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It was 1999, I was in the process of starting Portal Games and I was looking for an artist to do a cover art for my first product. Finally, I found a guy. It was pretty challenging – in 1999 there was no internet galleries, no DeviantArt, no emails, no Facebook. Founding a guy was quite a task.
He lived nearby, like 10 miles from my home, so I visited him at his house and discussed the possibility to do a cover art for us. His works – real oil paintings on canvas – were stunning. I really wanted him onboard. When I was leaving, he said something like: „BTW: my little bro plays RPG too. Want to meet him?”
It sounded like: I have a 10-year-old brother and he plays D&D with his classmates.
Trust me, I definitely didn’t want to meet his little bro. But most definitely I needed the cover art. I said „Sure!”
The little bro turned out to be 24 years old pal. He played RPG for more than 10 years. He knew 10 times more about games than I did. He became my associate for many years and my best friend. Little bro, my ass.
***
It was 2000, we had a very small office in the downtown Gliwice, very close to the local college. One day doors opened and young dude entered. „Yes?” I asked.
„I study here at the college and I pass this street each day and I saw the sign that you are a publisher. I have some drawings if you are interested…”
Random dude from the street. Yeah, color me freaking excited…
But Michał Oracz told him to show what he had with him. Michał is the temple of kindness.
He showed some pencil drawings. It was ok but did not blow my mind. I said that we will contact him. When he left, Michał Oracz said: „This dude has a real talent. I mean it. Real talent. If he works hard, he will be top notch. We do hire him.’
I trusted Michał. We worked with dude for years. He did artwork for Neuroshima RPG, Neuroshima Hex and many other. We played board games and football together for years and become very close friends.
***
It was 2004 I think. We run art contest for a young artists and we received this amazing entry from a dude. We contacted him. To our surprise, he lived nearby. We asked him to visit our office. He came next day. It turned out he studied – believe it or not – at the same college next to our office like the other guy. He brought more of his works. Amazing stuff.
Long story short, I hired the dude, he did cover and board for Stronghold, cards for 51st State and many other our projects. We became friends.
***
Little bro from the story is Michał Oracz. The designer of Neuroshima Hex, This War of Mine and a ton of other projects. His Nemesisgame, which he developed and produced, just a few weeks ago made 3 million pounds and became 7th most successful board game in the history of Kickstarter.
The young student who passed our office each day going to school is Tomasz Jędruszek. He became an international star – he is the guy who created for you all iconic visuals for Game of Throne. Both covers – cover for Game of Thrones the board game and cover for Game of Thrones LCG are his work, a ton of cards and promo materials – all of that is Tomek. You think GoT, you see his work.
The dude from the contest, who lived next to our city, is Mariusz Gandzel. Not only he does today work for Privater Press, not only for Cthulhu RPG, but he did more than 50 amazing art pieces for best-selling X-Wing. When you play X-Wing, most likely ship art you are looking at is a piece from Mariusz.
All these guys live around 30 miles from each other, with Gliwice and Portal being a center on the map. And just for a sake of notes, the guy from Gliwice, Ignacy Trzewiczek is this dude who did Robinson Crusoe, Imperial Settlers and a couple of other games that became quite a popular.
***
I might be exaggerating, but I’d risk a thesis that this area of 30 miles around the city of Gliwice has an insane ratio of board game influencers living on a square meter. It’s a small city but apparently put quite the stamp on the hobby.
Originally posted on BTTS Blog on BGG Forum: https://boardgamegeek.com/blogpost/74826/30-miles-radius
