Author: Hook

James Bennett – traditional skills ftw.

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I never hear about Donners Reed Party before. Apparently the Donner party was some pioneers that set out for California but ended up captured by the weather in Sierra Nevada apparently ending up each other. I like party games -and I loved the look of Donners Dinner party  by Forrest-Pruzan Creative when I saw it on my tablet reading Tabletop magazine. Naturally – as I do – I had to learn more about the artist that made the wonderful character and item illustrations. I was surprised to find a very traditional artist with a talent for Caricatures. His name is James Bennett from Bucks County, Pennsylvania. Welcome James!

I can see from your portfolio that you have some very traditional art skills in your luggage, tell us a little about your artistic background and what the deal is with all the Baseball caricatures.

I’ve been a freelance illustrator for over 30 years, doing oil paintings of all kinds of characters for most major magazines and ad agencies. My most recent work is doing ballplayers for a rising baseball institution called The National Pastime Museum.

 

Tim Lincecum

 

How did you get into making art for a board game and have you worked on other games before?

 

The creatives at Chronicle Books found my work online. Previously I’ve done a number of games, mostly covers, for a number of game manufacturers. Always a blast.

 

What do you think is most important in a creative brief on a new assignment? 

Continue reading “James Bennett – traditional skills ftw.” →

Side Effects of Ben Bronstein

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Wether you are a board game designer or artist – twitter is the place to be it seems. This summer I startet to follow Pillbox Games Instagram profile – and BAM. The way they use that social channel is incredible using small video loops in half of the posts and generally having a nice light in the images and lots of friendly, happy looking people make their posts stand out from the stream of content I browse through. So it is needless to say that in these post you find pretty pictures of the art being created for their upcoming game Side Effects and the style of those card illustrations just continue to grow on you. Looking up the artist behind the very elaborate graphical illustrations you find Ben Bronstein from Brooklyn. His personal instagram is  also a gem in creative content – spicing up his beautiful sketches with homebaked bread. I am thrilled to take us behind the creation of Side Effects. Welcome Ben.

 

Tell us a little about your artistic background and how you got into making art for Side Effects?

Continue reading “Side Effects of Ben Bronstein” →

Kyle Ferrin – from Vast to Root

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Do you remember when you first saw Trove or Vast as it came to be? The art was bold an humorous – and I was sold on the spot. Immediately a fan of the man behind the illustrations – Kyle Ferrin from Northern Utah. Following Kyle on twitter you might have seen there is a new project called Root that is being shaped by his pencils and I am excited to talk with Kyle on his process.

Tell us a little about your artistic background and how you got into making art for board games?

 

I’ve been drawing as long as I can remember. I used to draw Garfield from memory when I was 5. I distinctly recall my Kindergarten teacher telling my parents that I was talented based on some picture of an Easter bunny that I drew.

Continue reading “Kyle Ferrin – from Vast to Root” →

Artist gone rouge. Interview with Ryan Laukat.

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There are game designers making games, publishers that publish them and artists that illustrate them and then there are people like Ryan Laukat from Salt Lake City, Utah – who just do all of it. The games that Ryan ships out into the world are truly boardgame gems with a lot of personality. This is the story of Ryan the artist.

 

Tell us a little about your artistic background and how you got into making art for board games?

 

Painting has always been a hobby, and it’s usually been linked with my love of games. As a teenager I spent hours illustrating my own game designs with watercolor and india ink. I really wanted to be a professional artist and spent a lot of time thinking about it. In my early twenties, I submitted a game design to Rio Grande Games and was hired to illustrate cards for Dominion.

Continue reading “Artist gone rouge. Interview with Ryan Laukat.” →

Trick on visualy formatting your data sheet

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Google Sheets is increasingly becoming my go to tool in game design. It is a great way to get an overview of your game data, do quick changes and calculate on balance. But sometimes it can be too crowded to get a quick overview. Sometimes it can be nice to get a visual aid to indicate when row of a new type of cards starts or see how many positive versus negative effects you got. And to do this there is a little trick called “Conditional formatting” found in the menu under “Format”. This let you select a text, word og value to look for in your cells that you then can define a special color styling for.

In this mini video example I show how I use it to mark different resources, and that way I can quickly see which type of resources I use the most.

 

Cathedraw a roll & write for GenCan’t

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GenCon is far away when you live in Denmark. That is why I liked the idea of the GenCan’t Roll&write contest and felt I should make a design for this incredible fun format. This is how I got to start on Cathedraw. It is a game where you draw a Cathedral in 9×9 grid. After finishing the game I wonder if it can be called a Roll&write since it does have some cards that needs to be cut out (optional though). The game is purely about optimising the use of your dice rolls to create most victory point value. If I should do an expansion I would definitely make some bad stuff the player needs to avoid. I will happily try to answer any rule questions you got – just mail or tweet me.

 

 

GenCan’t release all games for you to play on their page – and it is a magnificent collection. I am looking forward to play the winning game Welcome to DinoWorld by James O’Connor but I also had an eye on the game ‘Raise The Shields‘ by Lucas Gerlach.

I hope some of you will give Cathedraw a spin and I would love to get any type of feedback.

 

Go to game page

 


Files for game

(Sing up for the newsletter to get a code to download the full color & multiplayer version for free.)

 

Thank you,

Niklas Hook

How to play video

LORINDA TOMKO: Interview on MGP

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Nature is a big source of inspiration for me; nothing is creepier than some of the things that already exist here on Earth. I’ve based monsters on parasites, diseases, carnivorous plants and deep sea creatures – I like that the Kingdom Death universe isn’t filled with the same old thing!

Read the full interview on MoreGamesPlease

More Games Please is a blog about art in board games – just like GreenHookGames. There are great artist interviews on the site each week and that is why we highly recommend to check it out.

RYAN GOLDSBERRY – interview on moregamesplease.com

Posted on by Hook

The biggest issue with Fugitive was the amount of art that was needed. The cards are numbered (0 – 42) and we decided that each card would be unique and that if you laid the cards all out in order, you could see a story and a chase taking place…

 

Read the full interview on MoreGamesPlease

More Games Please is a blog about art in board games – just like GreenHookGames. There are great artist interviews on the site each week and that is why we highly recommend to check it out.

GAREN EWING – Interview on moregamesplease.com

Posted on by Hook

I think I always wanted to be an illustrator, perhaps more specifically a comic artist – so I’ve been lucky. I was in hospital a lot as a child and my mum gave me comics to read and paper and pencils to draw with to keep me occupied – so perhaps my fate was sealed.

 

Read the full interview on MoreGamesPlease

More Games Please is a blog about art in board games – just like GreenHookGames. There are great artist interviews on the site each week and that is why we highly recommend to check it out.

The ink master Bazsó Lossonczy

Posted on by Hook

Do you like great poster design? I do! Sometimes I visit omgposters.com just to get a visual OD. Most of the art on that page could be characterised as; elaborate ink work with a limited color palette. A style you do not meet very often in board games. Saltlands the Mad Maxque board game, is just like that – filled with amazing inked and dark illustrations.

 

When I saw the illustrations for the game Critters Below I knew I had to speak with the artist behind them! Presenting the ink master Bazsó Lossonczy from Budapest, Hungary.

Continue reading “The ink master Bazsó Lossonczy” →