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Dear white sand and palm lovers, please sit back and relax. After Histrio, Oceanos and Yamataï, it is now Fertility's turn to have an illustrator's diary, which will actually look like sort of a "making-of" diary! I had not put my nose back in my numerous creation files for months, but equipped with my torchlight, I went deep down inside the Great Pyramid to look after my papyrus.
Fertility is a game designed by Cyrille Leroy and published by Catch Up Games that was released in France on October 12, 2018 and also available at SPIEL '18. English rules are available on BGG, and there is also a very nice video of the rules made by Ludema. I will assume that you already know a bit about how the game works and will focus more on the creative process of the game's look. [Editor's note: You can also read or watch my summary of Fertility on BGG News. —WEM]
The Origins
I met the Catch Up Games team during the Ludimania fair in Dijon, France and told them that I would be interested in collaborating with them on a future game. One year later, I received a proposition from them for a project, a project that was not named "Fertility" at that time! Clément from Catch Up explained the rules of the game to me and provided me with an overview of the components involved. There was quite a lot to illustrate there, and this domino-based gameplay was for me the occasion of a brand new take on my illustration job.
At that point, the thematic background for the game had not yet been defined. After Sapiens, a previous game from the same designer and publisher), the idea was to keep a certain sense of chronology. Even if the two games are quite different, they share a domino-based game engine. At the beginning, the team was thinking of a Neolithic, Celtic, or even Ancient Rome setting — but then the idea of Ancient Egypt came to my mind. I actually have always been fascinated by this time in history. I absolutely had to get to illustrate a game with this so specific atmosphere! Moreover, the Nile and its resources, as a symbol of the people's sedentarization, turned to be the perfect environment for Cyrille Leroy's gameplay. In this Ancient Egypt, the focus is not on the pharaohs and gods; instead the main actors are the peasants, those who work hard.
Creation of the Domino Tiles
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Dominos have been the biggest piece of work for the game. I actually had never worked on a game in which everything is very small and seen from the top. I was more used to games in which the art dresses up the components on a larger scale. Here, everything had to be thoroughly studied for the game experience to flow pleasantly.
Here are the first sketches for the dominos:
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The view here was slightly from the top, but still not enough for a domino. The scene had to work whatever its orientation. I needed this step, though, to understand better the direction that had to be adopted. By the way, I was able to re-use several elements from these sketches for later steps.
I made many adjustments to these little domino tiles, regarding the colors and the amount of details that they should include. This has really been a huge work.
Interlude: Fertility Is First of All a Matter of History
I did not know where to include this section, but as I used the domino tiles to illustrate my previous point, I guess there is a certain sense of continuity here. For every element in the game, there is a historical reference. My first inspiration sources were the murals from that era, then the archeological evidence available nowadays, and lastly illustrations from documentary films and scientific popularization documents.
As small as the scenes had to be, I wanted Fertility to be coherent. The characters' attitudes and their environment had to feel true to the spirit of that time. Obviously, I chose to keep a certain freedom of creation. After all, this game's purpose is not to give you a historical class, but still, here are a few of the references I used while creating the valley tiles.
Grape tiles:
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Papyrus flower tiles (inspired by the harvesting of wheat):
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Alabaster tiles:
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The Characters
As mentioned earlier, creating illustrations for a top-down view is neither the easiest, nor the most natural thing. Our everyday natural point of view is to see people from the front, profile, back, or three-quarters. Sometimes it can be slightly from above or under, but almost never from an "aerial" view.
I still wanted my characters to have coherent and complex positions — not for them to be only a ball for the top of the head, with hands. Even seen from the top, they are depicted in specific detailed actions.
To help in that complex aspect, I used action figures, as you can see:
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Monuments
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This was a bit of the "practicum" of the project. I had to create four iconic monuments of Ancient Egypt. This time, unlike for my other games, I personally thought about the ergonomic feasibility of the elements. See:
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Assembling All of the Parts
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Fertility needed an impressive mass of details, but these elements also had to be adapted to the iconography that would be added on top of them. The only solution that I found to optimize the process was to adopt a method that was close to one commonly used in video games. I created several distinct elements called "props" that I re-used several times, a bit like a level designer would. I made a series of vegetables, stones, wooden objects, buildings and containers.
As you seem to be nice people, I cut my papyrus just for you to compose this little image made of a selection of these props:
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The Cover
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In my opinion, the cover is the most important illustration in the game. This is the first contact that players will have with the game. I wanted to make something very illustrated here. As all of the non-cover components would not have a lot of room for illustration because of the need for tiny elements as well as ergonomic purpose, I wanted to put as much as possible on the box. No lie, I have never spent so much time on an image before.
I wanted all of the game elements to be integrated on the box, thus making a completely fantasized scene. This is not Las Vegas, but Fertility, a land where sphinx, pyramid, obelisk and temple all exist together side by side!
Here's a video of this cover, from sketch through multiple stages: Click to see the animation.
The End
And so this is it for this illustrator's diary. I hope that you enjoyed learning more about the creation process of Fertility, a game that I had a great time illustrating. Thanks to Catch up Games and distributor Blackrock Games for their trust, and congratulations to Cyrille Leroy for having designed a family game that is so much fun to play, even for the most expert players.
See you soon!
Jérémie Fleury
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