William Thorup

Illustrator, Motion Graphics Designer, Animator, and VFX Artist

Category: Published Works

Atari Jaguar – Cover Art & Packaging for Last Strike
With customers on the verge of finally getting their copies of Last Strike, I thought I would do a post on a bit of the background on how the packaging for this great piece of Atari Jaguar homebrew came together.

Digging through 3 years of emails, it’s interesting to see how much you tend to forget on these long term projects. My involvement with Last Strike started with helping Albert at AtariAge in 2018 with some banner artwork for his booth for Portland Retro Gaming expo.

I have actually never see these booths in person, and with the lockdowns, that chance may not come any time soon. Based on pictures posted by AtariAge though, it’s an honor to have some of this quick graphic design work show up at conventions where thousands of people get to see it. Along with the banner, I had put together a flyer that was available for pick up by potential AtariAge customers. Last Strike was printed back-to-back with the flyer for BitJag’s Crescent Memories game. The sprite artwork for the spaceships is from https://opengameart.org/.
After the convention wrapped up, along with the holidays, work started on the cover art for Last Strike. April 2019 is when the emails started, along my usually first step for work like this. Thumbnail sketches.

I decided to bypass pencil sketches and go directly to color sketches. A couple reasons for this. Reboot didn’t have much in regards to direction except for pointing me towards previous content generated for marketing and assets for the game. This makes picking a color palette fairly easy. Just stick to what is used in the game and the banners/flyers that were used for Portland Retro Gaming Expo.

For the content and composition of the boxart, I decided to take inspiration from other shooters. One in particular was used as inspiration, and that was the cover art for Raiden on the Atari Jaguar.

Raiden’s box art takes a very simple but effective approach of extreme perspective to create a good sense of depth and movement. With the nose of the aircraft pointed towards the obstacles that the player must face in the game they are about play, we are given a good tone for the game without needed to plug and play.

With these thumbnail sketches I decided to take the compositional ideas and translate them into something new for Last Strike. I also decided to play with a few different camera angles to see if the client might want something not quite on the beaten path.

After a few suggestions for changes the first thumbnail was the direction chosen. Before moving onto the final illustration, and because of the feedback, I decided to do a one more thumbnail sketch. Working in the adjustments and to refined the composition accordingly.

Along with this new sketch, I was also needed to look forward to how this might look on actual product packaging. I had developed some templated 3D renders for testing artwork on for previous projects I have done for Jaguar games. I felt that we were far enough along with this final sketch to get a good feeling of what the final cover art and overall package would be like.

With a go ahead for the artwork and confidence that the cover art would work well for box, manual, and cartridge label, I moved forward to the final illustration.

I decided not to go with a strictly painted process and instead decided to use Blender to generate a pre-rendered base to work from. Building the models for the ships, the corridor, and other objects ended up taking up as much time as it would have taken just to paint them from scratch in Krita. But I believed that starting with a very clean and synthetic base to paint from would lend itself to the sci-fi feel of the game, while still giving me the freedom to add more organic edges here and there. Organic things like the people, blasts of energy, and the moon, contrast in form and silhouette with the more refined edges of the walls, floor, and ships. Creating a nice tension that plays well with the action of the scene.

I want to avoid posting final artwork here, but here is a render of that same 3D template that was used in previous steps of this process along with a time lapse of the process after the final thumbnail sketch was produced. Along with the box and cartridge label, I also assembled the manual for the game along with some basic cover art for the CD soundtrack. Also below are some pictures taken by Albert of AtariAge, Lawrence from Reboot, and a few people on Twitter who have already received copies of the game.

I did have the opportunity to play the game during play testing. I want to avoid doing a lengthy review, since I am sure the game has gone through some changes since then, and my unavoidable bias due to my involvement. I do highly recommend the game if you like shooters though. In regards to variety it is much better than Raiden, but it is not quite as serious in tone. Having a fun edge to it, along with some good boss fights, it’s definitely worth adding to the collection. It gave me strong vibes of Blood Money for the Atari ST, one my childhood favorite games. Reboot knows how to make fun, high quality release, and it was great to be a part of that.
May 2, 2021
Marketing Materials | 2017 – 2018 Graphic Design for Lance Conrad

Over the last half year or so I have been doing little odd marketing graphic design jobs for Lance Conrad. Below are short breakdowns of these jobs.

