Sea Salt & Paper - Pierre-Yves Gallard: Art in Board Games #77
“The idea was to immerse the players in an ocean of folded paper. To achieve this goal, we established a few guidelines: simple compositions with few secondary elements, a sheet of paper as a background, and lights and shadows to bring depth to the pictures.”
Interview with origamist Pierre-Yves Gallard
In this board game art interview, I’m speaking to Pierre-Yves Gallard, whose origami and photography bring the Sea Salt & Paper card game to life.
Sea Salt & Paper is a set-collection card game (like Rummy) that combines easy-to-learn rules, a small travel-sized box, and tons of replayability. Since its release in 2022, it’s been charming audiences worldwide thanks in large part to its beautiful use of origami in its artwork.
Origami is the Japanese art of paper folding. Its roots can be traced back to the 7th century, when paper first arrived in Japan from China. Since then, it has developed a rich history through its ceremonial and recreational use. I only have the slightest connection to origami, but there definitely was a time in my youth when I briefly fell in love with the art form.
In simple terms, an origamist's goal is to transform a flat sheet of paper into a sculpture by folding and manipulating the paper to create beautiful pieces of art. Modern origamists generally don’t cut, glue, or mark the paper, with the sculptures created through intricate design, a select choice of paper, and, of course, folding.
Pierre-Yves Gallard and Lucien Derainne created the origami art featured in Sea Salt & Paper. I reached out to Studio Bombyx to see if they could set up an interview, and thankfully, Pierre-Yves was able to join me. Enjoy our chat!
Enjoying the site? Consider supporting it by sharing the articles you read.
For more great insights into board game art, check out the interview archive.
Thanks for joining us, Pierre-Yves! Could you tell us a bit about yourself?
Thanks for inviting me! I live in France, in the Jura, a medium-mountain region that is quite rural and very green, near the border with Switzerland. I teach French language and literature to junior high school students. During my free time, I practice origami. At first, it was just a hobby; with time, I got more and more serious about it until it became an important part of my life.
When not reading books or folding paper, I love being outdoors: hiking, cross-country skiing, gardening, mushroom picking, or taking care of my bees.
How long have you been an origamist?
I used to fold paper airplanes and boats when I was a child. But I really discovered origami as an art form about 10 years ago. Since then, I got more and more involved, to the point that I now feel it has become a part of my identity. Origami gives me a way to express myself, it shapes the way I look at things, and it enables me to keep growing and learning new things. Also, it has given me opportunities to meet many people and to make dear friends.
When did you first start creating your own designs?
The first model I designed was a lighthouse, which I created in 2019. I was looking for diagrams or a video tutorial, and I couldn’t find any. So I thought I would try and make my own. But, the main event in my origami journey was COVID isolation. During this period, I was folding every day, several hours a day, and that’s when I really got into origami creation.
Before that, I used to interpret models from many different creators, among which Jun Maekawa, Hideo Komatsu, Tomoko Fuse, Roman Diaz and Oriol Esteve. These origami artists have played an important part in defining my approach to folding and designing origami.
How did you become involved in Sea Salt & Paper?
Laura Rouquié, the editor in charge of the project at board game publisher Studio Bombyx, contacted me. They wanted to illustrate the cards of Sea Salt & Paper with pictures from actual origami models. The first version of the game was set in a garden, but we eventually decided that the marine universe may be even more evocative and poetic.
The idea was to immerse the players in an ocean of folded paper. To achieve this goal, we established a few guidelines: simple compositions with few secondary elements, a sheet of paper as a background, and lights and shadows to bring depth to the pictures. We also wanted to insist on the texture of the different sheets of paper: some very grainy, some with visible fibers, others with metallic reflections or marbled patterns…
What was your process for creating the origami of Sea Salt & Paper?
Lucien Derainne and I started by making a list of all the sea creatures that would make interesting origami models, and we then started designing them. It was the first time we had worked on a tight schedule and with an imposed theme, so this was an exciting challenge.
Finally, we met, folded the models together, and took the first pictures. This was probably the most difficult part, for neither of us is a professional photographer. But we felt it was important that we took the pictures ourselves, or at least that we should be present during the shooting, so that we could shape the models, choose the point of view, and arrange the lighting so as to complete the optical illusion.
Do you have a favorite piece you created for Sea Salt & Paper?
My favorite cards might be the crabs. However, the model I prefer to fold and exhibit is definitely the penguin: I think it has a good structure and a pleasant folding sequence.
What makes the art of origami so special?
There are several ways to answer this question. I’d say the kind of origami that I love involves both artistic sensibility and “engineering” skills. It starts like a puzzle game, in which one needs to figure out how to transform the sheet of paper by folding it. Nothing added, nothing taken out. All you can do is fold. The magic happens when these combinations of folds somehow breathe life into the paper. This is where the artistic sense steps in and plays an important part.
I am also very attached to the idea that origami works can be taught and reproduced. This goes against the common conception that a work of art should be unique. In the case of origami, I think that a model's reproducibility is part of its beauty. This second idea has become increasingly important to me over the past years. I realized that what brought me the most joy was being able to share my designs and see people putting effort and talent into the interpretation of my models.
Where do you find inspiration for your origami creations?
There is no rule, nor magical recipe for inspiration. I’m often inspired by the nature surrounding me: for instance, I watch birds in my garden and I want to fold them. This is how I created my robins, sparrows, and magpies. Since I got into beekeeping, I started to fold hexagonal sheets because I was touched by the beauty of the honeycombs and their repetitive structure. But sometimes inspiration comes from a book I read or a discussion with friends. I also really enjoy design challenges with other creators, as it is a very good way to stimulate creativity.
Lastly, the idea for a model sometimes comes from the act of folding in itself. I start folding without anything too specific in mind, and if I’m lucky, an idea emerges at some point.
How important is the paper used in origami?
Learning origami is as much about learning folding techniques as learning about paper. The size of the sheet, its thickness, its texture, its transparency… many criteria influence the result you’ll get. That’s why choosing the right kind of paper is a critical step when you want to interpret a model. Most of the time, you have to compromise: some papers will look great in pictures but will tend to fade or loosen with time, some will be very sturdy, or very pleasant to fold, but they will lack texture when you take a picture of your creation.
I have a large collection of sheets of paper in my study, and I experiment a lot - with paint, ink, sometimes even glue (to make double-sided sheets of paper, for instance).
What are some resources for anyone interested in becoming an origamist?
For beginners, I recommend searching on YouTube. There are lots of great origami channels with clear tutorials and fun models. I especially recommend the videos that include diagrams, such as those on Jo Nakashima’s channel. They are a great way to understand the symbols used in books.
Once you can read origami diagrams, the vast realm of origami unfolds at your feet! And since it is even more fun to fold with friends, try to reach your local origami group! There you’ll meet other people who share your passion and who will help you grow as an origamist.
The big shell is designed by Tomoko Fuse - Origami by Pierre-Yves Gallard
What are you reading, listening to, or looking at to fuel your work?
I love to listen to music as I fold. I’m a big fan of the baroque period, and lately I’ve been listening a lot to this recording of “Apri le luci e mira”, composed by Vivaldi and sung by Roberta Mameli.
Finally, where can we see more of your work?
I have a website and an Instagram account, where I share pictures of my models, news about the origami events I participate in, and sometimes diagrams or tutorials for folding some of my models. I’m also working on a book with pictures and diagrams of my models, but this project will still require some time.
Thanks to Studio Bombyx for making this interview possible and to Pierre-Yves Gallard for providing many of the images.
Slay the Spire - Anailis Dorta & Bruce Brenneise: Art in Board Games #76
Slay the Spire is a phenomenal hit. The video game has sold an estimated 3 million copies and has been adapted into a board game, which is already rated in the top 50 best board games ever on Board Game Geek.
Slay the Spire is a deck-building dungeon crawler with unique art direction that creates a fully original world. In this board game art interview, Anailis Dorta and Bruce Brenneise share how they illustrated this award-winning game.
In Slay the Spire, you play as characters climbing a mysterious tower, encountering strange creatures, discovering relics, and crafting a deck of cards to help you overcome powerful bosses. As soon as I tried it, I was addicted.
Since its release, Slay the Spire has grown into a phenomenal hit. The video game has sold an estimated 3 million copies, and last year, it was adapted into a board game, which is already rated among the top 50 best board games on Board Game Geek.
This interview has been five years in the making. Back in 2020, I was obsessed with the Slay the Spire video game, playing it on Steam, Switch, and my phone. I originally reached out to artists Anailis Dorta and Bruce Brenneise at the end of January 2020 to begin our interview, then a little thing called the pandemic occurred.
Five years later, I was still curious to know about Slay the Spire. Thankfully, artists Anailis and Bruce were kind enough to join me (once more) to chat about their work. Enjoy our conversation!
Enjoying the site? Consider supporting it by sharing the articles you read.
For more great insights into board game art, check out the interview archive.
Thanks for talking to me again after all these years, Anailis and Bruce! Could you tell us a bit about yourselves?
Anailis: Hello! I’m a game artist who has worked on multiple projects for different platforms, including console, PC, mobile, AR, VR, and film. I mainly contribute to the 2D and UI roles, but have filled different titles depending on the job. I was born in Cuba and immigrated to the United States as a kid. I went to college on the West Coast and currently reside in the PNW. Outside of making art for a living, I enjoy annoying my cat, traveling with my partner in search of great coffee, and playing roller derby with my friends.
Bruce: Hi! I'm an award-winning illustrator and game background artist. Most of my work thus far has been for various tabletop RPGs and games, including Magic: The Gathering, Dungeons & Dragons, and Numenera. I grew up in rural Michigan, graduated from the University of Michigan with a focus in scientific illustration, lived and traveled in China for six years, and then moved to Seattle with my wife and son. I still live in that area, albeit on the outskirts, since that’s far more affordable. Aside from art, I love reading sci-fi/fantasy/horror novels, traveling, and following geopolitical news.
Have you always wanted to be an artist?
Anailis: I’ve been drawing for as long as I can remember! A moment that made me think, “This is serious now”, is when I got accepted into an art magnet high school. This was the first time I got my hands on a digital tablet and started creating full-on illustrations. After high school, I left to study Game Art in California. I honestly thought — Hey, I like playing video games, so I’ll probably like working on them too! In college, I was taking figure drawing classes, character/environment design classes, concept art for games, vis-dev for animation, storyboarding, UI, 3D — you name it. I was exposed to many aspects of the industry and had amazing teachers who helped me along the way!
Bruce: I've been drawing since I was a small child, and I was lucky to grow up in a family that encouraged art as a viable career option. My grandfather, Harry Baerg, was also a professional illustrator. I remember reading the art books of Michael Whelan and Keith Parkinson and gravitating to the sort of art they were doing. Graduating from art school, however, felt like hitting a brick wall. It hadn't really prepared me for the sort of entertainment industry work I was interested in. I decided to go teach in China and scratch that travel itch I've always had. Although it was a detour from my professional art career, I think it's had a huge impact on the inspiration and approach I take to art now, so that I wouldn't change a thing about that decision.
What is your process when creating art? Are you more digital or analog?
Anailis: I would say the process for creating art depends on what I’m doing. I would say I am an impatient person who doesn't like to spend too much time doing the same thing, so I rarely go the route of seeing where the idea takes me. I pretty much always have a plan coming into something, and if I’m stumped on a piece, I will ask my coworkers for ideas to springboard off of.
When I was working on STS, my general process for the cards or events was to come up with 2-3 sketches based on the card name or description. If I felt some of the ideas were not strong enough on their own, I would jump into a timeboxed research to get more inspiration, whether that was a different pose altogether or thinking of a more intricate design.
Now, if I were taking on something new, I would always look into research and mood boards first. A good rule of thumb for me is to think about what the final piece I want to make is and deconstruct it from there, and that will fill my research. I will always look at antique or historical objects, clothing, machinery, etc., on which the final subject is based, as that is the base on which you can build your ideas.
