fuel your work?
I read a lot of graphic novels. My favorite artists are Nicolas de Crecy and Dominique Goblet. I am also a huge fan of the work done by the Japanese company Studio Ghibli. Plus I enjoy reading children’s books, watching cartoons and animated films, such as The Song of the Sea.
What advice would you give to anyone wanting to work in the board game industry?
From a visual point of view, I would say you should dare to do something surprising or unusual. I find the visual landscape too conservative and uniform in the board game world.
Do you have any current projects underway, or coming up that you’d like (or are able) to tell us about?
Nothing certain yet. Only top secret projects.
Finally, if we’d like to see more of you and your work, where can we find you?
You can find me at the bottom of an Icelandic fjord in a little wooden cabin surrounded by arctic foxes and blueberries. Or you know, just on www.eliseplessis.com.
(All illustrations, sketches and photography supplied by Élise Plessis)
Gary Paitre and Natalie Dombois: Art in Board Games #15
The Canadian Woods and Nature in general were big inspirations but I also wanted to give the game a little “nordic” feeling, which shows in the characters that have warrior paintings and heads that looks a little like skulls. [..] KIWETIN should be mysterious and friendly without becoming too obviously magical...
This week we're lucky enough to have a joint interview with Gary Paitre (Art Director and Designer) and Natalie Dombois (illustrator) who worked together on KIWETIN by Flyos Games.
Hello Gary and Natalie thanks for taking the time to speak to us. Firstly, could you tell us a little bit about yourself?
Gary: I’m from Montreal, Canada. I’ve been working for advertising agencies for about a decade and I also had my own agency for a while but now I freelance. My best friend and I decided to create Flyos Games and create the games we wanted to play a year ago.
Natalie: I’m from Hamburg, Germany. I’ve worked in various different fields, e.g. Advertising, Books and Animation. KIWETIN was my first try at Board Game art and I immediately fell in love with this field.
Now we know a little more about you, I have to ask, as a child what did you want to be when you grew up?
G: Like many children, I wanted to become an astronaut. But my father told me that I had to be fluent in Russian, so finally I changed my mind and decided to become a bus driver. Yep, kids.
N: I wanted to join Peter Pan and the Lost Boys. When I realized that this wasn’t possible I started to change my mind on a weekly basis. Police officer and Artist were on the same level for a long time. But the Artist direction definitely works better for me.
So how did you first get involved in making board games?
G: I played many RPGs, video games and board games when I was a teenager. The idea of making our own games started a couple of years ago with my best friend. I had a lot of stories to tell and we were finally mature enough. So we founded our own game company and benefit the Kickstarter tools.
N: My friends have held a Board Game night every Friday for several years now. The first time I thought that it would be cool to do the Artwork for board games was when I joined them once and saw all the amazing games. But in the end I didn’t until I was contacted by Gary who told me about KIWETIN and I promptly was head over heels.
When you are working on the art of a board game can you give us a quick overview of your creative or thought process and has this changed at all since you first started?
G: When I work on a game aesthetic, my priority is to build a credible universe. I also focus a lot on finding the right illustrator for the right story to tell. It’s also very important for me to bring an original design to an industry that is used to Trolls, Dwarves, Orcs and Elves with a classical drawing style.
N: Like Gary I enjoy trying new things and while I appreciate the classic art a lot I’m all in for refreshing directions that haven’t been played with a lot. Usually I try to find the right feeling for a world and try to capture this feeling into the illustrations with little details. Nature and Culture inspires me a lot.
You were involved in the creation of KIWETIN, so could you tell us a little bit about what that involved and what were the biggest challenges you faced?
G: The biggest challenge I had to face building Kiwetin was to keep the creative and visual focus all along the process. When you’re your own boss you are responsible for the choices you make, and it’s quite easy to scatter and lose the creative vision. Plus when you make a game for the first time you have to learn to accept a back and forth of changes and criticism because your game play has to evolve … a lot.
N: Gary and Thomas were really great to work with and I had fun working on the game all day long. They told me what was important to them, but also gave me a lot of free space. It was most challenging to understand the game in the first place when there was only a summary of how the game would work. Afterwards, they created a prototype with blank pieces and that helped a lot.
What was the inspiration or core idea that drove your work on KIWETIN?