The first of these projects was creating materials for Lance to use to inform his consumer base about his appearance at the 2017 Salt Lake City Comic-Con. Specifically a digital/real flyer to hand out as he did his presentations at schools and other events that he involves himself in. Along with digital campaigns on social media and email mailing lists.

When discussing the copy to be used on the flyer, we sought to distill the essence of his books, or find a through line that all the books could relate to, for a slogan or a basis that copy outside of information text could be derived from. What we eventually settled on was “Worlds Colliding”. This theme ended up informing not only the copy but also the visuals as well.

I decided to take a literal approach, and changed the theme to “Worlds will collide..”. Making it more urgent and dangerous. Using a mixture of stock photos of some mountains and some 3D rocks, I modeled the books and did the whole design, layout and final composite in Blender. No 2D application was involved here. Making literally two worlds colliding in the background, the viewer is stuck in the last moments of twilight. The last moment of what one knew of existence, just before the sky falls and the light is snuffed out.

Later on, we took this same visual motif and applied it to some digital signage for use in Utah. Specifically roadside billboards. The only change/addition was Lance’s face, which crowded things a bit for the book advertisement, but was good fill for the Best of State advertisement. Unfortunately, we couldn’t predict exactly when these advertisement would show up on actual billboards, but I did put together a mock-up inside of a preexisting photo of a random billboard below. This was to help pre-visualize the ads before they were sent to whoever controls the ad space for billboards.

The last piece of marketing materials based off of this “Worlds Colliding” theme was a bookmark. Lance uses these as free giveaways at his at school presentations and conventions. This is something he has done before, so communicating what he wanted here was simple, and with some small adjustments to previous project files I was able to export these as finals directly out of Blender as well.

February 16, 2018
Atari Fan Magazine – Silly Venture Edition| Cover Illustration

It seems that the Atari Propoganda artbook from my 2016 book is still making the rounds in Atari circles. The specific piece was from Day 2 of Inktober 2016 called “Play Late Play Lynx”. Which features a young woman after a long day of work, illuminated by the light of her Atari ST monitor, as she takes a minute to enjoy playing the Atari Lynx. She might take some time to read some of the ST Log magazine she just got in the mail as well.

Original Artwork Timelapse

An individual each year puts together a magazine for Silly Venture reached out for permission to use one my illustrations. I did another pass on the artwork to correct a few things that would make the piece more attractive and sent it to the printers. Fortunately, I did all the original pieces near an A4 aspect ratio, so I didn’t need to add or take away from the piece as a whole. This made it a drag and drop effort for the layout artists for this Polish language magazine.

I didn’t have anything featured inside the magazine, but it’s good to see this artwork still resonating with people in the “classic” Atari community years, after the initial release of the Atari Propoganda Collection in 2016.

November 27, 2017
Book Cover Illustration| The Price of Survival

Lance Conrad is a talented, popular and highly motivated author that I have come know and consider a friend through my work at Thor Media. He has written several books that fit neatly into young adult fiction, and he recently commissioned me to work on the fourth book in his “The Price of…” series.

Be sure to take the time to look at his other books for comparison, and consider adding his work to your library or to the library of someone you know who might be interested in his work.

Final Book Cover

Title Text Was Rendered Out Of Blender

Plant Illustration & Final Image Composite Was Done In Krita

The Prompt

This project could be considered a rescue in that he had already commissioned another artist to work on the cover. I don’t want to go into detail on this initial cover and instead just say that it didn’t meet the quality of the covers for previous books Lance had published. The quality of the initial artist made it unacceptable for me and some of Lance’s other friends in the close circle that were reviewing his book. We didn’t want the quality of his writing to be held back by a poor book cover. I am glad we caught this before the book was sent off to the printers.

The approach to the finished cover was relatively simple since another artist had already laid out what Lance didn’t want the book cover to look like. Along with the common visual composition used for all the books in the series, a face/pair of eyes along with a key item/element used in the story, getting started was easy enough. The basic prompt was to have an older man, who visually looked like they had seen allot, for the background, on black, with a potted plant that had been damaged by war/explosions.

