The game Influence, Inc, where I created a few icons for, is out now!

This strategy-simulation game lets you manage a digital influence agency. You manipulate social media and the mainstream news to promote celebrities, market products, and even sway elections, if you wish.

I was only involved in the development for a few weeks and it's mostly developed by a single person, so it's quite the small production. Still a fun project to have worked on, especially as it's a game with a message to tell!

One of the things I did for Influence, Inc was designing icons for the various achievements you can unlock in the game.

I also helped improving the UX of the game, quite important as the game consists exclusively out of UI and text! It was fun to figure out how to make the functions of this Sharer application more clear, for example.

If you're interested how media influences people's opinions, and you like simulation games with multiple outcomes, this is something for you!
 

Since April I've been doing regular figure drawing again. I've been sharing my favorite drawings on my blog, so have a look if you want to see more.

I often start my working day by doing warmup sketches from photos, but drawing people from life is quite a different experience! I love to practise my sense of anatomy and proportion this way, but it's also just great to try new things like drawing on black paper with white pencil.

During a visit to the library I found this massive book (its almost 40cm high and weights 5kg) called Paleoart: Visions of the Prehistoric Past, I knew I just had to take it home. This amazing book by Zoë Lescaze contains beautiful reproductions of drawings and paintings of extints animals, including huge foldouts! I'm sharing some of my favorite artists and pieces here below.

Tyrannosaurus Rex Attacking Trachodon Annectens, 1938. Oil on canvas

If I knew the Prague National Museum has a few pieces of Zdeněk Burian's paleoart on display I would have visited it during my four-month stay there - he was one of the most prolific painters in the genre. I love how he created amazingly believable skin and scales using the texture of various brushstrokes and the canvas itself. Would have loved to see that up close!

Charles R. Knight revolutionized paleoart with his lifelike renditions of dinosaurs. He used his knowledge of modern species and hand-made models and maquettes to create amazingly believable illustrations.

It might has been his love for street photography, but all illustrations by Neave Parker are done on toned paper with washes of ink and white paint. It creates these beautiful sharp and realistic depictions, where every wrinkle and vein on the creatures is visible.

There is very little to find online on Maurice Wilson (the artist, not the soldier), and because this illustration is not in the book, I couldn't find its title or year of creation. I estimate it's probably between 1950 and 1960, though.

Clearly inspired by Japanese art, he creates a poetic take on the prehistoric world. I think the contrast between the fern leaves and the ground is just mesmerising.

Be sure to check out the book if you can (I believe it's not on sale anymore), it contains many more beautiful paintings, drawings, mosaics and murals!