I grew out my beard for this
I’ve always loved drawing, ever since I was a kid. Finished swimming at Coney Island? Draw Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. Free time in third grade? Draw Beast Wars. Bored in high school statistics? Draw Nintendo characters.
Now, I draw professionally (comparative skill level probably about the same, let’s be honest). I’ve gained a lot of experience and a lot of skills since making the switch to full time art and illustration. The journey has taken quite a few years to get to its current quest marker. A fully illustrated comic, consignments, an online store, multiple art shows and two whole registered businesses in my quest log – but all of it began with Crazy Beard Entertainment.
Logan and I met when he enrolled his sophomore year at Ohio Wesleyan University. We had an empty spot in our quad after one of my roommates got in trouble for stashing weed in the radiator. I had already duct taped my previous roommates mattress to mine to form a mega bed, so Logan got the middle common room none of us really used. Charmed by his knowledge of tech and mostly because he had a PS3 he let me basically commandeer for the remainder of the semester while I procrastinated my Ancient Greek studies (please don’t ask why I chose Ancient Greek for my language credit requirement, I implore you), we became fast friends – even if we didn’t really have the time to hang out all that much due to school. My senior year we roomed in a double together and once again I commandeered his PS3 to play Skyrim all semester (is this why I know more about Molag Bal than I do about Environmental Geography?).
Long story short, I am easily swayed by a person who lets me play their video games and I end up forming a loving and loyal attachment to them that they may or may not share. Thankfully Logan did share that and I sent him a dumb drawing in 2013 and he asked me to be a part of his new video game development studio he was founding!
The work I’ve had the pleasure to do over the past few years has been a result of ripples through webs of connections that would never have occurred without knowing the founders of Crazy Beard Entertainment.
The best part of working with Logan and his father, Garry, will always be the Smaug-horde-like wealth of ideas they come up with for which I can make concepts and artwork. Seriously, its endless! But as Lead Artist I couldn’t ask for better. With our small team it will certainly be best to start small. We’re as indie and indie gets (budget? What’s a budget?). But, we’re a small team with big ideas for what makes video games fun, even if what we make is only a few levels long for now.
It all starts with an idea and a pencil to draw with – and it’s an honor to be holding the pencil.
Qapla’,
Paul Gruber – Lead Artist, Crazy Beard Entertainment
