With the kind permission of the game designer, I’m going to post a number of samples from a large project that has been occupying me for the past few months. This is a board game for a designer in Helsinki based on the idea of a roman chariot race. I decided that the painterly style that I used on a recent book cover would be the best way to convey the drama and scope of this project, although, by the time I was finished, I would be pretty much using every trick in the book on all the various elements required (and some tricks I didn’t even know I had). These past two big projects (the Dick Cheney book and this one) have had me using photoshop more than I have at any time in the past, and I’ve learned a great deal in a short period of time.
The above illustration was the original painting for the cover (although certain elements would change over the course of the box design). The final box layout is pictured below (along with the side panels and lettering). I also did a similar layout for the back cover with a different smaller painting, but I haven’t included that one here.
The other large part of this project was the game board illustration. It is rather big, so I’ve selected a few areas to enlarge to better show detail. This entailed an overhead view of the stadium and chariot track, and certain parts of the track have to fit with various tiles and cards included in the game (and samples of which are found further down the posting).
In addition to the box and board illustrations, I also had several card, tile and coin designs (of which I’ve selected a sampling to post below). There were six different color cards, with 6 different numbers for each (plus a back design), five of the small green tiles with different ‘prizes’, two coin designs front and back, with 6 values each (Augustus got changed to Julius later, but I’ve chosen the original to post here), and five different of the larger cards depicting various team configurations.
Easily one of the most interesting assignments I’ve had in my career, and I’m looking forward to seeing the finished product when it hits the shelves in Finland sometime around xmas.