Meet Zwoltopia

Deer Lord was all black and white, very minimal. For Bilder, we stuck to our geometric design, but splashing in all kinds of color.

For The Sound of Sirens, though, we wanted to try something entirely new.  We’re introducing a lot of characters this time around, and we felt the artwork should revolve around them. Our in-house designer Steven is a brilliant graphic artist, but illustrations are not quite his strong suit (plus it takes an enormous amount of time), so we went searching for an artist with the skills to pull it off.

Luckily, we didn’t have to look far, because our hometown of Ghent boasts plenty of local talent!

Among them, Jeroen Van Zwol aka Zwoltopia, a plucky, pop-culture-savvy illustrator, with a clearly identifiable style that at times reminds us of Disney animation, but with a lot more humor, and incredible attention to detail.

But why describe when we could just show what we mean? Below are some of his past works that we found especially awesome, in no particular order.

The stead’s name is Oswald and we can confirm that he is, in fact, a very good boy.

Relatable. Very relatable.

Huge Roald Dahl myself, this gets me all kinds of excited. It even features ‘The Giraffe The pelly and Me’, and that’s hard core.

Mary Poppins Returns for Vertigo magazine, practically perfect in every way.

In case it wasn’t blatantly obvious yet we’re dealing with a geek in the truest sense of the word 🙂

If you like what you’re seeing, you should really check out his work for The Sound Of Sirens.

The King himself, surrounded by all his gruesome creations.

(sidebar: I thought ‘Monkey Shines‘ was inspired by a Stephen King story, see the drummer monkey on the bottom right… but turns out it’s ‘The Monkey‘. And is that Annie “Misery” Wilkes next to it?)

Fairy tales for a library brochure, very enchanting (for some reason that gnome looks mighty familiar…)

Collaboration with Film Fest Gent produced some fantastic results

(… very likely it’s just the nostalgia speaking, but that Jan Zonder Vrees really takes the cake imo)

Perfect collaboration with Facts (Geek Con in Ghent) is perfect.

Last, but certainly not least: the titular sirens of our upcoming game!

This was the design for a ginormous banner wall we made to flaunt at trade shows. We think it turned out great and, judging from all the positive reactions we got, we’re not the only ones!