Some games are pretty and some games look cool – but the illustrations in the game Wingspan are jaw-dropping beautiful. The game is published by Stonemaier Games and designed by Elizabeth Hargrave. The production is sublime with cute little egg components and over 170 unique bird illustrations giving the game value that exceed pure gaming.
Player mat, dice tower (bird house) and card backs are made by byBeth Sobel. The lavishly realistic painted bird illustrations are made by the Colombian female artists & friends Ana María Martínez Jaramillo and Natalia Rojas. They are the wingtips of the project making Wingspan lift to the skies.
GreenHookGames are excited to bring you a team interview with BOTH Ana and Natalia. I encourage you afterwards to visit both of their individual portfolios. Welcome Ana & Natalia – tell us a little about yourselves.
It oozes warmth, family, tradition and fun. That could describe the art of Ryan Goldsberry from Livermore CA. Teaming up with the designer of Burgle Bros, Tim Fowers – was a turning point for Ryan. Enjoy the interview.
Tell us a little about yourself, what you do, your artistic background and how you got into making art for board games?
My artistic background mainly involves drawing hundreds of pictures of the Ghostbusters and Mr. T when I was a kid. Eventually I moved on to drawing other stuff…nothing quite as exciting though. In college I saw that they had animation classes, and I thought, “hey, that sounds nifty!” So I got into animation and worked in video games for around 12 years.
After college, when I was animating Lara Croft, along with all her assets, I was contacted by my good buddy Tim Fowers. He assumed that since I was an animator that I could probably draw pictures as well. He said he was making a video game and could I help with the illustration. I said “sure! Will it make us rich?”
The board game industry is flourishing with great game ideas but I must say I did not see this coming – a plantable card game . German Sebastian Sattler that recently moved back from Barcelona to Berlin is the author and designer of this wonderful innovative board game project where you can play a game of cards and afterward grow plants from the game. The game is very pretty and stylish and I am happy to speak to the designer about it.
Tell us a little about your artistic background and how you got into making board games and graphics for board games?
Welcome back Snorre. I have asked for another interview with you because you and Asger have just launched the Kickstarter for your fast-paced character driven fighting game – Combo Fighter.
Give everyone that doesn’t know Combo Fighter the quick rundown.
Combo Fighter is our take at the classic arcade fighting game as a board game. We really wanted to keep it simple, intuitive, fast-paced and engaging. Asger has played a lot of Tekken and I remember being really fascinated by the original more comic book art style of the arcade games. During our development of the 10 fighters, we focused on giving each fighter a unique feel and fighting style so the characters feel and play very differently.
Following your progress on the sideline, I know that the game has undergone radical changes. Can you tell us a little about this?
