Eric Hotz is a

graphic artist A graphic designer is a professional within the graphic design and graphic arts industry who assembles together images, typography, or motion graphics to create a piece of design. A graphic designer creates the graphics primarily for published, p ...

and

illustrator An illustrator is an artist who specializes in enhancing writing or elucidating concepts by providing a visual representation that corresponds to the content of the associated text or idea. The illustration may be intended to clarify complicat ...

Early life and education

He was born in

Burnaby Burnaby is a city in the Lower Mainland region of British Columbia, Canada. Located in the centre of the Burrard Peninsula, it neighbours the City of Vancouver to the west, the District of North Vancouver across the confluence of the Burrard I ...

, British Columbia, Canada and studied at

Simon Fraser University Simon Fraser University (SFU) is a public research university in British Columbia, Canada, with three campuses, all in Greater Vancouver: Burnaby (main campus), Surrey, and Vancouver. The main Burnaby campus on Burnaby Mountain, located from ...

Langara College , mottoeng = Knowledge is Freedom , established = April 1, 1994 , type = Public , endowment = C$5.8 million , administrative_staff = , faculty = , president = Paula Burns , students = 22,000 , city = Vancouver, British Columbia , coun ...

, and

Capilano College Capilano University (CapU) is a teaching-focused public university based in North Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, located on the slopes of the North Shore Mountains, with programming that also serves the Sea-to-Sky Corridor and the Sunshin ...

, mainly studying

archaeology Archaeology or archeology is the scientific study of human activity through the recovery and analysis of material culture. The archaeological record consists of artifacts, architecture, biofacts or ecofacts, sites, and cultural landscap ...

art history Art history is the study of aesthetic objects and visual expression in historical and stylistic context. Traditionally, the discipline of art history emphasized painting, drawing, sculpture, architecture, ceramics and decorative arts; yet today ...

fine arts In European academic traditions, fine art is developed primarily for aesthetics or creative expression, distinguishing it from decorative art or applied art, which also has to serve some practical function, such as pottery or most metalwork ...

and

commercial art Commercial art is the art of creative services, referring to art created for commercial purposes, primarily advertising. Commercial art uses a variety of platforms (magazines, websites, apps, television, etc.) for viewers with the intent of promo ...

Career

Hotz worked for First Encounter Magazine (DELF) 1983 to 1984, and Columbia Games Inc. from 1984 to 2000, and was the in-house illustrator, production editor, and cartographer for their '' Hârn'' books. He did the design and art for the role-playing game '' High Colonies'' (1988) for Waterford Publishing House Ltd. He produced many of Columbia's interior color, black

line art Line art or line drawing is any image that consists of distinct straight lines or curves placed against a background (usually plain), without gradations in shade (darkness) or hue (color) to represent two-dimensional or three-dimensional object ...

, map work, cover art, for their Hârn (an RPG world) books line as well board game map art for their

board game Board games are tabletop games that typically use . These pieces are moved or placed on a pre-marked board (playing surface) and often include elements of table, card, role-playing, and miniatures games as well. Many board games feature a comp ...

lines (Rommel In The Desert, EastFront, WestFront, 1812, Bobby Lee, Sam Grant, and many other titles) including their cover art, and rules book line art. In 1992 he started working freelance for Columbia Games, and eventually also worked freelance for companies/publishers like:

TSR, Inc. TSR, Inc. was an American game publishing company, best known as the original publisher of ''Dungeons & Dragons'' (''D&D''). Its earliest incarnation, Tactical Studies Rules, was founded in October 1973 by Gary Gygax and Don Kaye. Gygax had bee ...

(''

Dungeons & Dragons ''Dungeons & Dragons'' (commonly abbreviated as ''D&D'' or ''DnD'') is a fantasy tabletop role-playing game (RPG) originally designed by Gary Gygax and Dave Arneson. The game was first published in 1974 by TSR (company)#Tactical Studies Rules ...

''),

Wizards of the Coast Wizards of the Coast LLC (often referred to as WotC or simply Wizards) is an American publisher of games, primarily based on fantasy and List of science fiction themes, science fiction themes, and formerly an operator of retail stores for ga ...

(''

Talislanta ''Talislanta'' is a fantasy role-playing game written by Stephen Michael Sechi and published by Bard Games in 1987. There have been six different English-language editions and several foreign language editions published. All English-language pr ...

'' and ''

''),

White Wolf Publishing White Wolf Publishing was an American roleplaying game and book publisher. The company was founded in 1991 as a merger between Lion Rampant

('' Vampire: The Dark Ages'' and '' Werewolf: The Apocalypse''),

Atlas Games Atlas Games is a company which publishes role-playing games, board games and card games. Its founder and current president is John Nephew. History When Atlas Games did not have the finances to publish '' On the Edge'' (1994), they partnered with J ...

Avalon Hill Avalon Hill Games Inc. is a game company that publishes wargames and strategic board games. It has also published miniature wargaming rules, role-playing games and sports simulations. It is a subsidiary of Hasbro, and operates under the company' ...

, and many other RPG/Game publishers. Some of his notable works include the entirety of the card art for the

trading card game A collectible card game (CCG), also called a trading card game (TCG) among other names, is a type of card game that mixes strategy game, strategic deck building elements with features of trading cards, introduced with ''Magic: The Gathering'' in ...

s, ''Dixie'' and ''Eagles'' (both published by Columbia Games Inc.), of which over 1,000 cards were illustrated within a period of a year and a half. More recently, he has been working more for himself, creating ''Whitewash City'', a large set of PDF wild west cardstock buildings, which he researched and designed from historical sources, many from actual surviving

Old West The American frontier, also known as the Old West or the Wild West, encompasses the geography, history, folklore, and culture associated with the forward wave of American expansion in mainland North America that began with European colonial ...

buildings. He also created ''Roman Seas'', recreating authentic Roman

warship A warship or combatant ship is a naval ship that is built and primarily intended for naval warfare. Usually they belong to the armed forces of a state. As well as being armed, warships are designed to withstand damage and are usually faster a ...

s and merchant ships in PDF file format for paper construction. Eric has also been known to take on the occasional art project,

logo A logo (abbreviation of logotype; ) is a graphic mark, emblem, or symbol used to aid and promote public identification and recognition. It may be of an abstract or figurative design or include the text of the name it represents as in a wordma ...

design, spot illustrations for various book publishers, Llewellyn projects (

tarot card The tarot (, first known as ''trionfi (cards), trionfi'' and later as ''tarocchi'' or ''tarocks'') is a pack of playing cards, used from at least the mid-15th century in various parts of Europe to play card games such as Tarocchini. From their ...

illustration), and much more. In 2005, he founded his own company, Hotz ArtWorks, and has also begun a line of silk-screened felt game mats (felt products) from his studio in Canada. In addition, Eric Hotz was the co-author of the Online comic strip, ''Larry Leadhead'' from 2000 through September 2012. Beginning in September 2012-2019 Hotz also worked in the educational field as a creative director for educational teaching companies. In February 2020, Hotz had his first solo art show at the MAC art gallery in Mission, BC, Canada where he featured paintings and illustrations on natural history subjects.

References

External links

Official website
* *YouTube Podcast: First Encounter Magazine/DELF: January 25, 2020. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vWsArmQMVvU Langara College people Living people People from Burnaby Role-playing game artists Simon Fraser University alumni Year of birth missing (living people) {{D&D-stub