Bruce: My process for creating art is changing these days. Most of my experience is with digital art: I was an early adopter back in my college days. Now I’m getting back into traditional painting, starting with a lot of tonal sketches and acrylic paintings for MTG and D&D. Given how much of our daily lives are consumed by screens, it’s been nice to get away from them while I work. Either way, the process always starts similarly from researching references, trying out compositions with thumbnail sketches, and then committing to a direction and exploring what that fully looks like.
What do you think makes great art?
Anailis: What I enjoy most about art is that whatever anyone draws always carries a piece of them. Whether it's the thickness of a line stroke, brush stroke, colors, subject matter, points of references, etc. Almost every piece carries pieces of different inspirations that inspired us. A Lot of the shapes and colors in my work are inspired by games that I LOVED growing up (in my case, that was Beyond Good and Evil, Kya: Dark Lineage, the Sly Cooper Series, and Okage: Shadow King).
Artist-wise, Alexandria Neonakis is an artist I’ve always admired since college because her work is so varied and does a lot of UI and concept work, which was what I was mainly doing at the time. Devon Cady-lee Is also someone who’s work I followed during my college years. I love the shapes they pull out of their pieces!
Bruce: Michael Whelan and Keith Parkinson were two of the great fantasy artists who specifically inspired me. Mian Situ and Piotr Jablonsky are two others who consistently drop my jaw. Take a look at their portfolios for a window into what I like. What I enjoy most in art is intentionality, narrative, elegant mark-making, impactful color/mood, and a whole that is greater than the sum of its parts. That said, art can have many different purposes and intentions, thus there are many ways to be great.
How did you get involved in making Slay the Spire?
Anailis: I had recently graduated from college and would consistently check through some of Reddit’s game-dev subreddits to take on quick freelances. Casey and Anthony made a post looking for an artist on the site to create the art style for the cards in Slay The Spire. I was initially interested because the game was very far along compared to the usual posts on the subreddit, and it immediately looked like a tangible project. That same day (or the day after), I sent them the test art.
Bruce: When living in downtown Seattle, I attended an indie game dev get-together at a coffee shop practically down the street from me. I think everyone else there was a designer or programmer. I happened to sit at a table next to the two guys that formed Megacrit. I showed off my portfolio, they showed off their VERY early prototype of Slay the Spire, and we struck up a good conversation.
I think they were particularly interested in getting feedback from me because I hadn't played any deck-builder games. I left them a business card and didn't hear anything further for about half a year. Then I met them at another indie dev meetup. Anthony approached me about doing backgrounds and promo art for them. They were one of my earliest clients, so it was a pretty exciting moment!
Since I met them at such an early phase of the project, there wasn't really an indication that this would be any different than a million other would-be indie games. It was only playing the Alpha builds of the game as it developed that I understood they had something special.
One cool thing about being such an early contributor was getting to give feedback on many other aspects of the game. When they started a brainstorming session to come up with the name of a game about 'killing a tower', I gave them a list of about ten options, including 'Slay the Spire'.
Slay the Spire is set in an original fantasy world. What inspired your art?
Anailis: Casey Yano (game developer) had already created a bunch of the enemies and other artworks for the game that easily set the tone and inspired much of the art (you can see this especially in the event illustrations). I would say that the inspiration was already there, mood and idea-wise.
Based on the initial art test I did, we hit the style and continued in that direction. The events and illustrations for the character select and some promo illustrations allowed me to add a lot more detail and play with a different style. Different aspects of the game had a variety of styles, but because we all played into similar moods and shapes, it brought many aspects together.
Bruce: Casey Yano (game developer) provided rough concepts and explanations of what he and Anthony wanted for the visual content of the game. A good example would be The City, where the background represents the implied hierarchy between palaces for those who can fly and stony hovels clustered at their bases.
I don’t really recall what they had to say for the intended overall look of the game, if there was any particular inspiration we were aiming towards on that. Because it started as a shoestring operation by folks who’d never published a game before, there wasn’t a style bible or a basis of cohesion from the start, other than not wanting to ape a AAA look/feel that everyone else seemed to be going for.
This was more experimental to begin with, for sure. If things narrowed down at all, it was later in the process when it was clear there’d be at least two other people contributing art, so I had to find points of similarity with what they were doing.
Do you have a favorite piece from your work on Slay the Spire?
Anailis: Card-wise, Ironclad’s Rage is probably one of my favourite pieces. Promo-wise, I really enjoyed creating the Watcher and Defect promotional artwork since it was a nice break from all the cards I was doing at the time, haha.
Bruce: The background art for The Beyond, probably. I really enjoy the organic, melting, bony architecture forms. Another one I’m particularly proud of is the throne the Collector sits on. I wish we could have made each boss room a bit more unique like we did with that one.
How is illustrating game art different from creating for other media?
Anailis: I would say that it generally depends on the project and the tasks needed to determine how collaborative something is. In my experience, I find the entertainment industry to be a lot more involved/ collaborative because things are actively being worked on alongside you and could require things to get cut or reworked. You are also working with your fellow co-workers and getting feedback on pieces!
Whenever I’ve done something more purely illustrative that I’m being brought into at the end of the project, while there is still some feedback, it’s a lot more to the point and requires less collaboration. And to that I would add that it doesn’t mean one is easier than the other, but rather each project will require different things from the artist.
Bruce: Every product type places limitations on the art used for it. Games prioritize gameplay, naturally, so they have to take into account where and how the characters will move within the space, as well as the contrast (readability) as they do. I don’t think we expected the game to port to every conceivable platform early on, so worrying about how well the art works in other formats wasn’t necessarily a thing when it was made.
Has the success of Slay the Spire influenced your work in any way?
Anailis: It has influenced my work by making me feel more confident about my choices or directions on where to take a piece or how saturated I can make it >:), haha.
Bruce: Slay the Spire came very early in my career. When I think about the art for it, I’d say it’s an early glimpse of various tendencies that became more fully realized as my work evolved. It continues to be among my most popular artworks, if I can judge by selling prints and playmats on my website and interacting with fans at conventions. It certainly provided momentum that I’ve been able to take into my career moving forward. During StS development, I remember discussing my hope to someday work on MTG. Anthony and Casey are fans of that game as well and encouraged me. When I finally did work on Magic, it probably didn’t hurt my chances that StS was very popular internally at Wizards of the Coast.
While we’re on the subject, Bruce, what were the highlights of working on Magic: The Gathering?
Bruce: I was hired by Magic specifically for my ability to design weird and alien places, as I’d previously demonstrated with my work in Numenera and StS. My first cards were a cycle of alien worlds in the Unfinity set. I’m probably best known for one of those cards, a total solar eclipse as seen from outer space: Godless Shrine. The thing about illustrating for MTG is that each card is like this perfect little artifact in itself, so it becomes very hard to pick favorites among them.
The card where I had the most freedom of imagination, though, was probably my reprint of Fabled Passage. The brief just called for a portal in a ruined alien cityscape. Everything else about it, from the dominant colors to the design of the world, was up to me. You don’t often see that level of creative freedom with an established game product like Magic.
What are you reading, listening to, or looking at to fuel your work?
Anailis: A few years back I was taking workshops from fellow artists that I admired but lately participating in game jams with my coworkers or my partner (who is a 3D artist and fellow game dev) has brought me so much joy and has been my art outlet outside of work these past few years! Outside of that, I've really taken a step back from the computer and enjoy being outside, seeing the sun, and playing roller derby so that I’m not always sitting in this dang computer chair!
Bruce: These days I read a lot of horror (particularly anything by Grady Hendrix), and listen to a lot of synthwave like Gunship or The Midnight while I’m working on art. I suppose there’s a common retro connection between all those things as well as some of the art heroes I mentioned earlier.
Finally, where can we see more of your work?
Anailis: You can find my portfolio work at Ikazilla.com and game jams at https://ikazilla.itch.io/ :-)
Bruce: You can enjoy all my best art at brucebrenneise.com, or catch my latest released pieces on Bluesky.
Thanks to Anailis Dorta and Bruce Brenneise for sharing their artwork with me and board game publisher Contention Games for sharing the Slay the Spire board game product photography.
The Lord of the Rings: Fate of the Fellowship - Cory Godbey: Art in Board Games #75
“Rereading that chapter in Fellowship of the Ring, the most terrifying part of those visions in the Mirror was Frodo seeing the Eye, and I knew I wanted to bring that image into the moment.”
Interview with artist Cory Godbey
In this board game art interview, I’m speaking to Cory Godbey, an award-winning artist whose work on The Lord of the Rings: Fate of the Fellowship artwork blends classic fantasy, bold colors, and rich, detailed worlds.
From picture books and board games to documentary films, Cory Godbey has worked with a wide range of subjects and styles to create thoughtful, engaging, and award-winning art for nearly twenty years.
Cory kindly joined me to discuss his career, creating fantasy art, and the brand new The Lord of the Rings: Fate of the Fellowship board game. Grab a drink and settle in; this is my longest interview yet at 12 minutes read time. With such great answers, I could easily have talked to Cory even longer. Enjoy!
Enjoying the site? Support it by sharing the articles you liked.
For more great insights into board game art, check out the interview archive.
Thanks for joining us, Cory! Can you tell us a bit about yourself?
Thanks so much! I live in the upstate of South Carolina, which is near the foothills of the Appalachian Mountains. I grew up in a little town called Travelers Rest. Aptly named, I suppose, because just beyond you begin to get into more of those rolling hills of the Blue Ridge Mountains.
As a kid in the 1980s and early 90s, I wandered around in the woods a lot, liked to draw, and played my fair share of Nintendo. Though I’ve gotten taller, those three things haven't changed too much.
Have you always wanted to be an illustrator?
I have, though I probably wouldn’t have articulated it quite that way until later in high school.
Drawing has been one of the major constants in my life. I’ve told the story before, but when I was in kindergarten, one class project was to do a drawing of what you wanted to be when you grew up. I didn’t know (I don’t know what five year old would actually know). But I do remember thinking well, I’ll draw a picture of a cop. I vividly remember drawing an old time-y hat with a badge on it, sitting back, and thinking, hey, now that looks pretty good!
I was always the kid drawing during class. My abiding memory of elementary school is doodling in my textbooks, looking up and realizing I had no idea where the rest of the class was in the lesson, and then going back down to my drawings.
When I was 16, I started working as a textbook illustrator. I would go after school during the summers to a small publisher near my hometown. The serendipity of going on to create illustrations for textbooks that future students would, hopefully, go onto deface and add doodles to, just like I did, was not lost on me!
This year marks 20 years working full-time in Illustration, since 2005, if you can believe it. (Longer still if you count those early days doing textbook illustration.) I feel incredibly fortunate in that I’ve never once wondered what I should pursue.
How do you like to create your art? Are you more analog or digital?
For me, everything begins traditionally. What that usually looks like is a light Col-erase pencil sketch on Stonehenge paper or Strathmore 500 series Bristol. From there, proceeding onto a finished drawing usually alternating between Kimberly’s General 2B pencil, Blackwing 602, and your regular old BIC mechanical pencil, 0.7 mm or 0.9 mm.
Depending on the needs of the project, I’ll move on to watercolor and gouache or digital painting. Oftentimes a mix.
I don’t usually like drawing digitally, however, even if I am drawing in Procreate on the iPad, for example, I still do rough sketches on paper and scan those to begin. Each project is a little different, and over the years I found myself adjusting my process and methods accordingly. My goal is always that no matter how I’m actually working, everything feels consistent.
Your passion for fantasy is clear. What draws you to the genre?
In fantasy art, I can find the three things that I am always looking for with my own work: Draftsmanship, Imagination, and Narrative.
Yes, I was always the kid who drew in school, but really I think it was the 1-2 punch of experiencing the Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time and Hayao Miyazaki’s masterpiece, Princess Mononoke during my formative years in high school in the late 90s that sent me down the path on which I still find myself walking.