G: I wanted to cross two universes that were important to me. The first one was the native American. I immigrated to Canada almost 15 years ago and I wanted to explore and pay tribute to this culture. The second is the world of Ghibli’s studio approach. As a kid, I spent so many hours watching Miyazaki’s movies that my mind is full of its magic. It was a natural convergence to me.
N: The Canadian Woods and Nature in general were big inspirations but I also wanted to give the game a little “nordic” feeling, which shows in the characters that have warrior paintings and heads that looks a little like skulls. I also tried to capture the wind theme and the subtle magic in my paintings. KIWETIN should be mysterious and friendly without becoming too obviously magical.
What are you currently reading, listening to or looking at to fuel your work?
G: I spend a lot of time every day browsing portfolios on Behance. I’m also part of a famous website awards jury (Awwwards), so I’m aware of new tendencies in various domains. I’m very curious by nature, so i’m open to draw inspiration from any kind of creative field. I just finished reading the complete Foundation by Asimov and I’m moving on to Stephen King’s The Dark Tower. I’m listening a lot to old albums from Twin Shadow and some random playlists on Spotify. I cannot live without music
N: I like to listen to instrumental music (the original soundtracks of movies are my favorite). That inspires me a lot. Also impressive landscapes, culture and society in general blend into and fuel my work, not forgetting I have a thing for science, especially space.
What advice would you give to anyone wanting to work in the board game industry?
G: Work, work and work. Having ideas is one thing. I have thousands of ideas, but the real challenge is work. So stay focused on your objectives. Don’t let go and be original. Due to hard work, results will arrive.
N: I think it is important to try new things and to give your best during the project. Like Gary said it is important not to stop with the ideas but also to finish a project, so people can see and experience the result. You’ll learn from every step.
Do you have any current projects underway, or coming up that you’d like (or are able) to tell us about?
G: We are currently working of 4 new productions. Our next game will be quite different from our first one. We are re-interpreting a classical game in a more strategic avenue with a great digital tool. Stay tuned ;)
N: I'm currently working with “Thundergryph” on a game called “Spirits of the Forest” which will be appearing soon on Kickstarter.
Finally, if we’d like to see more of you and your work, where can we find you?
G: My portfolio is available on Behance : www.behance.net/garypaitre
N: You can find my work on http://nataliedombois.de/ or https://www.behance.net/nataliedombois
(All images supplied by Gary Paitre and Natalie Dombois).
Justin Hillgrove: Art in Board Games #14
I love character design so creating the character art was a joy. The game designer and I both have daughters who enjoy gaming and we feel strongly about making games that appeal to men and women, so we took care to make sure that at least half of the characters were female, and that none of those characters were sexualized..
This week we have Justin Hillgrove an artist who has worked with on games such as “JunKing” and “By Order Of The Queen” with Junk Spirit Games.
Hello Justin thanks for taking the time to speak to us. Firstly, could you tell us a little bit about yourself?
I live in the beautiful Pacific Northwest with my wife, 4 kids and some chickens, ducks, rabbits and a cat. I work out of my home studio on all kinds of art, mostly doing traditional acrylic paintings of non-traditional subjects like monsters, robots and the like. I also self-publish a comic and illustrate board games for our indie game team “Junk Spirit Games.” I sell my art, books, games and toys through galleries, art shows and online (ImpsAndMonsters.com). I’ve been showing my work for the last 11 years – full-time for the last 6 years, and worked as a graphic designer for 10 years before setting out on my own. When I am not creating art, I am usually gardening or playing games and hanging out with my family.
Now we know a little more about you, I have to ask, as a child what did you want to be when you grew up?
I wanted to be an animator or a toy-maker when I was a kid. Later that idea expanded to include just about anything art-related.
So how did you first get involved in making board games?
A few years ago an old high school acquaintance, David Gerrard, approached me and basically said “Hey dude, I design games and you draw stuff. We should make games.” I’m paraphrasing but that’s the general idea. Sounded like fun so I jumped in, then we recruited my friend Travis Torgerson to do layout and design so I could focus on the art.
When you are working on the art of a board game can you give us a quick overview of your creative or thought process and has this changed at all since you first started?
I always start with a lot of sketching, getting feedback from the team as to the direction of the art. Then I usually pencil and ink my characters, scan them into PhotoShop and color them digitally. Once I have some of the core art figured out, I’ll plan out a cover image and paint it in acrylic paints on a canvas and scan that. From there, all the elements go to Travis, our designer, who puts it all together and makes it look good.
