Category: games

Joseph Meehan

Illustrations by Joseph Meehan

Joseph Meehan is an American freelance illustrator and concept artist who currently lives and works in New York. He studied at New York City’s Fashion Institute of Technology where he earned his Bachelor of Arts in Toy Design. 

Meehan worked initially as an intern at Hasbro where he designed toys fo the GI Joe series, and also did preliminary work for “GI Joe: The Movie”. Beginning in September of 2011, he worked for three years at Mattel where he designed action figures, vehicles, and created new features and play patterns for its Batman action-figure line. 

In September of 2014, Joseph Meehan began working freelance at Volta Studio in New York, a design studio dedicated to creating high-end 2D and 3D visuals for video games, films and toys.  As a Senior Artist, he created illustrations and concept art for a wide range of products, such as mobil games, trading cards, and triple-A games. In October of 2020, Meehan became a full-time Senior Illustrator at Rockstar Games in New York City. 

Meehan is skilled in a multitude of software graphic systems including Keyshot, Photoshop, Adobe Creative Suite, ZBrush, and Solidworks. Meehan has produced artwork for numerous leading names including Random House, Wizards of the Coast, Bioware, Bethesda, Ubisoft, NetherRealms, Hasbro, and Mattel. among others.

Joseph Meehan’s work and contact information can be found at his website:   https://www.josephmeehanart.com 

Note: Joseph Meehan designed many illustrations over the years for “Magic the Gathering”. He is currently creating a set of ten laser marked, ink washed anodized aluminum tokens to be used within “Magic the Gathering”. Examples of these can be seen on his Kickstarter site: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/josephmeehanart/joseph-meehans-hand-made-metal-tokens?fbclid=IwAR3BwmS8ZDadXgWnvjj30ZKq-G_Rg9pC-Y4GZLInHStC8CdmHeGR_LkhlH8 

Bottom Insert Image: Joseph Meehan, “Barbarian Warchief”

Snakes and Ladders

Snakes and Ladders Board Game, United Kingdom, 1895, Victoria and Albert Museum, London

The board game “Snakes and Ladders” originated from “Vaikuntapaali” or “Paramapada Sopanam”, a game from India based on morality.    It was often known as in Ancient India as Moksha Patamu.

In the game, the ladders represented virtues such as generosity, faith, and humility while the snakes represented vices such as lust, anger, murder and theft. The moral of the game was that a person can attain salvation through performing good deeds whereas by doing evil one takes rebirth in lower forms of life. The number of ladders was less than the number of snakes as a reminder that treading the path of good is very difficult compared to committing sins.

The game was transported from India to England by the colonial rulers in the latter part of the 19th century, with some modifications. Renamed as “Snakes and Ladders”, the number of snakes and ladders were equalized and the game was stripped of its moral and religious aspects.

Bill Rutherford

Bill Rutherfoord, “Machine”, 2005, Oil on Linen, 195.6 x 157.5 cm, Private Collection

Bill Rutherfoord was born in New York City in 1950, spending most of his childhood in Mt. Kisco, NY. After earning a BFA from Virginia Commonwealth University, and an MFA from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, he first exhibited at New Math Gallery, NYC in 1984, and over the years has been included in gallery and traveling exhibitions alongside artists such as William Eggleston, Robert Colescott, William Christenberry, and Douglas Bourgeois. Rutherfoord’s work is represented in numerous public and private collections throughout the country, including the Taubman Museum of Art.

Silent Hill

Artist Unknown, Computer Graphics, Animation Gifs from the game “Silent Hill”

“Silent Hill” is a single-player survival horror game for the PlayStation developed by Team Silent of the Tokyo entertainment company Konami. The first installment of “Silent Hill” was released in North America and Europe in February of 1999 and one month later in Japan. Using a third=person view, it has real-time rendering of the 3D environments. The graphics were deliberately muddled with fog and darkness by the developers to lessen the limitations of the then current console hardware. The player character is an everyman instead of the then popular protaganists with combat training.

“The Pact”

Werewolf Board Game “The Pact”, AMA Inc., Multiple Players

The box contains the base game “Werewolves of Miller’s Hollow” and “New Moon”, “The Village” and “Characters” expansions. Two teams compete: werewolves and villagers. But nobody really knows which is which! Once a team loses all its players, the other wins. This special edition of the classic trivia game “The Werewolves of Miller’s Hollow” contains the base game and all existing expansions! CONTENTS : 33 different characters, 47 character cards, 29 visible roles, 36 event cards, 14 buildings, 2 bags to store the cards; and a detailed rule book.