Your artwork is very dynamic, from the composition to the lighting. Where do you begin when creating an image, and how do you convey a feeling of energy in the frame?
That’s very kind of you to say. It’s a great question, and it’s one that I’m not sure I can quite answer.
I know at least the key to my compositions, (most but probably not all) is a triangle. I don’t even plan it most of the time, it’s somehow instinctual. Makes sense to me, though. It’s a foundational, fundamental shape and it’s something the human eye is simply drawn to. It feels weighted and structured.
As for bringing a piece to life, that's a tricky business. The energy and movement in the piece is a part of it, of course. For me, it’s usually trying to approach a feeling or memory. How on earth something as grand as that, a living moment in time, can ever wind its way through shapes or color or lines is the real mystery.
You recently worked on The Lord of the Rings: Fate of the Fellowship board game. Can you tell us more about this project?
I’d had the chance to work with Matt Leacock on a previous game called Ziggurat. On that project, I illustrated a number of storybook moments for the different “chapters” of the game as well as had the flexibility to create a dozen or so player characters. We had such a good time on that project, Matt was kind enough to invite me on board for this.
The main note I had from the team on Fate of the Fellowship was that these characters could not resemble the Peter Jackson films in any way. Good news to me! As much affection and admiration as I have for those movies, I wanted to do my own take.
In that respect, it was truly the perfect opportunity. Alan Lee's work is my personal favorite glimpse into the world of Tolkien. As such, I have no aspirations to illustrate the books. For me, they have been done. However, getting the chance to do a piece for the cover and spend time thinking about how I might handle the characters? That sounded like a perfect holiday in Middle-earth.
What it looked like for me was going back and rereading certain passages and scribbling through different ways of seeing the characters.
The cover for The Lord of the Rings: Fate of the Fellowship packs in a lot of story. In your opinion, what is the key to creating captivating cover art?
For covers, I tend to defer to the needs of the project. And my own taste and preferences range, as far as what I like to see for a cover. Whether that’s a single, impactful image, or a character portrait or moment from the story. In this instance, they asked for all three of those.
As I recall, the idea was a central image of Frodo and Galadriel at the Mirror with a series of vignettes giving glimpses of other characters surrounding them.
Rereading that chapter in Fellowship of the Ring, the most terrifying part of those visions in the Mirror (famously, “For it shows things that were, things that are, and things that may yet be.") was Frodo seeing the Eye, and I knew I wanted to bring that image into the moment.
“But suddenly the Mirror went all together dark, as dark as if a hole had opened in the world of sight, and Frodo looked into emptiness. In the black abyss, there appeared a single Eye that slowly grew, until it filled nearly all the Mirror. So terrible was it that Frodo stood rooted, unable to cry out or to withdraw his gaze. The eye was rimmed with fire, but was itself glazed, yellow as a cat’s, watchful and intent, and the black slit of its pupil opened on a pit, a window into nothing.”
For me, that Eye was the key to making the entire cover work. Everything else could hang off that. In fact, when I sat down to begin the final art for the cover, it was the first piece I set out to paint. One thing I'm particularly proud of (why this exactly, I'm not sure, but I am nonetheless) is how the piece bends around either end to accommodate the sides of the box. You've got a side that works for stacking flat on the right and a side that works for standing in a row on the left.
You’ve illustrated instantly recognizable characters, from Lord of the Rings to Disney’s Lorcana. What are the challenges of illustrating such well-known worlds?
Each project is pretty different. With LOTR, I had the trust of the team on Fate to approach the characters how I would see them. I felt like I had as much flexibility as I could possibly want planning the characters and developing my vision for them. Something like Lorcana you’re working with established characters and a style guide for the whole world of the game.
My heart lies with the work I’ve been able to do for the Jim Henson Company. I’ve said it a number of times, but truly, it’s always seemed to me that they want the artist's thumbprint on any given project.
Between books and comics, I’ve been doing projects for them off and on these last 15 years. While, yes, it is licensed work with established characters and worlds, it’s always felt like much more to me. I’ve often described it like a garden. It’s not my garden, but occasionally I’m given the keys to go into that garden and tend a small corner of it. When I’m done, I leave my key on a post at the gate. They know all they have to do is ask and I’ll be back with my gardening gloves.
What's your experience been like working in the gaming industry?
The majority of my work over the last two decades has been in publishing and comics. Some animation projects here and there, but mostly publishing and illustration.
However, the last few years have seen a number of commissions coming in from the gaming world. Which I suppose is why we’re talking in the first place! MTG, Lorcana, and of course, Fate of the Fellowship. One particular experience I would love to highlight is Littlest Lantern’s Sea Beasts.
That’s a game coming out later this year, and I could never say enough good things about that project. One of the best, most collaborative experiences I’ve had in my career. Just such an incredible time working on dozens upon dozens of briny, salt-soaked beasts (and the Vikings to battle them). Can’t wait to see that one out, and people getting the chance to explore it.
From projects like Magic: The Gathering to board games like Ziggurat, everyone has been so welcoming and so kind. Wanted to take a moment and highlight that part of the gaming community.
With the demands of being a commercial artist, do you still have time for personal works?
I can trace a very direct line from any significant client project commission back to some piece of personal work. In many ways, my personal work is what fuels my client work. What that usually looks like is an editor or art director referencing some piece of personal work and saying, that's what we want for this project.
Back in 2008 I began creating a yearly sketchbook. The first few were a hodgepodge of whatever sketches and drawings I had done in that year that weren’t for a client or any particular project. But it was in 2011, I hit on the idea of creating a new sketchbook on a theme. Not just the leftovers or whatever I had scribbled that year but an entirely new collection. Giving myself a framework and limiting the scope, I found, to be expansive.
To take a single idea or a theme and try and look at it from every possible angle and see-through it like a prism. It lent so many more ideas than just doing a one off piece here and there. Ultimately, I have found nothing better for my own personal and professional development than creating an annual sketchbook.
Do you have a favorite piece of art you’ve created?
In 2022, we began construction on a new studio for me. But before I packed up and moved out of my original studio, I wanted to make one last piece to sum up my time in that space. I’d been in that studio for the last 10 years and had to send it off right.
The original drawing for this one is one of the largest I’d ever attempted and based off scribbles for an idea I had back in 2015 but felt unable to fully realize, back then. It also functions as tribute to two of my illustrative heroes, John Bauer and Charles Vess.
The Idylls.
Do you have a dream project?
I love any chance I get to walk in Thra, the world of The Dark Crystal. I’ll draw my way through as often as they ask. And there are a few more stories I'd like to tell from that place.
For projects I would love to illustrate that no one has commissioned yet, I’ve got a list of dream books, of course, but The NeverEnding Story would be the first. Penguin, Penguin Random House (I think they have the US rights). I am speaking directly to you now.
And you know what, I'd get a kick doing something with Pokémon. I've been a lifelong fan and for fun, I entered the TCG art contest back in 2024. I didn't place with my Feraligatr (and trio of Totodiles), but a friend also entered and did place! And that was exciting.
And as for my own personal work, I’ve been working through a massive, sprawling fantasy story called WHENCE for quite a while now. Essentially, this is the well from which I pull most all the imagery and things for my personal work and sketchbooks. Not ready yet, but it’ll get there!
What are you reading, listening to, or looking at to fuel your work?
I’ve read with my three kids every night since they were small but now that they’re a little older we’ve been on quite a journey through a number of books. The last year or so has seen us go through The Hobbit, Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH, The Neverending Story, and The King of the Copper Mountains. Right now, we’re in the middle of The Chronicles of Narnia (currently reading The Silver Chair).
As for music, I’m often on a Joe Hisaishi kick. Some other musicians I’ve been playing a lot in the studio recently are Max Richter, R. Missing, and Hiatus. I don’t get the chance to really sit down with many movies or shows, despite how much great stuff it seems is out there. I do watch a lot of documentaries while I’m working during the day. Especially, if it’s something easy to just listen to.
If I’m winding down for a little while in the evening, two recent games I’ve replayed are Link’s Awakening on the Game Boy and Pokémon SoulSilver on the Nintendo DS. Still getting in that Nintendo time.
Finally, where can we see more of your work?
A number of places to keep up! From my portfolio site to Muddy Colors. You can also find me on these social media sites: Patreon, BlueSky, and Instagram.
Onoda - Javi de Castro: Art in Board Games #74
“There are many tragic moments in the story, I tried to reflect them with colors, shapes, and other resources. The board game follows Onoda's life chronologically, and I tried to reflect that in the cards; you can see how he ages.. “
In this board game art interview, I’m speaking to Javi de Castro, a Spanish comic artist whose rich narrative approach to board game art creates deeper thematic connections through play.
When it comes to telling stories through illustration, comic artists are second to none. Recently, I discovered Onoda, a board game based on the life of Hiro Onoda, a Japanese lieutenant who hid in the jungle for 30 years, believing WWII was still ongoing. The game artist is Javi de Castro, an illustrator and author whose own work has been nominated for both an Eisner and a Harvey, the most prestigious comic awards in the world. I was intrigued, and Javi was kind enough to join me for a chat. I hope you enjoy our conversation.
Enjoying the site? Support it by sharing the articles you liked.
For more great insights into board game art, check out the interview archive.
Thanks for joining us, Javi! Could you tell us a bit about yourself?
Thanks for having me! I'm an illustrator and comic artist from León, a small city in the northwest of Spain, and I currently live a bit further north, in Asturias. I love cinema, comics, novels, theatre, everything related to storytelling.
You’re best known for your web comics and graphic novels. Where does your inspiration for these stories come from?
Each project is different; the specific case of webcomics is peculiar. I want to do more because it is a very interesting medium to experiment with, but it is difficult to do without finances. The Eyes was a personal project. I had been stuck for a while and remembered how much I liked short tales and anthologies like The Twilight Zone or Roald Dahl's stories. I wanted to do something similar where the use of GIFs was justified. So each story is born from the use of the GIF itself.
Thanks to this project, the Principality of Asturias asked me for another webcomic where I treated historical facts. I had to document myself a lot, but I also had freedom; I could take it to my field and do what I wanted to do. I avoided doing something boring like a Wikipedia dictation.
Each graphic novel or comic has come from different inspirations, and I have always been able to allow myself to do what I wanted to do. My last published comic is for children and has also been an experiment, ‘Cosmo en el espacio’, which can be read upside down. It will be coming out in English soon.
Have you always wanted to be an artist?
For as long as I can remember, I have liked drawing. When I was a child, I discovered that the pictures in books were called illustrations and were made by an illustrator, and I knew what I wanted to be when I grew up. I was always self-taught, although I also studied illustration when I started making fanzines and webcomics. I was very clear that I wanted to work in drawing, and while there have probably been worse times, I was always stubborn.
Your art features clean lines and bold color choices. What do you love about this style?
It’s hard to say, but I love clarity, so that everything is understood. I always mention artists like Challand, Hergé, Schulz, and Mignola, but I guess an important influence was cartoons like Bruce Timm's Batman. Nowadays, I look at authors like Chris Ware, Joost Swarte, or Aude Picault.
My style emerged naturally; every time I drew, I just wanted to make cleaner lines and simpler shapes. That's what characterizes my art. It's a very useful style for some jobs and sometimes a pain for others, but it's fun to find solutions.
What is your usual process for creating art for a client?
It depends on the time I have, but I really like to document myself well, I have a good time, and I get into what I want to tell. In the case of games, I've always had to work first on the cover of the box, and that's the part I think about, sketch, and test the most. I enjoy making a beautiful object. Then I work on the cards, board, etc., and that part is more direct. Sometimes I have a phrase or an idea, and I try to reflect what it asks for; sometimes I have to be literal, and sometimes I have to look for a metaphor.
How did you first begin working in the tabletop industry?