You were involved in the creation of By Order of the Queen, so could you tell us a little bit about what that involved and what were the biggest challenges you faced?
Our second game was a pretty massive undertaking that required a lot of time and effort by everyone on the team. There was so much art to be done that we recruited another artist friend, Zach Vail, to do additional art including the board map and card backs, as well as a number of spot illustrations. I created art for about 70 hero cards (64 of which were used), 49 items cards, 52 monster cards and a bunch of other spot illustrations and game assets.
I love character design so creating the character art was a joy. The game designer and I both have daughters who enjoy gaming and we feel strongly about making games that appeal to men and women, so we took care to make sure that at least half of the characters were female, and that none of those characters were sexualized (as tends to be the norm in most fantasy and game art). We were also world-building – creating a fantasy world that was filled with creatures that aren’t just standard fantasy, but instead included unique peoples and creatures while still giving a nod to a lot of our favorite DnD tropes.
Most of the challenges faced were more related to the game mechanics, card layouts and the overall “look” of the game. All of these received multiple overhauls during the year we spent working on “By Order Of The Queen.” On the art production side, the biggest challenge was the amount of art that needed to be produced, but as I mentioned previously, creating both the heroes and monsters was a lot of fun.
What was the inspiration or core idea that drove your work on By Order of the Queen?
One of the ideas behind By Order Of The Queen was to make a board game that would give you the great highlights and memorable moments from playing a DnD or other fantasy RPG campaigns, so much of the inspiration came from those games that we’ve been playing since we were kids. We also wanted the world we created populated by a fantastic mix of races that all mesh together similar to something like a “Babylon 5” kind of style.
What are you currently reading, listening to or looking at to fuel your work?
I listen to a lot of audiobooks while I work, and some of my favorites are The Dresden Files and anything by Brandon Sanderson. I also just started re-reading “Bone” by Jeff Smith. If I need to think I prefer silence or a little classical music.
What advice would you give to anyone wanting to work in the board game industry?
Go places and meet people in the industry and join board game designer groups. Don’t just wait for a “help wanted” ad to show up. Like so many things, you kinda need to make it happen yourself so get out there.
Do you have any current projects underway, or coming up that you’d like (or are able) to tell us about?
We (Junk Spirit Games) will be at GenCon Indianapolis showing off our upcoming game “Crows.” This game was originally designed by Tyler Sigman (Red Hook Studios / Darkest Dungeon) and he will be joining us in the booth. We are excited to be demoing the game and talking to people about our other games. Of course, depending on when this interview is published, GenCon may already have passed and we’ll begin getting ready for next year.
Finally, if we’d like to see more of you and your work, where can we find you?
My art can be found on: https://www.impsandmonsters.com
And Junk Spirit Games site is: http://junkspiritgames.com/
(All images and artwork supplied by Justin Hillgrove)
Justin Wallace: Art in Board Games #13
I wanted to depict a diverse cast of characters, yet push each character just far enough to fit their given occupation/archetype. I wanted each character to feel distinct, and I based them off of people, faces, or characters that are memorable to me. I tried to capture those features the way that I see them..
This week we have Justin Wallace, an artist who has worked with on games such as Private Die & The End is Nigh and works for independent publisher Mystic Ape Games.
Hello Justin thanks for taking the time to speak to us. Firstly, could you tell us a little bit about yourself?
I’m an artist working out of St. Louis making board games with an independent company with 3 of my friends called Mystic Ape Games. I grew up in Minneapolis, but moved to St. Louis for college, and I’m constantly being surprised at how large the board game community is here.
Now we know a little more about you, I have to ask, as a child what did you want to be when you grew up?
As a kid I always loved video games and really wanted to be a game designer, before I even knew what that would entail. I remember being enamored with games like Spyro and Crash Bandicoot that created little capsulized world to explore, each rich with their own theme. As I grew up, I split that captivation into two parts. My day job involves a lot of coding & dealing with technology, but for Mystic Ape I get to explore the personal and organic interactions that make tabletop gaming special.
So how did you first get involved in making board games?
I got reeled in much like other people by getting invited to a board game night and playing increasingly complex games. Then at my day job I met Austin and got brought on to do some playtesting and artwork after he knew I had a good amount of experience with playing games.
