So how did you first get involved in making board games?

I was happily working in the video game industry when Tim Fowers (who was a good friend from years back) called me up and said he was going to try and make a computer game and asked if I'd do the art for it. Not knowing any better, I said "sure!"

The rest is history. We made a couple of computer games (our first one, ‘Now Boarding’ was quite successful) and then we eventually switched to the board game media with Wok Star. I keep making the art I like, and Tim keeps saying he likes it, so we have no plans of stopping! I think we make a good team.

When you are working on the art of a board game can you give us a quick overview of your creative or thought process and has this changed at all since you first started?

Generally it starts with a conversation with Tim, where he tells me about the game he's working on, and tries to explain in detail how the game works. I try and pay attention, but inevitably zone in and out as he tries to explain it all. When he gets done explaining I stare at him with a blank look. Soon after that, I sit down with Tim and we actually play a prototype (Tim is the master of making prototypes) and finally a light goes on and I understand how the game works.



Then we have a lot of discussion about the theme of the game. Sometimes there is a very clear theme already in place, and sometimes we have to invent it. Once we feel like we have something cool in place, we start talking about how much art it will involve and we try and get a general idea of what we need, how long it will take, and also how much we should have done before we take it to Kickstarter.



As I'm creating the art I try and stick to the theme, and I do a lot of research to find references that support that. We have a certain art style and we try and stick to that because we feel like it has served us well. It's also fun because we now have a catalog of characters from the previous games we've made and we like to cross some of them over into our new games so it's like we're creating our own little universe. It’s fun!