I was contacted by Salt & Pepper Games, they had seen my work as an illustrator and they proposed me for a board game. I had never illustrated one before, and I thought it was really cool. The truth is that I don't know much about the tabletop industry. I know the publishing industry well, and for me, this is all new, so I didn't have any preconceived ideas. My work has consisted of illustrating, in that sense it doesn't change much, but it's fun to have so many formats, cards, board, tokens, of course, the box.
You illustrated Onoda, a board game that follows the life of Hiroo Onoda, a Japanese soldier who spent nearly 30 years holding out, believing World War II wasn’t over. What was it like to recreate this piece of history?
I knew a little bit of the story, but I read a lot about it. Herzog has an interesting book, and recently, a French movie came out. I do a lot of research and try to document myself a lot. There is a lot of information about the war, the uniforms, weapons, and such, but there is nothing about the 30 years that Onoda spent on the island. I designed Hiro Onoda as if I were making a comic, and I designed a character that would remind people of the real person.
Onoda is a controversial character. When I heard his story, I only thought of him as a survivor who spent 30 years without knowing that the war was over. But when you go deeper into the story, you realise what he did. He was an imperial soldier who stole and killed innocent people. He's like Rambo without a cause. He's no hero for me. I didn't want to portray him like that. He's no epic, just a complex man surviving on an island at all costs.
How important was staying true to the history in the art of Onoda?
Onoda allowed me to be more expressive and less literal. There are many tragic moments in the story, I tried to reflect them with colors, shapes, and other resources. The game follows Onoda's life chronologically, and I tried to reflect that in the cards; you can see how he ages. However, I invented the design of his companions and made Onoda my own in his design. I always strive to be faithful to reality, but without obsession; if something can be improved or better understood, I don't mind if it's not entirely accurate.
You’ve also illustrated another board game featuring real people, The Battle of the Divas. In what ways was this project different from Onada?
I illustrated ‘The Battle of the Divas’, which is about Maria Callas and Tebaldi, and it was a very different documentation work. There are thousands of pictures of Callas and Tebaldi's lives. With the Divas, I had to ensure they were always recognizable because they are very famous.
Your work has a cinematic quality. Is there a trick to illustrating scenes that feel dynamic and alive?
I love movies, but I don't know if they inspire me beyond the stories or certain shots. But I think comics are very dynamic! Much more than cinema. Because it's the eye that moves across the page, it's a much more active medium. I can't apply this to cards, sadly. But I work a lot as an illustrator too, so I guess I'm used to making single-illustration comics (that's one way of looking at it haha!) The only trick I know, is to make the viewer's eyes move where you want them to.
As a comic artist, what do you think is the key to illustrating memorable characters?
This is a difficult question to answer. I always look to create characters that are easily recognisable and charismatic. Almost always, the character takes on a life of its own. Without realizing it, I'm modifying it, and it changes; I always have to retouch the first few illustrations because they no longer resemble the character at the end of this journey.
What are you reading, listening to, or looking at to fuel your work?
Lately, I'm obsessed with the work of Antonio Hitos and Jon McNaught, I recommend any of their comics. I'm also reading all of Tove Jansson's Moomintroll strips and I'm loving them.
Finally, where can we see more of your work?
I have a website, javidecastro.com, where you can see some of my work (I have to update it), and you can also read my webcomics. You can also find me on Instagram as @javi_decastro.
Thanks to Javi de Castro and Salt & Pepper Games for providing the article images.
Alisha Giroux: Art in Board Games #73
“My background in graphic design helps me curb my desire to use all the colours, because in the end working with a limited palette is always going to be more impactful.”
In this board game art interview, I’m speaking to A. Giroux, a Canadian artist, whose work on the Gazebo and Gingham artwork brings a whimsical table presence to abstract game mechanics.
Alisha also gave a great talk on the subject of AI artwork called “The Creative Fingerprint,” which I encourage people to watch when they have the time. On a website spotlighting creatives, it should surprise absolutely no one that I’m passionately against any system that profits from others’ work without appropriate compensation and credit.
Alisha has worked with an impressive array of clients, from The Canadian Mint to Shopify, and her talents are now brightening up our board game shelves. Enjoy!
Enjoying the site? Support it by sharing the articles you liked.
For more great insights into board game art, check out the interview archive.
Gazebo board game box art
Thanks for joining us, Alisha! Could you tell us a bit about yourself?
Hello! I’m a Canadian freelance artist currently living life between the capital city of Ottawa and a small rural farm in Quebec. I spend my working days designing stuff for a variety of cool clients, and my personal time gardening, travelling, road biking, and volunteering in abandoned graveyards.
Sketches for the Primrose TTRPG Rulebook
Have you always wanted to be an artist?
Nope, but growing up, I had a strong connection with nature, and it inspired me to draw all sorts of animals and fantasy creatures from the time I could hold a pencil. This, of course, steered me towards a career in the arts. I pursued a post-secondary education in graphic design, which gave me a solid foundation in design principles, but illustration was always a self-taught endeavour, completely fuelled by a passion for wildlife.
My ‘artistic trajectory’ involved working for a design studio for about a decade, then getting a lucky break that got me into tech. There were a few golden years before a sudden mass layoff happened, and I experienced my first bout of unemployment. It disoriented me in terms of how I saw myself professionally, but in the end, I came out of it more confident and with a much healthier relationship with my work (never tie your self-worth to your employment, folks!). Now, I illustrate more than I design, and I have never been happier with my work.
What is your usual process for creating art?
First, a terrible bout of imposter syndrome must arrive and pass. There’s always this kind of panic moment when staring at a fresh blank page that I’ve come to accept as a necessary step in the process. Once I’ve combed through a few design resources, which can be anything from a book on local mushrooms to the old iSpy publications, something eventually sparks. What comes next is mood boarding, googling, and a lot of sketching by hand. I’m a keen believer in starting with pencil and paper first — it’s faster, looser, and ideas tend to tumble out much more quickly without the distraction of a digital screen.
You’ve worked with various industries, from Shopify to The Royal Canadian Mint. How do you usually land your commissions?
I do get this question a lot! And my answer is that it’s almost always been word of mouth.
The Royal Canadian Mint came about when the studio I worked for was designing coin packaging on a regular basis. I not-so-subtly let The Mint know I enjoyed illustration, and they eventually let our studio pitch a series of packaging and five 1$ coins (loonies), which we won. After that, my name was in their system, and I’ve been pitching designs ever since. To date, I have eight official coins, with over half a million minted designs circulating out there somewhere.
By Fire - Illustration
How did you start working in the board game industry?
It all started with a personal art piece called ‘By Fire’. Allplay saw it and reached out to ask if I could do a few more in that style, which were later published as playing cards Lunar. Lunar led to me being seen by Bitewing Games and working on Cat Blues and Shuffle & Swing, and more recently Gingham and Gazebo.
Working with Bitewing put me in touch with Daniel Newman, which led to the Somnia card game, as well as with Facade Games and their latest social deduction game. All of that came from putting a single, quick digital illustration online, which led to this wild, board game-oriented domino effect. Zero complaints.
Cat Blues features an array of hand-drawn cat musicians with big personalities. Where did your inspiration for the art come from?
Something I enjoy doing is creating playlists for specific projects. So for Cat Blues, I created a jazzy playlist handpicked from my grandfather’s record collection, which included some classic artists like Galt MacDermot (Coffee Cold), Ike Quebec, Horace Silver, Herbie Hancock (Cantaloupe Island), and of course Dave Brubeck (Take Five, Unsquare Dance). Catered and thematic playlists like that really help me get into the right headspace.
And if anyone is familiar with the energizing, jazzy cat scene in The Aristocats, that was a huge lightbulb moment in terms of where I wanted to take the game.
(Below is Alisha’s cat Monty, who sadly passed away the day Cat Blues launched on Kickstarter.)
Gingham and Gazebo are charming abstract games. How do you balance function with personality when working on more abstract projects?
This is a great question — It’s always a delicate balancing act. You want colour, but not too much, imagery, but you don’t want to visually overload the players, etc.. My background in graphic design helps me curb my desire to use all the colours, because in the end working with a limited palette is always going to be more impactful. A good example might be the border designs for Gazebo.
They had to have an appealing theme (bird sanctuary, flower garden), be beautiful and enticing, but not distract from the main game board, so I gave them a crisp aesthetic and limited it to three colours only, with one common colour across all four designs to tie it together.
(Fun fact, Nick and I hid a small nerdy easter egg somewhere in the Gazebo artwork. Props to anyone who finds it.)
Gazebo Board Game - Borders
Somnia is tonally very different to the other board games I’ve mentioned. Is there an allure of working on creatively varied projects?
Somnia was a ton of fun to work on! When new clients come my way looking for custom illustrations, I often ask them to pull artwork from my social media as examples of what they’re looking for. I have a few ‘styles’, mostly born of my constant experimentation. I do sometimes worry that I don’t have one solid aesthetic, but on the other hand I personally have more fun trying to flex my skills and see how far I can push something, and it’s led to some fantastic collaborations. Daniel chose my more inky experiments, and so we ran with that.
For Somnia’s theme, I didn’t pull from my own dreams so much as I pulled from weird art I grew up loving — so things like Beetlejuice or Tim Burton were a huge inspiration. I don’t think I could pull inspiration from my nightmares, unless you want a card game about missing important flights or picking up teeth.
Somnia card game. Designed by Kazuma Suzuki. Published by New Mill Industries.
I listened to your fascinating talk on AI, “The Creative Fingerprint.” Where does this technology leave artists and art appreciators?
Oof yeah, this is the sujet du jour in the art community. In its current form, genAI (text to image/video) runs on IP theft, without credit or compensation to the original artists. Unfortunately it’s sold to the public as a kind of digital magic that pulls from the ether, and many people don’t know any better. And when it comes to its ubiquity, I often compare it to other magical things like Radium, which has good, specific uses, but went through a period where it was unashamedly added to everything from sodapop to paint. Yes, I want AI to help me book a plane ticket, no I don’t want it in my dishwasher. You get the idea.
My biggest worry is the impact it could have on budding creatives. The risk is that they may no longer want to pursue a career in the arts, or worse, use genAI and atrophy skills that would have otherwise blossomed without it.
I could go on! To tie it back to our theme, those I’ve worked with in the board game community really seem to cherish and appreciate genuine creativity and ingenuity, and I hope that’s a trend that continues in the face of techbros doing what they do best.
Do you have any advice for new artists?
Something I wish I’d learned earlier was how to say ‘No’ to the projects that don’t feel like a good fit (listen to your gut on this), and ‘Yes’ to the ones that excite but scare you. The work I am happiest with to date came from saying yes to something I wasn’t sure I could pull off. Do it scared, that’s where you’ll experience the most growth.
Lunar board game. Designed by Masato Uesugi. Published by Allplay.
What are you reading, listening to, or looking at to fuel your work?
I find one of the best ways to fuel my work is to take breaks. It’s taken a lot of time (and episodes of burnout) to learn that pauses are a necessary part of the process. For me, that looks like long, pensive bike rides, trips to obscure antique shops, or game nights with friends.
I’ve also got some really great design-savvy friends to bounce ideas off of. Most recently, I was brainstorming for a board game set in the Roman Empire, which I knew very little about, but knew a friend who’d studied it in University. I was able to pick their brain and come out with a much richer approach to the project, which was far more valuable than any level of image googling.
Lastly, consuming a lot of non-design content is paramount. The more obscure hyperfixations and rabbit holes you get into, the more resources and ideas you have to mentally pull from later. So I play games, both digital and physical (currently it’s The Long Dark, Thousand Year Vampire, Into the Breach), read daily (Earth’s Children series, Southern Reach, Hyperion), and listen to a lot of podcasts (The Chernobyl Podcast about the HBO miniseries, Science Vs., Ologies).
'The Comet' Music Video Tarot Cards
Finally, where can we see more of your work?
