Very early on in the development of Fallen Gods, while researching runestones, I had the idea of using one to tell the world’s backstory. When I found Cleo’s gallery, I found with it the one artist on earth seemingly able to execute what I described as “my dream, although I'm skeptical that it could be executed”: that the lore of the world be “depicted in a single continuous illustration, like a Norse-style carving on a runestone, but in an outward spiral from the center.” Cleo’s laconic reply: “Feasible, but really challenging.” Needless to say, Cleo rose to the challenge.
Almost a decade later, I reached out to Cleo to see if she’d be interested in writing about creating the runestone. Cleo immediately agreed but also wanted to use the skills developed in the intervening years to make Fallen Gods’ main menu screen a suitable vehicle for the original spiral carving. And, again, Cleo delivered... not only the new screen, but also the breathtaking new logo for the game.
So, without further ado, I turn the floor over to the artist.
-Mark Y.
Mark: Knotwork, runestones, and traditional Norse/Celtic art have been a focus of your work for over a decade. How did that interest begin, and what do you find most appealing about that kind of art?
Cleo: My mom is a jeweler/goldsmith and once bought a book about Celtic designs to use as patterns for jewelry. Once I got a hold of that book I was fascinated with knotwork designs at first sight.
I started out copying the designs from that book and later began doodling my own creations, which grew ever more complex over time. Eventually, they were seemingly good enough that I started to get requests for tattoo commissions online, which became the backbone in my early years of being a freelancer.
As I picked up more diverse artistic skills in my studies, and refined the ones that I already had, the kind of commissions that I am doing have now shifted away from knotwork designs towards 3D visualization and character illustration. I still get the occasional commission for Celtic or Norse knotwork art, but not nearly as much as in the beginning.
Personally, I find it somewhat meditative to draw knotwork designs. Also, I love busy ornamentation/visual noise, where your eyes have to actively go around the image to look for all the hidden details, and follow every twisted line from its origin to its end. The spiral design for the menu stone itself is a pretty good example of this.
Mark: The Fallen Gods knotwork tells the story of the game’s setting in a single widening spiral. Can you explain some of the techniques you used to weave its scenes and elements into a single unified image?
Cleo: I made the spiral in my very first year of being a freelancer. I didn’t have the best tools back then: I only had an A4 scanner, and I’m pretty sure I didn’t have my lightboard yet. So it was more complicated than if I had done it nowadays—nowadays I’d probably have made it digitally from the start. The original spiral illustration was done on five separate pieces of A4 paper that each had a part of the spiral that had to match at the seams if rotated. Those were then arranged digitally and incorporated into the runestone illustration.
Mark: Your initial rendering of the knotwork and runestone in early 2015 was part of your application portfolio to university. Almost a decade later, you came back to the project to update the runestone and craft the game’s logo and main menu. Did your approach change at all with the passage of time?
Cleo: My general approach has definitely changed since then.
Regarding the knotwork, I have better tools now that make my work easier than it used to be back then. Nowadays I’d also use different line weights in the knotwork designs to make the details pop a bit more. Also nowadays I make all sketches digitally for easy iteration; the final design is either traditional, or digital depending on what my customers need. Overall, apart from the fact that I developed a better general sense of composition since then, my approach and workflow there has largely stayed the same.
My approach and workflow have changed for everything else that isn’t knotwork designs. I’ve learned a lot in those nine years and honed my artistic skills. I offered to completely rework the background from scratch and large parts of the runestone, except for the knotwork, which I left as is. The old version of the menu screen was very lacking artistically, had the wrong aspect ratio, and terrible layer management on top of that. The new version looks a lot more professional and allows for some dynamic effects with the layers.
The logo I approached from my ornamentation-designer angle since I’ve always loved ornamental logo designs. Minimalist graphic design is not what I do, so of course there had to be at least some knot-ornaments in the logo! Of course I was also very conscious about not overdoing it too much, readability was still the primary concern here, all the while offering more to the eye than just the game’s name. I made several initial designs in different styles and colors, and we settled on the one with the more Celtic-looking uncial font.
