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Colour and Noise
Colour and Noise
I’ve been a bit of a board game geek for quite a few years and have had an interest in European history since I was a child, particularly WW2. So being asked to be involved in the reissue of WW2 wargame that I’ve already played many times and enjoy very much was fantastic. In truth .. I was cheeky .. and litterally asked if I could do it, getting a foot in the door at just the right time.
The original artwork had been put together by the designer and had already won several international awards so it was going to be a tough act to follow. Add to that the bar had already been raised by one of their other artists working on Guadalcanal so it wasn’t going to be easy.
Being primarily a 3D artist it was natural for me to combine that with all the usual and some unusual 2D techniques.
As with any good project there were many difficulties, many questions that had to be answered and a lot of hurdles to overcome but the consensus is that we were successful. The client and everyone involved in the project are extremely happy with the results.
Five unique maps were created with a lot of work going into ensuring the artwork and style would work for future updates.
Some close ups of the maps. 1/4 print resolution
Some counters also had to be updated to match the new art though they were never used. These were designed to match the map graphics in look and orientation. However there was no danger of them blending in to much since they would have a lot of numbers and other functional elements in the top, bottom and corners.
These were completed early in about March 2011. At the time of writing I’ve completed assets for the PC game, have almost finished First Men In, am slated for France 1940, the 3 games of the Africa series, maybe Crete and 3 games about Stalingrad and the single player Battle of the Bulge with John Butterfield. ( edit: I’ve since given up freelancing )
http://academy-games.com/games/conflict-of-heroes/awakening-the-bear-2nd-edition
Update:
Uwe’s just given an interview at Spiel where he is showing the artwork for the first time. Seems like plenty of people have bought it already. Looking forward to getting my copy through the post sometime.
A short set of opinions and reviews from critics and gamers can be found here
The Players Aid have done three videos ..
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love the maps paddy 🙂 we need to resume our ancient conflicts methinks..
richB
Cheers Rich.
I know I know. We’ll be saying that till the day we shuffle off unless we agree on a time!
Congratulations Patrick. These are the nicest illustrated tactical wargame maps I’ve ever seen. Great work! 🙂
Why thank you very much. Very nice of you to say so.
Are you a gamer yourself?
I return a year later to see your great work again to find your reply! 😀
(must have missed the subscription in the mail)
Indeed, I have a profile with this same name at BGG
I am constantly designing games and I still think CoH maps are the best top-down views, so I seldom borrow from your images to make my prototypes look better (though they usually don’t, because I use powerpoint 😛 ).
I just read your copyright disclaimer, so for the record, it is only for personal use within my gaming group. Hope you don’t mind. Come to think of it, I did post an image in twitter a while back. No big deal I presume, but please let me know if you prefer to have it removed.
https://twitter.com/EurojuegosBsAs/status/490478443491237888
Say, how come some articles are now password protected? Is there a way to look at them or are they for publishers only?
Anyways, great work. I’ll go peek some more now 🙂
Juan
Thanks Juan,
To be honest I can’t give you permission to use bits from my CoH maps as that’s not in my power. You’d need to talk to Uwe at Academy Games for that but I doubt very much he’d have a problem.
As for the protected pages, no I can’t show their contents on my site as I don’t have permission but as the games have been announced I can at least indicate that I was involved. It shows that I’m not idle!
And frankly, to prevent any leaks, those pages don’t actually contain any images anyway so there’s nothing to see.
Pat
Thanks Patrick (now I know there’s no email subscription to your replies)
I’ll check with Uwe then. Regards 🙂
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I wish Jim Krohn of Worthington Games had got you on board for the Band of Brothers board game. The artwork for that game is, excuse the bluntness, abysmal and child-like. Your work is supreme, immersive, even enchanting. Great skills you’ve got there Patrick!
Thanks Gregg.
Game art is very subjective. The most important layer to get right is the functionality. Once that’s tight then the visual style is often down to how the game designers perceive the flavour, feel and audience for their creation. The gameplay, mechanics and tone of supportive text help create that which then suggests how the theme is expressed with the artwork.
You don’t need me to tell you that your opinion is perfectly valid but I know the designers were very happy with the artwork so from their perspective it was a success, set the tone they wanted and, more importantly for the success of the company and future games, was felt to be attractive to a wide audience. As important as you core audience is, its very rarely enough to keep you in business. The wider audience still spends the same amount individually but there’s more of them and they’ll be buying for longer. Your first duty is to stay in business.
Whether it was right only they can say but I suspect, for them, it was.