Here you can see my portfolio and visit my online shop. You can also follow me on BlueSky and Instagram. Find my Graveyard volunteer work (and some art) under the Instagram account Grave Matters.
Lunar board game art.
Thanks to Alisha Giroux for providing the images for this article.
Parks (2nd Edition) - Josh Emrich: Art in Board Games #72
“Some connect with an illustration because it captures a personal experience, others are drawn to a particular animal, and some simply love the way the sky makes them feel…”
In this board game art interview, I’m speaking to Josh Emrich, an American artist whose work on the Parks (2nd Edition) artwork gives the hit U.S. National Parks game a new look.
I first interviewed Josh back in 2018 about his work on Campy Creatures and Caper with Keymaster. Updating a well-loved game like Parks is no easy task, but I think the team has done a stellar job. I’ll leave it to Josh to tell you more about the Parks (2nd Edition) art.
Enjoying the site? Support it by sharing the articles you liked.
For more great insights into board game art, check out the interview archive.
Hi Josh, welcome back to the site! For anyone new to your work, could you tell us a bit about yourself?
I can’t believe it’s been seven years since we last spoke! Back then, I had just completed my first board game, Campy Creatures, and my design studio, Emrich Office, was primarily focused on branding for the craft beer industry.
Since then, I’ve added a few more game titles to my portfolio, but the biggest shift has been in our clientele. While we’ve retained a single craft brewing client — Bottle Logic Brewing — we’ve transitioned to building brand style guides and developing creative work for the entertainment industry.
We’ve been fortunate to collaborate with dream clients like Disney, Nickelodeon, Netflix, and TNT/TBS. Much of this growth stemmed from the storytelling ability and diverse skill set we honed through our work in both craft brewing and board games.
But to answer your question, I’m primarily a graphic designer and illustrator, though I tend to avoid strict labels because I love working across different creative disciplines. Ultimately, I love creating experiences that bring people together in the real world. I especially enjoy creating things that help people connect with themselves and with others, which is probably why board games have been such a natural fit for me.
Parks 2E - Photography by Kovray
You’re the artistic lead for Parks (Second Edition). What were your first thoughts when considering this project?
When the license for the 59 Parks artwork in the original Parks game ended, Keymaster approached me to help reimagine Parks for a new generation of players.
At first, I was hesitant — it was a massive undertaking with big shoes to fill. But as we discussed the game’s future and the creative possibilities, I became excited about the opportunity to explore the natural world in a new way. Much of my work is rooted in pop culture, so shifting my focus to the breathtaking landscapes of the National Parks was a refreshing and inspiring challenge.
Parks (Second Edition) looks stunning. How did your existing relationship with Keymaster Games help with the work?
Thank you! That really means a lot, especially coming from someone who appreciates the aesthetic details of board games.
My relationship with Keymaster Games, the publisher of Parks, goes back nearly nine years—which is a long time in the creative industry. Over that time, we’ve built a lot of trust in each other. We previously collaborated on Campy Creatures and Caper: Europe, along with other behind-the-scenes projects.
Caper Europe - Photo by Ross Connell
I’m a huge fan of the original 59 Parks artists and the artwork licensed for the first edition of Parks. Keymaster’s internal design team also played a crucial role, adapting the 59 Parks artwork and crafting the game’s overall visual language — some of which built on our work for Campy Creatures and Caper, especially in the wood grain textures and typography.
There was no way I could match their combined talents, nor would I try. Thankfully, I had an incredible team that included the original Parks developers — creative director Mattox Shuler, game designer Henry Audubon, and game producer Jen Graham-Macht — along with my co-illustrator Lisk Feng and graphic designer Seth Nickerson.
What areas for improvement did you identify when evaluating the first edition?
As much as we loved the first game, Keymaster and I wanted to offer something distinct while still honoring the beauty of the national parks and enhancing gameplay. We focused on three key opportunities. Optimizing the artwork & readability, creating a unified artistic vision, and evolving the game’s identity. Since we were starting from scratch, we could design the artwork specifically for the game and include all 63 National Parks.
Parks 2E - Photography by Kovray
Is there an advantage to using art created specifically for board games?
The original 59 Parks artwork began as 18” x 24” posters, meaning fine details and contrast were often lost when scaled down to playing cards. For the new edition, I tailored the illustrations to maintain just the right level of detail, contrast, and readability for the card format.
We also considered various lighting conditions—whether a well-lit kitchen table or a lantern-lit campsite—and improved readability by incorporating larger, crisper fonts, more distinctive icons, and brighter, high-contrast colors.
Parks 2E - Photography by Kovray
The first edition of Parks featured artwork with a wide variety of styles. Did anything in particular inspire your new approach?
For Parks (Second Edition), it was just Lisk Feng and I handling the illustrations, allowing us to create a more cohesive visual experience. I drew inspiration from three artists known for their ability to capture landscapes with striking simplicity and depth:
Eyvind Earle (an artist famous for his work on Disney’s Sleeping Beauty)—his serigraph prints capture light and shadow cascading over hills, iconic trees, and a sophisticated sense of space and color.
Gordon Mortensen—a reduction woodcut print artist whose work conveys undulating wildflowers, shifting weather, and layered depth that immerses viewers in the landscape.
Ray Morimura—a Japanese woodcut artist known for his unique perspectives and rhythmic compositions, such as lily pads dotting a pond or birds in flight.
How did reimagining the art present an opportunity to evolve Parks’ identity for the second edition?
Every game’s theme offers a distinct point of view that shapes the player’s experience and adds meaning to the mechanics — this, in turn, defines the game’s “brand.” The original Parks evoked a cozy, nostalgic feel inspired by WPA-era National Park posters, dark wood grains, and muted colors.
For the second edition, we wanted to emphasize a more modern sense of adventure, wonder, and awe in nature. To achieve this, we drew inspiration from the bold, energetic aesthetic of the 1980s and ’90s outdoor brands, which are seeing a resurgence today. This design direction is reflected in elements like the hiker, resource, and wildlife tokens, the new player mats featuring canteens and backpacks, the gear cards with modern outdoor equipment, and the topographic textures and fonts throughout the game.
Ultimately, this approach created a more cohesive and distinctive design, giving Parks a fresh aesthetic that not only enhances this edition but also sets the stage for future games in the Parks lineup.
Parks 2E - Photography by Kovray
The new edition of Parks features 63 iconic locations. What is your process when handling such a substantial list?
Like the nerds we are, my wife and creative partner, Katie, and I researched every park and compiled our findings into a massive spreadsheet. We cataloged iconic features, flora, fauna, unique seasons, and notable weather events, as well as notable activities. From there, we grouped the parks into six major categories: Deserts, Mountain West, Alaskan/Northern, Coastal, Geological Wonders, and Forests.
This approach allowed me to tackle the illustrations in manageable batches, grouping parks with similar ecosystems or features. As I worked through each batch, it became easier to ensure distinctiveness by varying the time of day, season, landscape focus, or highlighting different wildlife and human activities. The larger guiding questions I asked myself were:
What is the most iconic feature of this park, and is it the most striking example of its kind in the National Parks?
If not, what’s the next best thing, or can I depict it in a unique way?
How can I capture a sense of awe and wonder — something visitors might experience under the right conditions?
Many of the U.S. National Parks share similar geographic features. Was there consideration taken to ensure they all felt unique?
Sometimes, I feel compelled to feature an obvious landmark — like Delicate Arch in Arches or Old Faithful with bison in Yellowstone — because they’re the best-known representations of those parks, and people expect to see them. Other times, a park may be famous for a particular feature, but a more dramatic example of that feature exists elsewhere.
A good example is Wind Cave: it has the longest cave system in the U.S., and American bison roam its hills. However, Mammoth Cave and Carlsbad Caverns are visually more striking, and the largest and oldest bison herd is found in Yellowstone. Instead, I chose to depict Wind Cave’s rolling hills at sunset with an American elk, an animal I hadn’t yet featured in another park illustration.
How important was accuracy when depicting the National Parks?
Unlike many board game themes, Parks is set in real places — we can’t invent mountain ranges or alter the shape of a waterfall; everything must be grounded in reality. Ideally, we’d visit every park for firsthand reference, but that would be a costly and time-consuming endeavor (though we’d love to do it!).
Instead, we relied on reference photos — many of which are taken from the same vantage points. Often, that’s simply the only place photographers can stand without risking a fall, damaging native plants, or encountering an unfriendly bear.
The US National Parks hold a special place in the hearts of many, but do you have any personal favorites?
One of the things I’ve really enjoyed about this game is hearing which National Park illustrations resonate with people. Some connect with an illustration because it captures a personal experience, others are drawn to a particular animal, and some simply love the way the sky makes them feel.
For me, Rocky Mountain National Park holds a special place in my heart because of my Uncle Dave. He was one of my biggest supporters in becoming a professional artist—attending my art shows and buying my paintings even when they didn’t exactly go with his decor. When I moved from Indiana to Colorado after college to pursue better career opportunities, he encouraged me every step of the way.
Josh & Dave - Rocky Mountains National Park - 2005
Josh’s Uncle Dave in the Rocky Mountain National Park 2005
Eventually, when Katie and I decided to get married in Colorado, Uncle Dave came out for the wedding, fell in love with the state, and bought a house in Estes Park—right on the doorstep of RMNP. Having family nearby was incredible, and we often met up for hikes. Uncle Dave was deeply involved in RMNP, volunteering as a “Road Hog” and Hikemaster guide for the YMCA.
When my sister and her husband visited, he’d take us on epic hikes — whether summiting Longs Peak (the tallest in RMNP at 14,256 ft.) or traversing Flattop Mountain along the Continental Divide, descending by glissading down Andrews Glacier. One of my favorite experiences was snowshoeing through the park in the winter when the crowds were gone, and we could walk across frozen lakes to take in spectacular views.
Sadly, Uncle Dave passed away unexpectedly a few years ago, and working on Parks became a way to honor him. I know he would have loved it. That’s why, on the RMNP card, you’ll find a special tribute — Uncle Dave leading the way as we snowshoe across Lake Helene, beneath Flattop Mountain, Ptarmigan Point, and Notchtop.
Thank you for sharing this story with us Josh.
Josh and Dave, Snowshoeing through the Rocky Mountain National Park Artwork - Parks Second Edition
Final Card Art for the Rocky Mountain National Park card - Parks Second Edition
Last time we spoke, you were reading the Wildwood book series to your kids. What are you reading, listening to, or looking at to fuel your work at the moment?
Yes! I’m really looking forward to Laika’s stop-motion adaptation of Wildwood—hopefully later this year! Lately, I’ve been thinking a lot about how the virtual world—smartphones, social media, pornography, dating apps, video games, online betting, and AI—is shaping our mental health and ability to connect meaningfully in the real world.
As a father of teenagers now, this is especially top of mind. Jonathan Haidt’s The Anxious Generation: How the Great Rewiring of Childhood Is Causing an Epidemic of Mental Illness has profoundly reshaped how I think about my own relationship with technology. It’s a must-read for any parent looking to set healthy boundaries for their kids.
At the same time, my work relies on a deep understanding of people. Art is my primary language, but to create meaningfully, I need to see and know others on a deeper level. That’s why I’ve been reading How to Know a Person: The Art of Seeing Others Deeply and Being Deeply Seen by David Brooks.
He argues that “the act of seeing another person is profoundly creative”—a sentiment that resonates with me. How do we look someone in the eye and recognize something larger in them, and in turn, in ourselves? That’s the kind of connection I strive for in both my life and my work.
To better appreciate how cohesive the new art feels, I turned the cards into this GIF - Ross Connell
Finally, where can we see more of your work?
Keymaster and I have more games slated for release in 2026. I’m working on some fun projects for Disney Parks, but I can’t share details at this point. We continually create new label art for Bottle Logic Brewing, and each release is part of a larger story, almost like a serialized graphic novel. The best way to follow these projects is on my Instagram @emrichoffice.
