28 February 2019
WINGSPAN
makes it more fun to roll the dice, and then you’ll
never forget! You know, like the pyramid in Camel Up!
No-one would ever forget to use the pyramid, because
that’s the best part of the game!’”
“ at led to having this fun little dice tower which
served that purpose, but then I moved away from re-
rolling the dice as often, which has positive implications
for player interactions – that’s the right decision for the
gameplay – but by then we were all in love with the bird
feeder so it stayed in the game,” she laughs.PAINT THRUSH
Responsible for much of the game’s incredible realism
is lead artist Natalia Rojas, an illustrator specialising in
highly detailed pencil drawings for whom Wingspan
was her rst board game project.
“As an emerging artist I feel very honoured to be a
part of this project and to have been given the freedom
to develop my artistic style,” she says.
Rojas began by researching the paintings of
19th century American wildlife artist John James
Audubon, before being introduced to contemporary
ornithologist David Allen Sibley through a book sent to
her by Hargrave.
“Both Elizabeth and Jamey already had a very clear
idea in mind for the nal outcome when I joined
the project, but they gave me the freedom to de ne
the style and technique for the drawings,” she says.
“Prior to this project I didn’t know much about birds
and having Elizabeth’s knowledge was critical for me
to make the right decisions so I could
represent each bird accurately.
“I wanted to illustrate each bird
to look alive, natural and realistic
without looking like a picture.”Hargrave credits Stegmaier with bringing together
the team of artists to begin illustrating the 170 cards,
starting before the gameplay had been nalised as a
result of the scale of the project.
“I was in touch with the artists who were
drawing the birds and every once in a while
they would check in with me about
questions they had about should they
use this reference photo or that
reference photo or that kind of
thing,” she says. “ en they would
send me some of the drawings
every once in a while just for fun.
at was a pretty amazing process
to watch that all come to life. I had some
placeholder art in my prototype, but a lot of the
cards were just the name of the bird and a big
blank space where the art would go.”
Rojas was one of three female artists
who contributed to Wingspan, joined
by Beth Sobel and Ana Maria Martinez
Jaramillo, as well as head graphic designer
Christine Santana.
“ e art you see in this board game
was created by three female artists who
brought their unique talent together to
visually represent a game designed by
another amazing woman,” Rojas says.
“I’m particularly excited about this and
honoured to have had the opportunity to
work with them.”
“I like to hope that having a game out
there with all-women names on the box will
be an inspiration to somebody somewhere,” says
Hargrave. “ at’s a possibility.”