When we started work on the My Bōgle game, we had only a rough idea about the type and style of characters we wanted to use. They were to be fantastic rather than fantasy. They were to be menacing but strangely cute. They were to be similar to real animals but also remind us of childhood dreams. They were to be monsters without the horror.... They made it difficult to find an artistic look that fit.

I looked up thousands of monster images online as research. I also checked out books and talked with other artists. I drew sketch after sketch - all of which failed to meet anyone's approval (myself included). I just didn't feel like any of the things I was looking at really fit the characters we were constructing for the game.

And then my wife and I went to SXSW in March, and somewhere in between watching 30 films and several bands we wandered into Flatstock almost on accident. Flatstock is a showcase of the world's best poster artists from around the world.

To be honest we were both exhausted from walking from venue to venue and not in the mood to do more wandering about, but on the last day of the show we decided to check it out anyway.  Luckily we did, because had we not gone in I wouldn't have stumbled upon Jay Ryan's booth.

Jay is a wonderful artist and his drawing style (and animal characters) where the incarnation of many ideas I had about the game characters. I just kept staring at his work and admiring the way he used mechanical drawing elements in this sloppy-hand-drawn way that I thought might just fit our dreamscape ideas perfectly.

I must have been staring rather intensely, as the next thing I remember Jay walked over to me from behind his table and asked me if I was pissed off at him (I guess he thought I was staring at him and not at his work on the wall behind him). When I explained that I was just awestruck by his work, he was very happy to let me keep staring! We talked about his style and some of his work, as well as what I was working on for My Bōgle. Before we left, I purchased his book 100 Posters, 134 Squirrels, and I promised to forward him some of the artwork I created for the game.

The characters I'm now creating are certainly not carbon copies of Jay's work - in fact they don't really look that similar. What was important is that Jay's artwork inspired me. That experience led me to create my own work in a new and unique way that I had not attempted before.

And that's the true lesson. Keep your eyes (and mind) open so you don't miss a chance to be inspired. You never know when 134 squirrels may cross your path again!


Jay Ryan's archive of works at The Bird Machine
100 Poster, 134 Squirrels on Amazon