Black Ink Illustration for Spidermind Games
Illustration style
I was given the opportunity to work in the black ink illustration style I tried when providing album cover artwork for Waters / Kinley by games studio, Spidermind Games.
I love working in this style, it’s really punchy and you can create the illusion of dynamic movement with scuffs, strokes, smudges and ink splats. If you follow me, you’ll know that I nearly always work digitally now. It’s both a choice ( I really enjoy the medium) and a necessity for me personally when providing commercial illustration. The opportunity to iterate, save, return to a previous design is just too valuable in time sensitive schedules.
I’m honing this particular style, and having the chance to knock up a bunch of these quickly for a project gave me the time to experiment and try different brushes and techniques in a short period of time.
Spidermind Games
I had the chance to meet Spidermind Games at my first exhibition at a board game convention, Dragonmeet in Hammersmith, London. My table was set up beside the great Ralph Horsley, who’s since become an industry friend, and the guys from Spidermind games.
At the time Spidermind Games were promoting their new RPG for the great IP, Elite- Dangerous. I was impressed, getting licenses like that was something I had never known how to do, and they were doing it. They were receiving great praise from the folks who they spoke to, and I was interested to see what their plans were for the future…
Roll on about six years (at a guess) and Jon Lunn and I are still chatting from time to time. We’d talk at other conventions when we bumped into each other, and online from time to time. I’d always reassert my interesting in working with them. Recently Jon got in touch and gave me the opportunity. Working on Legendary Kingdoms, their amazing expanding RPG universe, Jon began to ask for illustrations to promote the game, as well as some in game illustrations.
These black ink illustrations were a genius marketing idea. Why not create a choose your own adventure in as a promotion?! The images were used as a rewarding addition to those following the story line via online messenger service. Users would be given choices along the way, some would reveal places, items and people they could encounter.
I hope to work with the guys from Spidermind more in future. They have been knocking every project out of the park, including board game supplement, The Level Up which took their Kickstarter levels of funding into the Millions of Dollars.
A bit about me, the illustrator:
I’m Jamie, I am an illustrator, graphic designer, business owner and fantasy geek. I live and work in Sussex, UK.
I love working on fiction book covers and games in the broad genre I like to call “Escapism”… I’m particularly a massive fantasy fan, but love sci-fi and horror too. I’ve been working professionally on video games, books and board games since 2010 and even published my own successful board game: Hero Master: An Epic Game of Epic Fails back in 2018.
I achieved my lifelong dream of regularly working on illustration for the Warhammer IP in 2021, and can’t wait for the next challenge to arise. Shout me if you need me, you can fill in a few details to get the ball rolling, but following the link below.