Small Thumbnail Paintings Of Possible Covers

Final Product

Production

Again, it was fairly easy to narrow down exactly what would work for Lance with just a few new thumbnails of possible covers. Then, after he picked which one he liked most, I took the chosen thumbnail and put several hours of rendering for the final image. Afterwards I followed the layout for his previous books to keep this book consistent with the rest of the books in the series, and then prepped the final file to the printers specifications.

Wrap Up

Both Lance and I were happy with the final result. This cover matches well with previous books in the series, considering the really quick turn around time of a about a week, it is attractive and mysterious enough to get people to pick it up and take a gander.

This is my first book cover illustration outside of my own publications, and the opportunity to collaborate with a talented author to create the outfit that his writing will be dressed in to make a good first impression is an important task for both the writer and artist. I feel that this project helped stress the importance of a healthy collaborative relationship between artists in order to avoid creating content that would be potential embarrassing if not harmful to any of the artists involved.

August 23, 2017
Krita 2016 Kickstarter | T-Shirt & Art Book

2016 was an incredibly hard, but and incredibly rewarding year. With our business going through tons of changes, along with the release of Flappy McFur and my Inktober Atari Propaganda book, I have never been so anxious, tired, and worn out in my entire life. It is things like this that make it worth it though.

For their 2016 Kickstarter, the Krita Foundation had a t-shirt artwork contest to determine what artwork would be included on the t-shirt Kickstarter reward tier. With the support of those who voted for my artwork, my piece was chosen for this honor. The t-shirt unfortunately won’t last too long since the artwork was applied as an iron on, but it is still great to know that there are quite a few people around around the world wearing this t-shirt. You can read more about that in my previous post.

Another reward the Krita Foundation put together was the Made With Krita art book. Featuring the artwork of individuals that use Krita. This was an open submission with limited space in the book. I didn’t miss out on this, and I submitted my “Books and Machines” piece. Just a month ago, I received the book, and it is awesome to see my work next to so many other talented artists who create their work with such an awesome piece of software.

This is a hallmark for me and my work, and is what I consider my first published work in a large organization. I am hoping that they continue to put these books together in the future, and I planning on my continued involvement in the community that surrounds Krita.

April 14, 2017
RETROKOMP | Cover Art, Inktober 2016 & Flappy McFur Articles

I reached one of my 2016 goals! Get my artwork published in a third party publication of some sort. That publication is RETROKOMP, a quarterly printed retro gaming/computing magazine out of Poland.

A good fellow named Piotr contacted me and requested to use a piece from my 2016 Inktober Atari Propaganda collection for the cover of their Q2 issue. Eager to make the piece they requested look as good as possible, I made some slight alterations and polishes to the original piece, and then submitted my artwork, along with any other images they need for their articles.

Their articles featured my Inktober 2016 Atari Propaganda artwork, Flappy McFur, and some of BitJag’s on-going projects. Below are some images of the publication along with the articles. Too bad I can’t read Polish, I hope they aren’t ripping into my work. Either way, I am incredibly thankful for the opportunity, and can’t wait to see where this publication goes.

April 1, 2017
Inktober 2016 | Atari Propaganda
Another month of Ink. With the theme of “Atari Propaganda”, I am focusing on creating ads featuring Atari video games, and young people (particularly young women) enjoying those video games. I will post each piece as I finish them here. Further down the page are also links to time lapse videos for each piece.

Goals
- First, the nostalgia factor. I want to create work that any Atari fan can relate to. Featuring product from the 80’s and 90’s, with ad design reminiscent of the era as well.
- Design each illustration with women in mind. Explore the question, “What if video game ads of the late 80’s, early 90’s, focused on both the male and female demographics, as opposed to just the male?”.
- Produce a piece of artwork for each day of the month of October.
- Compile Inktober’s work into a published book, available for sale. This book will include the final artwork along with process images, and will be between 60-80 pages.
- I want to incorporate the artistic principle of negative space into my work.
Gallery & Time Lapse Videos

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Project Wrap up

Book Announcement

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October 1, 2016
Regret in Creation | Myst Fan Art

Mysterium, the Myst convention, is making its way to my hometown this year, and they had open submissions for art for their convention book. I caught wind of this just a few days before submissions were due, but I couldn’t miss the chance to show a little Myst fandom.

