illustration

Håndbok for Unge Antirasister

I had the joy to work on a children’s book for Norway’s lead publisher, Cappelen Damm. “Hånbok for unge antirasister” is written by Tinashe Williamson and aimed at kids ages 10-12. It discusses racism in Norway and is a tool for children and families to discuss difficult topics relating to race.

This book is in line with everything that I value as a person and an artist. Representation and focus on the younger generations is the best way that we can make lasting and impactfull change. Furthermore, the book has a set of characters that guide the reader through it and through discussion with eachother and the reader they explain the more difficult concepts in the book. This gave me the incredible task of designing the characters and that is where i started.

 

Characters

Without going into too much detail about each character, the main focus of the design was youthfulness and “cool” energy. We wanted them to reflect contemporary styles in a bright and bold way. Contrasts between sharp and soft lines also became a hallmark for the style.

Below are some of the early sketches for the characters.

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Cover

The cover was a big undertaking with many rounds of sketching. The cover would have all the characters on it in a positive and empowered way.

Interior

The interior was a massive undertaking and with only one month to complete all the drawings it was absolutely essential to have a good system. I made a comprehensive Excel sheet of the 80 drawings , what page they were on and a brief description of them. Combined with my iPad to computer workflow I managed to keep a high production rate and great flexibility.

Dungeons and Dragons

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This is less of a project and more just for my own satisfaction, but I wanted to highlight some of my D&D art. Specifically a series of drawings I have done to be used as miniatures. They are also drawn in the same style as an exercise in style consistency. To create the mini, I printed out a smaller version of the drawing and laminated it. This was a cheap and efficient way to create a mini true to my vision of the character. Now I am in that position where I cannot make a new D&D character without drawing them in this style.

Queercoded

I was approached by Oliver Darkshire to illustrate two gods from the Dungeons & Dragons pantheon for his re-imagining of D&D characters as queer villains. This addition to a 5E campaign is available for purchase on Dungeon Master’s Guild.

I was asked to design The Raven Queen and Lolth, something I was very excited about since they are two very famous names in D&D lore. This project could not be better suited for me, as a queer woman myself and as someone who is passionate about diverse representation I was thrilled to be able to sink my teeth into this. Since I also love Dungeons & Dragons I was very excited to be featured in work that someone could be using in their campaign.

The Raven Queen

The Raven Queen is a very mysterious god of memory, she has rarely been seen in physical form and I wanted to continue this sense of mystery. Her body is elongated and she is beautiful, but clearly not fully human anymore. She is a deity deeply connected to sorrow and death so the imagery of the veil covering her face creates those associations. Her colour palette is dark and dramatic and her red lips is a reference to Matt Mercer’s interpretations of The Raven Queen from Critical Role Campaign 1.

Below you see one of the ways the art is presented in Queercoded. I love the integration between text and art and think Oliver did a great job presenting all the beautiful work he had commissioned for the book.

Lolth : The Spider Queen

Lolth was a lot more challenging to me than The Raven Queen, mostly because I am deadly afraid of spiders and did have issues with finding reference pictures that did not make my skin crawl. But with help from some friends and a lot of exercises in shutting my brain off, I managed to get through it. For Lolth I wanted her to be maternal and beautiful, I wanted her to feel organic, but also threatening. She is the Spider Queen and main deity of the drow (Dark Elves), I wanted to combine elements of both these things. Drow is largely associated with geometric designs and metalwork featuring less organic curves than Elves in the world above. However, I also wanted to lean heavily into the spider imagery. I had a vision of a woman entirely encapsulated in spiderwebs, her dress is woven and mended as she walks and a host of spiders trail behind her like a cape as she is both their home and their queen. Eggs dot her body like pearls and her red gems glisten like blood, a reference to her signature colour and the harsh nature of her religion.

Oliver opted to not use Lolth in the same way as The Raven Queen, but still featured the art in the book, which was very nice of him.

Barn Owl Trust

2019

As someone with an above-average interest in animals and a deep love for birds I was browsing the Barn Owl Trust website one day and saw they were requesting artists to contact them if they wanted to supply work for the trust. I did just that and didn’t hear anything for a while, until one random autumn day where they reached out requesting work for a new line of merchandise they were producing. Of course I wanted to help and I created two designs based on their pitch and with a few rounds of feedback we had created several completed designs that you can now find on : www.barnowltrust.teemill.com/collection/the-thea-jacobsen-collection/ in what they flatteringly dubbed the “Thea Jacobsen Collection”.

Oak Moon Games Banner

In 2018 I was asked to draw the new social media banner for Oak Moon Games. Oak Moon Games is a fantastic indie game company focusing on promoting women in the gaming industry and strong female representation in games. This is a cause that is very close to my heart so I was thrilled to be able to create a banner representing all different women, playing/creating all different games. Thank you to Alice Winter for approaching me with this task.

You can find Oak Moon Games on www.oakmoongames.com
The banner I created can be seen on Facebook and their other social media.