Meet the Artists Behind SETI’s Beautiful Card Art (Part II)

Here you can go back to part i
[This article originally appeared on the CGE Blog here.]

In part one of this article series, we introduced you to the core graphic design team and just a few of the artists behind the look of SETI: Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence. Today, we profile even more of the talented artists and illustrators working on the card art for SETI (and show off some of their amazing illustrations).

JOSEF SURÝ
Card illustrations
Portfolio Link: levelist4-design.com | Artstation | LinkedIn | Instagram | X | Behance
Featured SETI art: International Collaboration

Working in video games and films for most of the past seven years, Josef is a concept artist and designer with additional experience in book illustrations, VR prototype concepts, marketing art, and more. While much of his work on AAA projects and film is in production and still under NDA, he’s worked on game projects including ARMA Reforger, Vigor, Citizen Conflict, and bigger projects with Room8 Studio, among other things.

SETI’s art direction is very stylized but also maintains a lot of realistic principals, notes Josef, who worked on art for multiple cards. “It was kind of a new and interesting experience, since previously I was doing mostly realistic concept art,” he adds. His past work with 3D and 2D techniques, kitbashing, and photobashing helped inform his creative approach to tackling a more stylized visual environment.

For the International Collaboration card, Josef conducted extensive research and reference gathering, creating a variety of blackout 3D sketches in Blender to explore ideas.

“In this case, I wanted to use really sharp and very contrasty lighting in the sketches, since I think it works well in such a space theme and always like the silhouettes when tech structures pop out. Moreover, I wanted to keep at least a little bit of stylization and not go 100% realistic,” he says. “Also, I came up with a few sketches in various color combinations, since I wanted to test some interesting contrasting moods in advance.”

“In the end, I made my scene in Blender more detailed and added better textures, lighting, and atmosphere. Finally, I composed my render and render passes and overpainted them in Photoshop.”

PETR ŠTICH
Card illustrations
Portfolio link: Instagram, navolnenoze.cz
Featured SETI art: Large Hadron Collider

A freelance illustrator with over a decade of experience, Petr is grateful to be able to combine his dream job and his hobby into the same passion. As a fan of fantasy and sci-fi, he immersed himself into the world of tabletop wargaming at an early age, spending hundreds of hours painting models. In the process, he learned all about different techniques, color theory, and more. This drew him deeper and deeper into the world of art and visual design.

“After a while, I bought my first graphics tablet and started learning from the best in the business, like comic book artist David Finch and Karl Kopinsky,” he adds. “I spent some time working on my portfolio, and when I was convinced it was finished, I put it online. Then the first commissions started coming in and over time they included those from the board game industry.” Among numerous other freelance opportunities over the years, this led him to work on Euthia: Torment of Resurrection, one of the biggest board game crowdfunding projects in the Czech Republic.

Petr created the art for the Large Hadron Collider in SETI, among others. His creative process for working on SETI begins with studying the design brief, collecting references ,and exploring the topology of the visuals to understanding how it works. From there, he makes a series of brainstorming sketches to experiment with composition and depth.

“The sketches are mostly in black and white to save time as I don’t tackle color until the next stage, where the best version of the sketch is chosen,” he says. “Specifically with card visuals, it is important that the composition works and the card illustration is legible, as the resulting card illustrations are small, so I try to keep a fairly large distance from the illustration.”

MICHAELA LOVECKÁ
Card illustrations
Portfolio link: loveckamichaela.wixsite.com
Featured SETI art: Tardigrades Study

Michaela’s journey through the creative artistic realm spans a gamut of disciplines. In school, she studied animation, winning first prize in the 2016 Chicago Shorts with her bachelor film. From there, she gained experience in the digital games industry — first as a storyboarder and then a cutscene editor — working for 2K Czech on the PC game Mafia III.

Later, Michaela co-founded the advertising agency Filmagix, where she primarily focuses on pre-production and post-production for advertising spots. Filmagix is known for its highly popular viral parody videos, featuring satirical subjects like Harry Potter fighting the former Czech president Miloš Zeman, Home Alone with Donald Trump, EETerminator, and more. Additionally, she draws realistic portraits, illustrations, and caricatures,

In working on card art for SETI, Michaela found the illustration process drew her in. “The most important thing is laying down the composition and setting up the light conditions. I can lead the viewer’s attention that way,” she says. “A proper stylization allows you to be more creative and play with the image. This combination of freedom, while still following certain rules, is an ideal prerequisite for creativity.”

“Working on illustrations absorbed me quickly, as I enjoyed it very much. The freedom and the possibility of designing the composition, colors, and choosing a figurative or more technical drawing brought me hours of work in a flow state.”

JAKUB LANG
Card illustrations
Portfolio link: Instagram, Artstation
Featured SETI art: NASA Image of the Day

Jakub may work primarily in the video game industry as a concept artist at Bohemia Interactive on the ARMA series, but he doesn’t pass up an opportunity to dabble in the board game realm when it arises. He also has worked in film, making numerous TV commercial storyboards and key visuals for larger companies, including Pilsner Urquell, Škoda, T-Mobile, Vodafone, and more.

For SETI, Jakub worked on numerous cards and also helped solve the challenge of figuring out how to conceptualize a particularly difficult card. “For this card – NASA Image of the Day – there was note in the design document that there were currently no ideas how to depict it. But when I was reading the assignment, I instantly imagined the floating social media posts containing different images of the day,” he says.

“During the choice of the photos we would like to show in this composition, guys from the design team came up with this wonderful idea to honor Czech photographer Petr Horálek whose photos have been chosen by NASA multiple times,” says Jakub. “There was also the idea to directly connect the card with the original website by QR code. So we did it, and you can actually check the latest NASA Image of the Day by scanning this card!”

“This is only a side project for me, so I am a little bit sad that there are only a limited number of cards I am able to illustrate. As most of the cards are based on real science stuff ,you always learn something interesting and new during the initial research! And painting space is always good fun, as I haven’t done it much in any of my past projects.”

PETRA RAMEŠOVÁ
Card illustrations
Portfolio link: petraramesova.com
Featured SETI art: Chandra Space Observatory

Petra has been painting digitally for over a decade and currently works as a freelancer in the video game industry. Notably, she’s done art on numerous game projects, including a D&D mobile game called Dungeon Realms. SETI is the first board game project she’s worked on, which she says has been a very different and unique experience.

“I like the idea of creating something that players can hold and interact with, it feels more gratifying to have your art printed out instead of having it on a screen,” she says. “I also feel like the board game industry tends to be more creative in terms of art styles and genres.”

The shape of the Chandra Space Observatory reminded Petra of a giant hoverfly — with its giant head, long wings, and slim torso. “I wanted to emphasize the rather silly shape by having the observatory viewed from below, like it’s hovering above us. Also, Chandra has provided significant insights into galaxy clusters and their evolution, that is why it was important to have it surrounded by stars and colorful nebulas.”

Working on SETI has been a refreshing change of pace. “I can tell that the people behind it are passionate about what they do and that they care deeply about having an end product players enjoy,” she says. “Some projects can lack this level of care and passion, and I am glad I got the opportunity to be part of this team.”

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