Thanks to Josh Emrich for providing the images for this article and Kovray for the wonderful photography.
If you are curious to play Parks (2nd Edition) it is now available to buy, or play online at Board Game Arena.
Interstellar Adventures - Adrián Iglesias: Art in Board Games #71
“If we think about the science fiction of the 1960s, we can say that its main characteristic, in terms of design and thinking about the mechanics of space travel, is optimistic naivety….”
In this board game art interview, I’m speaking to Adrián Iglesias, an Argentinian artist whose work on the Interstellar Adventures artwork combines a comic illustration style with escape room style game mechanics.
Interstellar Adventures, an escape room-style board game, combines game mechanics with wonderful illustrations by comic artist Adrián Iglesias. Being an escape room-style game, there’s a lot of secret stuff I can’t share, but I hope what I can share sparks your imagination. Enjoy!
Enjoying the site? Support it by sharing the articles you liked.
For more great insights into board game art, check out the interview archive.
Thanks for joining us, Adrián! Could you tell us a bit about yourself?
Hello Ross, thank you for welcoming me and giving me a place in this space. A little about me, I was born in Argentina, in the south of the country, where I graduated in fine arts at the National University of La Plata.
My love for drawing and comics has been a constant in my life since childhood. Even before I learned to write, I was creating simple comic strips based on the animated shows I enjoyed, like Mazinger Z, He-Man, and Space Ghost. These were my initial forays into graphic storytelling.
After completing my education, I took on a few conventional jobs until I decided to pursue my true passion. I left everything behind and, along with some friends, started a comic publishing company. Thankfully, that leap of faith paid off: I landed my first steady role as a comic artist for a series about hackers and spent four years teaching comics at a private multimedia art school. For over fifteen years now, I have been working as a freelance illustrator and comic artist.
You’ve illustrated Interstellar Adventures, a new escape room-style sci-fi board game on Kickstarter. Can you tell us a little about it?
When Harriet contacted me, she mentioned three words that instantly piqued my interest: retro science fiction. As a fan of science fiction, especially the nostalgic variety I enjoyed as a child, I felt a spark of excitement. I realized there was an entire universe of board games related to this theme that I had yet to discover.
With a whole sci-fi world to create, where did you start?
We started working on the design of the characters and the illustrated cards. But little by little the project unfolded before my eyes as something new. It has a richness in the gameplay that I hadn't seen before. Screens to launch missiles, cards that change by overlaying other cards, secret messages, and puzzles that form new paths for the characters. Every detail is thought out. It is a lot of fun to illustrate, and I can't wait to make it a reality and play it.
How did you look to illustrate a world that feels specific to another era?
If we think about the science fiction of the 1960s, we can say that its main characteristic, in terms of design and thinking about the mechanics of space travel, is optimistic naivety. These were stories that took place in space before mankind had ever set foot in space, so there were thousands of fundamental details that were unknown and that later complicated the idea of space exploration. Yes, it was known that it was necessary to wear a space suit. Just contrast the designs of Terrore nello Spazio with Alien.
Keeping this concept in focus, I created the suits and items featured in the game. To complete the project's visual identity, I drew inspiration from 1960s comics. This is reflected in a restricted color scheme, the incorporation of halftones, and a texture reminiscent of offset printing and paper.
This combination of naive design and limiting the vast arsenal of digital tools, I think, is what gives a retro look to the project.
As a comic artist, what do you think is the key to illustrating memorable characters?
That's the key question, isn't it? In my view, one of the most crucial elements in comics and graphic storytelling is the performance. The drawing style, or how the artist depicts reality, offers an almost limitless variety and is heavily influenced by personal preference. I tend to favor synthesis and exaggeration in my drawings. Additionally, character design plays a significant role; creating characters that are instantly recognizable and have distinctive shapes greatly enhances the initial visual impact. However, all of this loses its effect if the characters fail to convey the emotions that the story aims to express when they interact within the two-dimensional world we've crafted for them.
Real-world escape rooms are very kinetic spaces. How did you look to breathe life into the inanimate objects and environments of Interstellar Adventures?
Everything is in function of telling a story and conveying the tone and message of a scene. Of course, this manipulation of shapes and colors must go unnoticed by the reader, and therein lies the skill of the artist. For example, the palette turns to warm tones (reds) if the scene has action and danger. Conversely, it leans towards cool colors (blues) if we need to convey calm, pause, and tranquillity. Something similar happens with lighting. It is manipulated to guide the viewer's eye over the drawing.
We know that we see the areas of highest contrast first, and that is where we put the most important things. The dimensions of the eyes, mouth, and even hands of the characters change based on the emotional requirements of each scene. When it comes to set design, it becomes a character in its own right.
For Interstellar, I envisioned the crew alongside their designated spaces within the ship simultaneously. This means that each crew member's personality is reflected in the set, and the set influences their character as well. A great example of this is Eugine, the robot engineer. His design is quite basic, evoking the look of early 20th-century submarine suits, which aligns with the aesthetic of the engineering section.
The sci-fi genre has a rich history in creative arts. Did anything inspire your work on Interstellar Adventures?
Undoubtedly, my gateway to science fiction was Star Trek, the original series and as such it left an inescapable mark on my imagination. Although I'm also a big fan of cyberpunk, works like Blade Runner, Akira, Neuromancer, Ghost in the Shell, I discarded that whole branch of the genre as the underlying tone doesn't match the spirit of Interstellar Adventures.
To the Star Trek imaginary was added the low-budget science fiction films I used to watch on Sunday afternoons at my grandparents' house: The Day the Earth Stood Still (1951 film), Terrore nello spazio (1965), Forbidden Planet (1956), Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956), among many others.
Were there any challenges in illustrating an escape room-style board game?
Absolutely, it’s an exhilarating journey! I’ve never embarked on anything quite like this before. Initially, Harriet and I focused on character design, an area I’m quite familiar with and have tackled many times. Once we nailed that down, we shifted our attention to the cards. Although I had never illustrated anything of this nature, I found it easy to visualize each card as a panel in a comic book, which made the process feel even more thrilling.
Then came the box design, which was truly a highlight. Harriet proposed a brilliant concept: to style the packaging like an old television set. This required me to carefully consider the box layout and how each side would contribute to a cohesive concept.
What captivates me the most are the puzzles within the game—paths that shift in the player's hands, crystals that materialize, monsters lurking in enigmatic caverns, and numbers concealed in unexpected places. The gameplay of Interstellar Adventures is extensive and diverse, and I’m eager to dive in and witness how all the intricate elements we’ve crafted will come together to create this captivating adventure.
What are you reading, listening to, or looking at to fuel your work?
I find it fascinating to learn about the art, books, comics, music, films, and literature people gravitate towards, as it offers a glimpse into what fuels their creative spark. It's truly another window into the artist's world.
Currently, I'm rewatching Star Trek, with episodes from ‘The Next Generation,’ ‘Deep Space 9’, ‘Voyager,’ or ‘Enterprise’ perpetually playing on my second screen while I work in my studio. My go-to entertainment choices outside of work are detective stories, whether in the form of series like Columbo, Sherlock, Murder She Wrote, or Miss Marple or novels featuring Cormoran Strike. A particular favorite is the iteration of Dr Who starring Matt Smith alongside Karen Gillan.
For a comic book artist, reading comics is something that, apart from being very enjoyable, is almost obligatory. You always learn from studying the great artists of the medium. Now, I'm following two collections: Angel Wings and Conan, The Cimmerian. I always manage to have Argentinean comics at hand to keep up to date with new releases like Almer, Jobs, Nathaniel Fox; and anything drawn by Eduardo Risso, Mandrafina, and Alcatena. To finish this review, I could mention the literary sagas I've read lately: Liu Cixin's Remembrance of Earth's Past; The Witcher, Patrick Rothfuss's incomplete trilogy; and the one I'm currently reading, Brandon Sanderson's Born of the Mist.
Finally, where can we see more of your work?
Thanks for the question! Searching for 'santaplix' on any search engine will lead you to my social media profiles, where I share drawings, glimpses into my creative process, and geeky content. However, for a comprehensive and organized collection of my work, please visit my website at www.santaplix.site. This is where I showcase my creations: comics, stories, illustrations, and ongoing projects. While most of my content is in Spanish, there's a dedicated section featuring English translations of my comics.
Find out more about Interstellar Adventures, the escape room board game from Minty Noodles, by visiting its Kickstarter page.
All images provided by Adrián Iglesias and Minty Noodles.
Deep Regrets - Judson Cowan: Art in Board Games #70
“There are some really, really weird things in the ocean. One of the most difficult parts of filling my fictional sea with life was coming up with fake fish that were more terrifying or bizarre than the real fish..”
In this board game art interview, I’m speaking to Judson Cowan, a designer, artist, and publisher whose new game Deep Regrets filled me with both excitement and terror.
It’s not the first time I’ve been drawn in by Judsons art. About five years ago, I backed a game on Kickstarter called Hideous Abominations. In the game, you are presented with a carnival of body parts and, as a mad scientist, are tasked with combining them to create your own monsters. I love a macabre theme, but what drew me in was the playful artwork.
Judson is back with a brand new game, Deep Regrets, that combines fishing with the horrors that could lurk beneath the surface. Discover why this game hooked me below!
Enjoying the site? Support it by sharing any articles you liked.
For more great insights into board game art, check out the interview archive.
Thanks for joining us, Judson! Could you tell us a bit about yourself?
Thanks for having me! I am all over the place. Professionally and mentally. Obviously, I’m a board game designer, but that’s been new to me in the last four years. I’m a musician, an illustrator, a graphic designer, a photographer, a filmmaker, a gamer, a climber, a horror fanatic - I like being able to do and try everything (except sports, I could not give two shits about sports).
Weirdly, I’ve never really liked calling myself any of those things. I’m just a person who does things; I do some things more than others. I feel like avoiding being put into a specific bucket is an important part of my personal brand.
“I once designed a blimp for Conan O’Brien.”
BORING RECAP OF CAREER: I’m originally from the States and studied design and photography at uni in North Carolina. I worked for about a decade in the ad industry as an art director in Atlanta, Georgia. I once designed a blimp for Conan O’Brien. I’ve always had a side hustle of doing music for commercials and games, most notably Ben10 and Rogue Legacy, respectively.
And I’ve made a name for myself in the Soulsborne community doing maps and fan art of the video game Dark Souls. Before I moved into board game design, I spent about a decade in-house at Skyscanner, where I was a creative director and people manager.
Forgive an obvious question, but what comes first, theme or mechanics?
Theme and mechanics are so intrinsically linked I have trouble considering them individually. Take Deep Regrets, for example: the first time I thought about it, I already knew that I wanted a horror fishing game that featured heavy push-your-luck mechanics, dice used for strength, multiple depths and shoals, and a strong focus on exploration and discovery.
I developed the visual style, the theme, and the gameplay all simultaneously. I was even thinking about what the trailer, marketing, and box would all look like and how they would tie together the first day I started working on the game – I’m designing an end-to-end experience, not just a game. So, what comes first? The experience comes first. And theme and mechanics both serve the experience.
There’s a Maya Angelou quote I really like:
“I’ve learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.”
That’s how I think designing games should be approached: how do I want to make people feel? And how do I use theming and mechanics to create those emotions?
What is your attraction to SPOOKY STUFF when it comes to theme?
I’m just a SPOOKY GUY, I guess! I’ve always been obsessed with spooky stuff. I grew up making haunted houses for trick-or-treaters in my front yard. I was weaned on Scooby-Doo, Gremlins, Ghostbusters, and Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark. And I’ve honestly just never weaned off. All my favorite things are horror - movies, books, games.
I actually spent a season moonlighting at Netherworld in Atlanta, scaring people professionally. I once scared the rapper Bow Wow! He always brings his crew through the haunt every year.
The first game I designed was about building and running your own haunted attraction called Fright House. It’s a forever project that may never be finished, but I really hope to come back to it at some point; it’s very close to my heart!
