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Nick Nazzaro - Art in Board Games #33

by Ross

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Nick Nazzaro - Art in Board Games #33


To read the full interview with tons more amazing art please head to More Games Please

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Hi Nick, thanks for joining me! For our readers who aren't aware of your work could you tell us a bit about yourself and what you do?
Thanks for having me, Ross! I'm an illustrator based in Los Angeles working in TV animation. Right now I'm at Starburns Industries working on a show for HBO called Animals. I've also done lots of work for magazines, motion graphic firms, and various types of merchandise. Basically I just draw all day long.

Could you tell us a bit more about your development as an artist? Where did you start out and how do you think this broad experience has helped shape how you work?

I came from a family of artists so I started drawing very early on. I think every birthday involved me getting crayons or sharpies up until I moved out as an adult. I went to an arts high school in Boston, and eventually an art college. It was just always the plan to do it professionally, full time.

One of my earliest gigs was illustrating a weekly column in a local Boston newspaper, called DigBoston. I drew some dicks, butts, and a lot of other vulgar stuff you'd find in an indie paper. It was great and I learned a ton by having to report in to an art director a few times a week. After that I started illustrating more for magazines, doing some gallery shows, and trying to make a name for myself by entering competitions. I finished school in the fall of 2013 and started working on Dragoon art in the spring of 2014. Been busy ever since!

Now I'm working at an animation studio in LA while still doing freelance whenever I get a chance. You do learn a lot from all these various industries and I'm fortunate that I've gotten to be involved in so many cool projects. Working in animation has forced me to be a lot more efficient in how I use photoshop, for sure. Working in motion graphics for Buck Design reinforced a lot of my editorial illustrator roots. Working in games was incredibly rewarding and I've learned a lot about mass production and printing of art assets. I could honestly probably write a book about all the skills I've picked up while working after being done with school.

Image may be NSFW.
Clik here to view.


You are a co-founder of Lay Waste Games, so how did that come about and what were your goals when you set up the publisher?
My personal origin story is a little different than the rest of the founders behind Lay Waste Games. The rest of the team is two brothers and their childhood best friend, and they were setting out to make a single game happen, pretty much. They found me to do the art for the game, eventually, and after it being way more work than anyone expected, I wound up as co-founder when we made the LLC. The original goal was to make Dragoon a reality but that was such an instant success for us, our goals have evolved. Now we want to make a lot of games for the foreseeable future.

What can you remember about Dragoon and how did you need to change your style to suit the format of board games?
That's a good question. You always have to change what you're doing a little to make it fit into the constraints of actually printing something. That's really a big part of the fun and challenge of making anything on this scale, though. The 3D pieces might have looked different if we weren't worried about sharp angles ripping the mold apart. The map could maybe be even more colorful if we weren't limited to using 6 colors for cost reasons. When things are printed small, you can only manage so much detail. All those constraints helped me figure our creative solutions that in the end looked really sharp, I think...

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To read the full interview with tons more amazing art please head to More Games Please

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