(SPOILERS AHEAD in the next paragraph, no spoilers after this next paragraph)
This pieces features Catherine in a state of remorse for the burden of being able to create ages (worlds that are created by writing books, which you can then enter into), but unable to save them. The Moiety Dagger is a symbol of the group that she helped in Riven (Age 5), and despite her efforts, the age still fell apart. Even though she did not write the Riven age, she must feel the burden that any world she creates has the potential to fail, with the loss of life.

I have very fond memories of this game, as I used to watch my oldest sister play it, along with with a few of my other siblings, when I was young. I was always fascinated by the environments, and the immersive sense of foreboding that engulfs the game. As I got older, and was able to solve some of the puzzles, the game became even more immersive for me, and I was hooked. I soon played Riven, and Exile (Myst III) and the experience was further enhanced by better audio better graphics, more acting, and an even more engrossing story.

The story is simply awesome. Taking steam-punk elements and god-like powers of creating worlds and people, with the premise of absolute power corrupts absolutely and what do you do when it does corrupt, is fascinating, and makes for a unique adventure with every game. This includes the three novels as well, well written, and a must read for Myst fans.

A may do a few more illustrations based on the some of the other thumbnail sketches future.

May 10, 2016
Inktober 2015 Book | First Published Collection

Already a month away from Inktober, and I haven’t been too involved in the social media department at all. There is good reason for that though. During this month, I have been working on assembling my Inktober work into a printable book format. My first publicly published collection of my artwork.

As many of you already know, I work primarily digitally. My paintings, sketches, inks, everything, all digital. This obviously has it’s benefits, but it also has some big cons that come with the convenience. The first and the most nagging for me is the fact that I don’t have a physical copy of my artwork for preservation, and for sharing with others. I have done prints before with a normal inkjet/toner printer, or through a printer like Inkleys, Walmart, or Costco. These options work, but these printers don’t really tailor to the visual artist, and, as a result, prints come out lackluster, and in some case, I don’t have the option to compile multiple images into book format. It also feels like a “You get what you pay for.” situation.

I set out to find a on-demand printer who tailors to printing pictures/artwork. After looking at popular self publishing websites, like Lulu and Amazon, I discovered that most on-demand printers are tailored to writers, with some options for artists. I then stumbled onto Blurb.

I decided to take my chance with them, as their store included a ton of content that other independent artists have produced, and after reading quite a few positive comments about their services and final printing results. The shear number of tools available to the would-be self-publisher are abundant, with their own custom software (BookWright), In Design, or Scribus, all viable options for prepping your content. This was important to me as well because I work exclusively in open source software with my art. I used Krita for my art, Inkscape for logos, Blender for my video content, and Scribus for my book layout. Looking up specs for the book size you want is easy, along with a useful “Help” section, putting together my final book was time consuming but easy. The only downside to this experience were the limited size options for books. They don’t provide a “custom” option for size, but they cover the basic sizes well, with my book having a final size of 8″x10″ (I wished I had a taller format book to work with, as most of my work was 11×17).

Speaking of the final book, it was better than I expected. The print came out beautifully in the softcover format. The cover was a lamminated gloss, while the inside has a slight gloss. The blacks and other colors came out great.

Inktober 2015 – William Thorup by William F. Thorup

My book is finally up for sale at Blurb and I will encourage your support by asking to purchase a physical or digital copy. If you purchase by December 11th with the promo code GIFTS30, you will get a 30% discount, which is awesome!

Softcover – $36.00 (USD)

Hardcover (Printed Cover) – $55.00 (USD)

Linen Hardcover (Printed Dust Jacket) – $58.00 (USD)

PDF (DRM Free!) – $6.99 (USD)

The book contains all 31 pieces from Inktober, bueatifully printed, along with a 15 pages of sketches and thumbnails that help illustrate my process to the final inking. Please let me know what you think of the final collection, as I am hoping to publish a few more books in the near future of some of my current work, and any feedback will be valuable. Also, if you haven’t seen my work for Inktober yet, you can view it all for free in here, or on Instagram.

A special thanks for Michael Buhler, Sarah Bailey, Trevor Rimmasch, and Isaac Christiansen for their knowledge and help polishing the final book.

December 11, 2015