Infamous: the artist & cover illustration

The past two months have witnessed a furious pace of development on Infamous.  My publisher, Eagle-Gryphon Games (EGG), is ready to start revealing some of the artwork that's been created for the project, and so I figured I would make that the theme of this post.

I'm thrilled to announce that our artist for the entire project has been Rob Guillory, the Eisner-award wining comic book artist, primarily known for his work on Chew. I was introduced to Rob's art many years ago, when one of my research students was reading an issue of Chew in the lab.  This particular student and I shared a passion for comics and were often exchanging recommendations for series and graphic novels we thought the other might appreciate.  Chew sounded totally crazy and looked amazing.  Rob's art is unique - comedic and dark, detailed yet often absurdist.  Here's an example of what I mean:

Chew cover

In late July of this year, I started working with Charlie Bink who was assigned to be lead developer and art director on Infamous. Let me say right off that bat that Charlie has been amazing to work with. A true professional and always on top of his game. Charlie asked me for a list of potential artists that I could see doing the 100+ potential illustrations for Infamous. At this point, our goal was to hire one artist to do it all - but realistically, we didn't actually think that would be possible with the time schedule we had in mind (January/February KS launch).

I gave Charlie my dream-list. At the very top was Rob Guillory. For some reason, I just thought his style and humor would be a perfect match for Infamous. I wanted the art to clearly reflect the comic book vibe of the game, the dark (semi-mature) humor, the bizarre cast of characters. As luck would have it, when Charlie contacted Rob, he had the time and interest in the project. He agreed it sounded like a great match for his talent. Needless to say, I was flabbergasted.

Rob's done every single piece of art for the game, which has included:

• 1 Box Cover (see below)
• 5 Supervillains
• 36 Henchmen
• 5 Lackeys
• 8 Mercencaries
• 10 Powers
• 75 Secret Base Rooms (!)
• and 1 Hero Squad

Infamous front box cover illustration

What a great piece! The cover features one of our five Supervillains, Dr. Hominoid, surrounded by shadowy henchmen within the central control room of his secret base. A holographic globe floats between his hands. In the various computer monitors around the room, we're actually previewing some of the additional art within the game. I love the image and really think it expresses what Infamous is all about:  taking pleasure in being bad.

I can't wait to reveal more of Rob's fantastic work over the coming weeks and months. I'll be doing some here, some on BGG - and EGG will showing off pieces on Twitter and other social media sites.