You are the designer, graphic designer, and illustrator of your games. What are the advantages of doing it all?
There are a few advantages, but I think the most important one is velocity. Because I don’t have many external dependencies, I can move very quickly. I know what I’m trying to achieve, and I can get there very quickly because I’m not waiting on someone else to pass back design/art/development work.
The other key one is control. Coming back to this idea of crafting experiences, being able to control every aspect of that experience provides a very “auteur” approach. I hope that you can feel a lot more of my personality in my games than you might in games made by larger teams since I’m very carefully controlling every aspect of it.
The downsides are equally important: you don’t have a team to bounce ideas off of, you work in relative isolation, and you’re a huge bottleneck for your projects. I’ve tried to balance these negatives a bit by moving into a shared office space with other board game designers, so I have people working in the same discipline nearby at all times to chat with and get support from!
As a one-person studio, how important is playtesting and feedback?
I learned the importance of user research and feedback in my corporate life, and I brought that mentality with me to board game design. Here, user research is just playtesting, and it’s critical to making good games.
You can always tell when a game didn’t go through the proper amount of testing or was only tested by close friends and family who were too polite to give it the proper dressing-down it required.
I have a dedicated group of playtesters that I trust and work with a lot, but I also try to attend meetups and go to board game cafes and such to play with people I don’t know. Plus, looking for localisation partners gives a lot of very diverse feedback from very different cultures as publishers play your game to see if it's a good fit for their catalogue.
It’s important to get a variety of perspectives and consider how you’ll implement that feedback into your game.
In an early version of the game, madness was a universal scale - it did the same things, but it affected all players unilaterally. This was quite cool because it meant you could put pressure on other players and decrease the value of their fish. The downside was that Regrets didn’t do much. They drove up the global madness when acquired, but the only other effect they had was to force the player with the most to lose their most valuable fish.
In playtesting, the feedback I got was that Regret cards felt meaningless and extraneous. Ultimately, that feedback encouraged me to part with the idea of a global madness track in favor of individual player madness tracks. I lost a bit of “take-that” in favor of greater player agency and greater thematic integration of the Regret concept, and the game is much stronger for it!
In your opinion, what are the crucial elements of good graphic design?
If you’re familiar with Dieter Rams, the German industrial designer, he has a philosophy I really like: as little design as possible. Design serves a function, and extraneous design elements should be removed wherever possible.
When he was working, he had a very clean, minimalist approach. That approach is not correct for (most) board games. The “as possible” quantifier in the “as little design as possible” is super important - a lot more elements are required in board game designs to help with comprehension, engagement, and entertainment.
Often, things that serve a strictly aesthetic purpose ARE necessary in designing board games because, again, you’re designing an experience, and those design elements can enhance that experience. That’s still essential design.
I do think there’s a balance to be struck. I think a lot of games get overly decorative and detailed and it starts to be a bit like typing in all caps. An individual card might look nice when viewed up close, but the table viewed from afar starts to look like a bowl of rocks. There’s no discernable focal point. I wish more designers considered the entire board state as one composition when designing.
Squint at a photo of Everdell, then squint at a photo of Brass Birmingham. Both have strong illustration and design elements, but Everdell considered how it would be viewed at a distance, and Brass did not.
Everdell is recognisable from across the room because of its contrasty elements and unique forms - everything works beautifully together and stands apart from one another. Let’s just ignore the big annoying cardboard tree, which is a design decision that I think Dieter Rams would absolutely chuck in the furnace. It actively worsens the gaming experience and is just there as a gimmick. That’s not essential design.
What is your method for creating art? Are you digital or analog?
I love physical media and I love working with my hands. All of my illustrations start in ink. I do colour digitally on an iPad in Procreate, but I try to keep a tangible hand-touched element to each one.
I think working in ink forces a nice acceptance of imperfection. Watching people draw on an iPad is fascinating because they’ll draw and erase a line 10 times before they get one they like. With ink, you get one shot. You have to commit.
I like the way that forces you to accept the decision your hand made and move on instead of striving for some fictional perfection.
You can always redraw but I generally try to avoid this as much as possible. I might redo my pencils a few times before I get an outline I’m happy with, but once I move to ink, I usually stick with my first pass, except in rare circumstances. Another creative philosophy I really like is Miles Davis: he thought spontaneity and expression were more important than perfection.
I also like that it creates physical artifacts. I have all these folders of ink drawings and I’ve started selling them as part of my Kickstarters and on my site. That really resonates with people! Owning a physical part of a game’s creation process is something people find a lot of value in!
Deep Regrets features a monstrous deck of creatures. Where did the inspiration come from for the over 100 unique fish in the game?
50% of them are real things, it’s an even split of fair (real) and foul (fake) fish. I did a tremendous amount of research to find a mix of interesting fish and to learn about their anatomy and behaviour to help inform their mechanics.
I think my office mates got tired of me saying things like “did you know Pacific Islanders used to sacrifice Giant Trevally in place of humans?” or “did you know garfish have green skeletons??”
There are some really, really weird things in the ocean. One of the most difficult parts of filling my fictional sea with life was coming up with fake fish that were more terrifying or bizarre than the real fish. I wound up utilising the uncanny valley quite a bit! Making fish more human-like made them far more disturbing. Lots of fingers, big white eyeballs, that sort of thing.
In fact, one of the most disturbing fish in the game is the “human” you can catch at depth III. It just makes no sense that he’s down there, and that’s terrifying. And you can eat him to refresh the dice.
Do you have a favorite piece of art you created for Deep Regrets?
I just love Frod. He’s the first character I designed and he encapsulates the feel of the game so well. Lovecraft, but goofy.
Scooby and the gang investigate Innsmouth. I love him so much that he became the Automa opponent in the upcoming Buttonshy version of the game Shallow Regrets.
Any advice for someone considering creating and publishing their own game?
Just f***ing go for it. There’s plenty of good advice I could give you, but I’m a big believer in letting people make their own mistakes and learn from them. You won’t nail it on the first try, you’ll struggle, you’ll stumble along the way, but all of that will craft you into something interesting, and you’ll make better games for it.
What are you reading, listening to, or looking at to fuel your work?
I’m a big horror film fan, I probably pull the majority of my inspiration from that world. One that really set my imagination ablaze was Annihilation, so much so that I watched about four times and then bought and read the entire Southern Reach trilogy because I was hungry to explore more of that absolutely bizarre world. I need to pick up the fourth book!
Some of my favorite horror flicks from the last few years are, in no particular order, When Evil Lurks, The Vourdalak, Late Night with the Devil, Long Legs, In a Violent Nature, Barbarian, Oddity, and Hold Your Breath (full transparency, I did the credits for that one).
Finally, where can we see more of your work?
You can find me on Instagram, Facebook, and Bluesky, or you can visit my website tettixgames.com!
All images provided by Judson Cowan.
Confusing Lands - Zak Eidsvoog: Art in Board Games #69
“I got my first couple of board game clients after I did a self-directed fan redesign project where I made new art and graphic design for a game I really love..”
In this board game art interview, I’m speaking to Zak Eidsvoog, an American artist and game designer. I get a huge amount of joy from discovering new (to me) artists, and I hope you enjoy discovering his work as much as I did.
Enjoying the site? Support it by sharing any articles you liked.
For more great insights into board game art, check out the interview archive.
Thanks for joining us, Zak! Could you tell us a bit about yourself?
Hi, thanks for having me! I’m a graphic designer, illustrator, and game designer (although I never know which order to put those in, haha). I was born in the Seattle area but grew up mostly in Portland, Oregon, where I now live with my wife and our dog, Kodi.
Pretty much all of my current creative pursuits began in college (in the early 2010s), where, after a couple of years of studying mechanical engineering, I decided to switch majors to graphic design with a minor in visual art. This was also around the time I got into hobby board gaming and started experimenting with game design myself.
A couple of years after graduating, I started freelancing for some indie board game publishers as a graphic designer and illustrator while working on my own game designs on the side. I’ve been doing all that for a little over 10 years now.
I’ve always had a balance of game and non-game-related clients, but at this point, I’ve worked on 20+ client games in some capacity as a graphic designer/illustrator. As for my games, I have a handful that I’ve released myself as print and play games online, as well as my first published game, Confusing Lands, which was released last year.
Do you have any advice for anyone trying to break into the industry?
My advice for anyone trying to break into any creative field is to start making whatever it is you want to be making professionally (art, graphic design, games, music, whatever). Clients will be more likely to hire you if they can see you have done the kind of thing they are looking for.
If you already have good examples of your work, make sure you’re putting it in front of people who are interested in that kind of thing (have a portfolio site that’s easy to find/navigate, post in bgg forums or on reddit, go to conventions or in-person feedback groups, etc.). Make sure that you’re putting yourself out there and making it easy for people to contact you and get a quote if they’re interested in working with you!
I got my first couple of board game clients after I did a self-directed fan redesign project where I made new art and graphic design for a game I really love (Impulse by Carl Chudyk) and then shared images and some of my process on my portfolio site and on BGG.
Game jams can be another great way to get some experience working on game projects and to make connections with other people interested in games. While there are generally more jams geared towards people who make video games, tabletop game jams are also becoming more common.
With such a broad spectrum of clients, do you have a process for starting new projects?
Whenever I’m doing client graphic design/illustration, my first step is always to interview the client and make sure I understand what the goals for the project are and what makes it unique. Sometimes, there’s room for me to bring some out-of-the-box ideas before settling on something and moving forward.
For those kinds of projects, I’ll do brainstorming exercises, gather visual inspiration, and create mood boards & sketches of potential creative directions. Other times, things are pretty locked in, and it’s just important for me to get up to speed and work with what’s already there.
How does your approach change when working on your own projects?
For my personal game designs, I would say that I’m a mechanics & game-feel first person. Usually, the very first test I do with an idea is to take as many blank cards or other components as I think the game will have and practice shuffling and dealing and moving things around, imagining how the game will feel to the players.
I tend to design my early prototypes in a somewhat abstract, themeless style to keep things flexible as I test out ideas. Laying things out this way helps me avoid getting carried away with the visuals before the gameplay is solid. Once I have something I like, I’ll either start showing it to publishers or, if it’s something I’m planning to develop myself, I will do my usual process of brainstorming, moodboarding, and pitching myself art and graphic design styles, as if I were doing a client project.
How important do you think the art is when pitching games?
Unless you’re designing something where the art is a fundamental part of the gameplay mechanics (like Dixit or Mysterium), I don’t think art is all that important when pitching games. I’ve heard from most publishers that I’ve talked to that the most important thing is that prototype components be clearly laid out and easy to understand/play with.
Keep in mind that some publishers may like your game but have a different theme they want to publish it with, or they might have specific artists they like to work with whose art style more closely matches their brand.
With all that being said, because I am an artist and a game designer, I will sometimes have ideas that I choose to develop in a more holistic way (with the art informing the game design and vice versa). When that happens, I think it’s ok to embrace doing both art and design, knowing that things might need to change later or you might end up going more in the direction of self publishing. This was essentially what happened with my game Confusing Lands although I was lucky enough to find a publisher whose vision for the game was pretty aligned with what I had already done myself.
Confusing Lands has a whimsical, lighthearted art style. Where did the idea for this board game come from?
‘Confusing Lands’ was one of three 18-card games I designed between 2020 and 2022 during the first few years of the Covid 19 pandemic. The other two are ‘Double Date Simulator’ (available as a print-and-play game on my itch page at zak-makes-games.itch.io) and ‘Solitairra’ an as-yet-unreleased solitaire game.
Like most of my games, Confusing Lands started with a very simple, somewhat abstract art style. However, even from the beginning, I imagined a lush landscape with rules that would prompt players to build very different ecosystems from game to game. As I developed the game more, the mechanic of stacking things on top of each other — as well as the random shapes formed by the cards — led me to think it could be a game about wacky floating island chains.
