The Interview: Beach

Our guest for tonight (?) has been in the Old Game for almost 20 years. Some claim to say that he’s the only living user that saw Bob‘s true face. We’ll never know.

Beach (6844217) has been, since 2000, Hattrick’s official illustrator. The pixel art from the first players faces were his design/idea: https://wiki.hattrick.org/wiki/Player_face
A decade later (actually, by the end of 2008), our man came up with the current faces and replaced the old ones. We had to get used to the new looks of our beloved players and we were all so happy until this year, when HT-Johan announced that our guys will go under plastic surgery once again.

Although we are reaching Beach because of these news, we have to mention that he’s been involved in all of the art pieces we see in the Game (Christmas/Halloween backgrounds, cartoons, icons, etc.). But anyway, let’s go to the interview!

 

Hi Beach, let’s start easy. Tell us your name, job, where are you from.
My pleasure. My name is Beach. I’m a full-time illustrator and I live and work in the UK.

What is the main target of your work? Newspapers, magazines, books, gaming, advertising?
I have worked across all of those over the years. The important thing for me is not so much where my work ends up but whether I enjoy making it.

What tools/software do you use?
The usual suspects: pencil, paper, photoshop, illustrator. For hattrick, all of the work is created in Illustrator although it often starts life as a pencil sketch.

You started playing the Green Game a long time ago in 2000, just by the time HT-Johan and HT-Daniel offered Björn to turn his hobby game into a true business. What do you remember from back then?
The game has obviously evolved over the last 20 years but I think hattrick has managed to stay remarkably true to its roots. The feeling I get from playing it is still very similar to the feeling I got when I first played back in 2000.

Was the first contact with Björn? What did they ask for?
My first contact was with Johan. I honestly can’t remember what the first request was for! I do remember designing a lot of banner ads in the early days so it could have been something like that. Initially I signed up for a team simply to find out a little more about the game but I soon became hooked as a player.

As from 2000 you created certain characters that walked with us while becoming managers of our clubs. In «Training» section we’d see this funny trainee with a cone on his head. Somewhere on the site we had the referee showing a red card to a bunny. In HT Mail section there was the cool guy who read «FAN MAIL».
But what about that rather chubby, untrustworthy looking figure wearing a yellow jacket… is he the team coach, club manager or foreign investor?
In my head he has always been the manager, but I guess he could be all three of those. Football managers are often very colourful, larger-than-life characters, so he is inspired by a few different real life figures.

On December 2008, some of us saw a big change in the looks of the site but, most importantly on the faces of those we cared the most: our players.
You abandoned the pixel art for a new, more cartoonish, style. What was your approach then? What were you looking for with that new look?
I really liked the pixel art faces but they were perhaps getting a bit dated in terms of style. The main brief from hattrick was to inject some more character, personality and fun into the faces and to create as much variety as possible within the constraints of the system. Obviously the faces are generated automatically but my main goal was to design them in such a way that they didn’t look like they were assembled by an algorhithim, but instead looked as if each one had been individually created out of a character designer’s imagination.

Let’s move forward in time: When Johan called and told you to start thinking on a new style for players’ faces after 11 years, what did you take on consideration? where did you look for inspiration? what was the main challenge?
We’ve been talking about new faces for some time but it took me a while to find a style that everyone was happy to take forward. Creatively, the main challenge is to ensure that players are recognisably the same people. The pixel art faces were all so similar that anything I did was always going to look very different. But with the new faces it’s important to be able to retain the players’ facial characteristics while at the same time making them look different in terms of style.

Do you read the forums to get feedback on the work you do?
I do read the forums but I don’t actually come across that much discussion about my work. Other than about the seasonal wallpapers of course 🙂

How much «traditional» and how much «digital» is your work?
For Hattrick it’s all digital, but across all my clients I am probably about 50/50 digital vs traditional.

How much time of your day do you spend working?
I work Monday to Friday, 9 am to 6 pm. Just like a real job 🙂

Is it important for the artist to save some time to draw for himself (not work related)?
That’s a very good question. Aside from the fact that it’s good for the soul, I think drawing personal work actually helps my career. When clients commission me it’s because they like what I have drawn in the past, and want me to create something similar for them. So the only way I can really push my client work into new areas is to create personal work in those areas first.

Now, back in the DeLorean, what will the players’ faces look like in 15 years?
Ha ha 🙂 I would like to think there would be a number of different face styles users could choose from, but that’s me speaking personally rather than anything hattrick is planning.

Lets talk about what really matters: beards… Shall we expect them for 2020?
Beards are certainly much easier with the new faces. But is it morally right to add beards to players who haven’t had them before? I would want to speak to a philosopher before I could answer the question, I think.

What do you do on your free time? travel? Cycling (saw a lot of this in your site)? TV series? art in general?
I do love cycling, yes. And silkscreen printing. I also play bass in a local band. Outside of work, friends and family those are probably the main things I spend my time doing.

Thank you so much, Beach! It’s been a fun interview!

 

Our friends IG account: @beachomatic
And his website: https://beachy.org/