Thread by @JennRavenna

Today is my last day in game dev and ttrpg. I don’t talk about it much so I wanted to make a thread of the things I worked on during the past 8 years. This will be deleted after today (my way of saying bye for now to look back on all my work).

I first started in games as an intern at HBS and worked on Shadowrun Returns, Dragonfall, and briefly on Hong Kong. I got my start painting 2D iso tiles and set dressing levels. These are some of the levels I dressed w/ props painted by me + the environment team, some I concepted

I briefly did some early visual development for Necropolis.

Then I moved to Atlanta to work at Hi-Rez on a mobile game called Jetpack Fighter. Some concepts I did while I was there.

I moved back to Seattle and returned to HBS to work on Battletech. Some marketing and concept images I did with 3D models provided by HBS / Piranha.

Then I went over to Microsoft to work on some stuff that got canned.

After this I decided to go freelance for a few years and Magic the Gathering happened.

I think this is all my cards out currently.

Then Dungeons and Dragons, which I got to illustrate and concept a little for.

Also got to concept a little bit for mtg on Kaldheim

Had a couple of assignments on these projects but nothing to write home about. Except for this cinematic key art of a Runeterra cinematic I helped collaborate on with Wild Blue Studios / Riot (first image), one of the most fun projects I've been on.

I do marketing artwork and UI with Arenanet on Guild Wars 2 now, so if you play the game you've most likely seen some of the gemstore and UI art I've done. Usually these types of things are concepted/modeled by someone else and I do a layout and paintover pass.

I don't remember if these were ever used but I still like these concepts done for Battletech. Part of me wishes I had gotten a chance to design more characters.

While we're on character design - these are not game dev related but character concepts I sketched up while thinking about a Young Leia movie.

I feel like I'm missing some projects/jobs but whatever, thanks for indulging me a bit. It feels simultaneously bad to look back at these because I struggled a lot and the industry wasn't all that kind to me, but it also feels cathartic to get it all out there.

Reading some of your replies makes me so sad and grateful at the same time. Thank you for still following me into film after following me for something else. It genuinely means the world.

One last thing - back to the real beginning. Before I was a concept artist / illustrator I was QA. These were the games I worked on.

oh yeah what's a fantasy illustrator without some Fantasy Flight gigs? painted a couple pages and cards for these properties as well

i think i aged myself with this tweet 😬

To those worried about having an art style - as you can see with this entire thread I’m not one of the artist who has a signature style nor was I ever really prolific, but I was adaptable and relatively enjoyed what I did and stayed employed. I hope this eases some worries.

Card I did for Valve's Artifact game

Here's the stuff I did for Fantasy Flight. This was 2014/15? And the rate was $100-$200. So you get what you get, lol.

Magic the Gathering years later after the above.

Also designed some modern mega man-esque environments for Jetpack Fighter. Super out of my comfort zone but these were also really fun.

Related - Ink album cover of Glory I did for the Shadowrun Dragonfall Vinyl

I also helped out on the Battletech cinematic cut scenes. These were some of my scenes. Models in the top two panels provided by HBS/Piranha (though I destroyed the ship myself). Panels on the bottom painted/modeled by me.

Most mtg folks already know what The Eldest Reborn looks like so here's what the sketches looked like (D being the choice that resulted in moving forward towards the final).

Parting note - Arenanet may be one of the best studios I've worked at, largely because of my awesome team and chill culture. I'm lucky I got to finish my career being a teeny tiny part of Guild Wars of all things, and with really awesome people. And that closes this chapter :) ❤️

Deleting this soon, I’ll just leave this here. As with any collaborative project I was only a small part of these games, but thank you for your kind comments and stories about these projects. It was a joy to read through them all.

https://mobile.twitter.com/JennRavenna/status/1393346752611188736