What does Confusing Lands art tell us about its world?
My initial goal for the art in Confusing Lands was to find a style that would look really pretty once players had finished gathering and placing cards to complete their landscapes. I first explored a more painterly style, thinking that it would add to that lush, picturesque feeling I was going for.
However, because the art serves such an important functional purpose in the game (it’s how players tell what type of terrain a given space counts as), I quickly found that I needed an approach that would make each space’s terrain type stand out more clearly.
This led me to the final art style for the game, where each terrain type has a bold outline and a specific color associated with it. After testing out this more cartoonish style, I was pleased to find that the final landscapes still look quite pretty, with the added benefit of being easily readable.
As for the world of Confusing Lands, I knew from the beginning that I wanted the game to depict the harmony between all the different elements within the game’s world (plants, animals, people, etc.). I do think the bright, cartoonish style that I ended up using helps give a sense of positivity and symbiosis to the world which people find appealing.
You’ve mentioned you’re mechanics first when designing games. Did you draw any inspiration from other games when creating Confusing Lands?
Gameplay-wise, Confusing Lands was inspired by a number of tile/card-laying games, most directly Micro Rome, Tiny Islands (digital) and Isle of Skye. All of these give players scoring conditions to influence tile placement but I wanted to see what would happen if the scoring conditions themselves were part of the tiles/cards and therefore a larger part of the players’ decision making process. When I designed Confusing Lands, I was also playing a lot of Lost Cities, and I wanted my game to capture some of the tension of committing to new scoring opportunities in that game.
After testing out several different approaches, I settled on the system where each scoring condition you take subtracts 10 points from your final score. This sometimes means that players will score in the negatives after their first game, but I’ve found that adds to the charm and usually makes them want to try again and improve. The name Confusing Lands is kind of my way of saying, “Don’t feel bad about your first score; it’s supposed to be confusing!”
What are you reading, listening to, or looking at to fuel your work?
I’m currently reading “Masters of Atlantis” by Charles Portis (author of True Grit). It’s a fictional account of a secret society founded in the early 20th century and it has been a super fun read so far. I also recently read the Earthsea books by Ursula K. Le Guin for the first time, which really had an impact on how I think about life and art in general. A couple of great art books I picked up recently are “Umbra” by Jordan Speer and “Houses with a Story” by Seiji Yoshida.
Comics-wise I’ve been following the webcomic “3rd Voice” by Evan Dahm, as well as anything that Simon Roy puts out. Pretty much the only TV show I watch these days is Taskmaster, but as a game designer I find it very inspiring and enjoyable (my wife and I are eagerly awaiting the next season). We’ve also started renting older/foreign movies from the library and two really great ones we saw recently were After Life (1998) and Petite Maman (2021).
Besides all that, I find a lot of inspiration in nature, especially going on hikes in the Columbia River Gorge or along the Oregon coast. My wife is a singer and we have a lot of friends in the performing arts, which I’m super grateful for. Being part of a community of people working to make art always inspires me to keep working on my own projects.
Finally, where can we see more of your work?
You can find me at zakeidsvoog.com and on pretty much all the socials at @zakeidsvoog, although Bluesky is probably where I’m most active these days. You can also find my personal games that are available for print and play at zak-makes-games.itch.io. Lastly, if newsletters are more your thing, you can sign up for mine at zak-makes-games.beehiiv.com/subscribe for occasional updates on the art and game design stuff I’m working on.
All images provided by Zak Eidsvoog.
Fame & Fable - Owen Davey: Art in Board Games #68
“Fame and Fable draws inspiration from folktales, mythology, classic and modern fantasy, and popular culture. It’s a love letter to all of those influences, but it also keeps things light and approachable…”
In this board game art interview, I’m speaking to Owen Davey, a British game designer and illustrator whose bright and vibrant art style for the Fame & Fable board game stopped me in my tracks.
If you’ve visited my site before, you might notice it’s been a while since my last interview. This site has always been a passion project of mine, and I’m excited to return in 2025 with new interviews. Enjoy our conversation below.
Enjoying the site? Support it by sharing any articles you liked.
For more great insights into board game art, check out the interview archive.
Fame and Fable - Board Game Cover Art
Thanks for joining us, Owen! Could you tell us a bit about yourself?
Thanks for having me. I'm a father of three kids and a freelance illustrator based in Worthing, UK. I've been working professionally as an artist for nearly 16 years now. I work across the whole industry really, regularly working in publishing, advertising, editorial, apps, packaging and teaching.
Where might we have seen your work?
I've worked with clients including Google, Disney, National Geographic, WWF, London Zoo and more. I like the variety it brings to my day-to-day work life. I've also had more than 40 books published, many of which I authored - often non-fiction and focusing on animals and nature.
With such a broad spectrum of clients, do you have a first step for new projects?
Research - it is pretty essential for my process. I have to explore whatever brief I've got, try to understand it in as much depth as I can, and then try to find inspiration within that. Often if I get stuck for ideas, research can dig me out of that hole - the world is a fascinating place with many topics that appeal to me, so I generally just follow my curiosity.
One of the things that I love about being an illustrator is that nobody else would create something in the same way as me - all my influences and interests are wrapped up in each project, so my experiences and my life shape a lot of what I create. That research to curiosity to inspiration process pipeline is where a lot of that stems from.
Fame & Fable board game on the table
‘Fame and Fable’ looks gorgeous. What made you want to create your own board game?
I've been a lifelong board game enthusiast, but over the past several years, I’ve fully immersed myself in the hobby side of it. It’s no longer just about the classic family staples or traditional card games; I’ve developed a deep love for in-depth thematic games that can easily steal hours of your time.
After the lockdowns in 2020, I felt an even stronger urge to step away from screens and spend more time with friends. That’s when I started engaging in regular game sessions — sometimes packed with a variety of short games, and other times devoted to tackling one sprawling epic.
Owen Davey - D&D Character Art - Anara
I’ve also started playing more solo games, but my favorite part of the day is still unwinding with my partner in the evening. Once the kids are asleep and the house is tidied up, we dive into a game together — it’s become such an important ritual. During lockdown, I was also part of a Dungeons & Dragons group and eventually took on the role of Dungeon Master. I poured so much energy into it, homebrewing everything from NPCs and monsters to items and locations.
I became obsessed with not just describing the world but illustrating it too, so my players could better visualize the adventures. When someone else took over as DM, I found myself left with a treasure trove of artwork and no clear purpose for it all. That’s when I decided to combine my passions for fantasy, board games, and illustration to create something new. Years later, that passion project has grown into Fame and Fable.
Fame and Fable Board Game Prototype
Fame and Fable’s world feels unique while paying tribute to classic fantasy tropes. Where did your inspiration come from?
Fame and Fable draws inspiration from folktales, mythology, classic and modern fantasy, and popular culture. It’s a love letter to all of those influences, but it also keeps things light and approachable. The tone is playful, blending the grand, folkloric feel of epic tales with humor and a sense of fun—something that will feel right at home for anyone familiar with the TTRPG space.
What is the central hook for the player’s place within the world?
The game's lore centres on a realm overrun by monsters wreaking havoc across the land. Your mission is to gather allies and items to confront these threats head-on. In solo mode, the game introduces six key locations, each delving into classic terrains often explored in fantasy works. Fame and Fable aims to strike a balance between something familiar and new, offering a fresh perspective on beloved fantasy tropes while remaining rooted in the joy of storytelling.
Fame and Fable - Monsters
Fame and Fable features over 150 unique artworks, which, let's be frank, is a lot. How did that happen?
The game grew in scale over time. I had some artwork from my D&D campaign, but there was so much more I wanted to include. I wanted a wide range of card types and abilities for replayability, and that just kept expanding. No complaints, though—I loved it. I’m still illustrating potential characters and monsters for possible Kickstarter stretch goals and maybe even future expansions.
With a list of illustrations that long, what was your process for creating it all?
With anything this massive, it’s all about taking one step at a time. Thinking about 170 artworks from scratch feels impossible, but aiming for 20 more in a month? That’s doable. Breaking it down into smaller, achievable goals kept it from becoming overwhelming. Logistically, I had spreadsheets constantly updated to keep everything balanced and these big mega-files where all the final artworks were stored. I also have a habit of keeping every old version, so I probably have hundreds of Illustrator files.
My ideas usually come at the most random times—falling asleep, washing up—so I jot them down on my phone and later turn them into research. That research mixes with a healthy dose of imagination before making its way onto the page (or, more recently, the iPad).
Sketching is the easiest part for me—I've made a career out of drawing, so that part feels natural. The iPad lets me be loose with the process. I can swap out heads, try new outfits, or even randomly turn a character into a duck. No rules, just the rule of cool.
This whole project is about play, from how I created it to how it’ll be used, and the artwork reflects that. Once I’m happy with a sketch, I bring it into Illustrator to create the final lines digitally. Then I add colour using a restricted global palette—this keeps everything cohesive while also saving time since I don’t have to build a new palette for each piece. Each artwork takes at least a couple of hours, but some took much longer because they were trickier to get right.
Parents will never admit to having a favorite child, but do you have a favorite piece of art you created for this game?
I really like The Cursed—she’s got these epic muscles, cool braided hair, and a big flaming sword. Total badass. But I also love The Shepherd, who’s the complete opposite—he’s got a wide-brimmed hat and looks kind of like a sheep. I enjoy flipping those roles.
A lot of the cards have little hidden details inspired by research. The Shepherd has only one central eye, which is a nod to The Odyssey—Polyphemus, the cyclops in Homer’s tale, was a shepherd, so that felt like a fun connection.
Mechanically, The Cursed is a fan favourite because she can sacrifice herself to deal massive damage, while The Shepherd is great for annoying your friends since he collects their exhausted cards. My favourite part of this whole process has been designing cards that feel thematic—I really want the storytelling aspect to shine through in the game.
How is creating board games different from your other work?
It's an interesting task having to Art Direct yourself. I love working with my regular clients but it was really fun to allow my creativity to run wild. The difficulty is that there's nobody to sign it off. I have to decide if it's done or not and whether it works. I've definitely leant on friends throughout this process to help me check if things are actually cool, or maybe don't work as well as I thought they did in my head. The game wouldn't exist as it is now without their invaluable insights.
Fame & Fable Meeples
Have there been any particular challenges in creating your first board game?
There was a massive learning curve in figuring out how to design a game. I quickly realised that just because a mechanic works, it doesn't mean it’s fun. And because of the type of game Fame and Fable is, where each card works slightly differently, it meant that a LOT of playtesting was needed.
Each card has to make sense to multiple people and be as devoid of misinterpretation as possible. I was definitely not aware of how much work it would be to make my own game, but I've genuinely loved every second of it. I can't wait to build expansions for this game and develop other ideas I've had.
Owen Davey - Fame and Fable Card Art
What are you reading, listening to, or looking at to fuel your work?
I've just finished rereading another one of the Brain Jacques Redwall books - Martin the Warrior - and now I'm delving into Brandon Sanderson's 'Mistborn' - I'm loving the lore of the Allomancy. I've also been listening to various history podcasts, which often spark me to go research something I'd never known about before, from a certain type of weapon to a war I'd never heard about. I've been watching Hilda and Scavenger's Reign on Netflix - both of these have incredible world-building and just happen to be stunning visually.
Do you have any advice for anyone wanting to work as an artist?
Meet deadlines. Make awesome work. Check contracts. Look after yourself. Get yourself out there and show your work to your audience or the people that might commission you.
Owen Davey - Fame and Fable Board Game
Finally, where can we find you to see more of your work?
The best place to find more stuff about Fame and Fable is to follow me on Instagram at @fameandfable or sign up to the Kickstarter prelaunch page where you'll be notified about when the game launches - there are some early bird treats, so definitely back early to make the most of them.
Owen Davey - Fame & Fable - Group Art
All images provided by Owen Davey