After Private Die, and just before shipping The End is Nigh to backers, I got brought on as the fourth member of Mystic Ape Games.
When you are working on the art of a board game can you give us a quick overview of your creative or thought process and has this changed at all since you first started?
The first thing I keep in mind is the tone of the game, and what I would want the game to look like if I were playing it. It’s actually pretty difficult for me visualize exactly how a game will look before mechanics are about 70% concrete. The feel of the game while playing should match the visual aesthetic. I start with creating a folder full of inspiration images (interiors, people, colors, etc.) then refine the style over time based on how mechanics change.
I came into Private Die pretty late in the development stages, so everything was pretty final, and it has a very defined style. I actually picked up the artwork after it had already been started, so adapting to the decided-upon style was the biggest challenge there.
For The End is Nigh, I really got to decide early what the art would look like and somewhat selfishly choose a process that was most appealing to me. Most of the character art in The End is Nigh was done by sketching first and doing digital painting based on that sketch.
You were involved in the creation of The End is Nigh, so could you tell us a little bit about what that involved and what were the biggest challenges you faced?
Portraits and character illustration are some of my favorite types of art, so I felt right at home, yet still challenged by the diversity of characters. The most challenging, yet also the most fun part of doing artwork for The End is Nigh was the Quarantine Art Expansion Pack announced halfway through the Kickstarter campaign. This add-on provided alternate artwork for all of the refugees in the game, as well as all of the trait cards. The major challenge there was expanding all of the characters by determining how they’d handle a viral outbreak in a way that matched their character. This was a pretty big undertaking and time management got super important so that we could still deliver to Kickstarter backers by the promised deadlines.
What was the inspiration or core idea that drove your work on The End is Nigh?
I wanted to depict a diverse cast of characters, yet push each character just far enough to fit their given occupation/archetype.
I wanted each character to feel distinct, and I based them off of people, faces, or characters that are memorable to me. I tried to capture those features the way that I see them.
What are you currently reading, listening to or looking at to fuel your work?
Twin Peaks has been the most formative work of art in my life for a while. Especially with The End is Nigh, I tried to build the characters in the way David Lynch does for the residents of Twin Peaks. I’m really still waiting on a game that cultivates as rich of an atmosphere as Twin Peaks does.
Another thing that really motivates me is watching other artists progress and evolve. Mackenzie Schubert, Kyle Ferrin, and Cameron Stewart are some of the most socially active artists that I follow, and it’s intimidating and exciting at the same time to see the incredible work they’re putting out on an almost daily basis.
What advice would you give to anyone wanting to work in the board game industry?
The most important thing I’d say is that being a game designer isn’t a passive job at all. Anything that you’re passionate about and want to get good at, is something you should be prepared to integrate into your life every day. For an artist, that means drawing, painting, or sketching with purpose every day.
The board game industry has lower barriers of entry than many other industries, and Kickstarter can be a great way to break in. It’s tempting to overestimate how much of a factor that luck will play in a successful Kickstarter, but hard work and careful implementation of feedback will go infinitely further than happenstance.
Do you have any current projects underway, or coming up that you’d like (or are able) to tell us about?
Being an official member of Mystic Ape now means that I’m involved in pretty much every idea from the very first playtest. The game that is furthest along is tentatively titled “The Feral Frontier,” which is a worker placement all about exploring the furthest reaches of space after humanity has gone extinct and animals have reclaimed the universe. I’m really excited about the art direction we’re going for this. There are going to be at least 50 crew members in the game, which is a pretty huge amount of artwork necessary. To simplify the art, we’re going with a unique color palette for each crew member’s role (Pilot, Captain, etc.), then each set of crewmembers will be a distinct animal tribe. I’m really excited to challenge myself by going for a more stylized approach, and doing animal artwork instead of the humans I’m used to!
Also deeper in the concepting phase, we have a really promising time travel game, and another quick and fun game all about the cutthroat world of paleontology.
Finally, if we’d like to see more of you and your work, where can we find you?
I’m most active on my Instagram, at instagram.com/timeparadox
The most exciting game updates come from Mystic Apes official social media channels at:
facebook.com/mysticapegames
twitter.com/mysticapegames
kickstarter.com/profile/mysticapegames
And of course, our website at: mysticape.com
(All artwork and imagery supplied by Justin and Mystic Ape)