Jeremy Cranford: Hello, Zoltan and Gabor. I have to say that your artwork is amazing and is really starting to make an impact over here in the States. You know, I talk to a lot of fans who would like to learn a little bit more about you. So, let’s start out by talking about who some of your influences are.
 

Zoltan & Gabor: We get many inspirations from authors, painters, movies, places—many things. The list is very long: Lord of the Rings, Blade Runner, the Alien films, Star Wars IV–VI, Alfred Bester, Ray Bradbury, Stanislaw Lem, Stapleton, W. Gibson, Asimov, G. Martinov, the Strugatsky brothers, W. Jeschke, Tolkien, Feist, Robert Jordan, and many artists, such as Frank Frazetta, H. R. Giger, Sead Mead, Moebius, Billal, William Turner, Repin, Shishkin, Donato Giancola, Todd Lockwood, Jeremy Jarvis, Michael Whelan, and so on.

J.C.: That’s quite a list. I know you have a mixed-media approach to your paintings. Could you talk about your painting process?

Z. & G.: We start out with acrylic on illustration paper, and then we work on our Wacom Cintiq to finish the pieces using Photoshop and Painter.

J.C.: Your painted work on the World of Warcraft TCG has been amazing. Can you talk about why you enjoy working on this game so much?

Z. & G.: The WoW TCG is a unique world. What we like about it is the tale-like visuals—the Beauty and Beast [aspect]. :) We prefer the beautiful women, like the elf hunter girl in the WoW intro, and the brutal monsters, like Infernal, taurens, dragons, and so on. One of our recent paintings featured one of our favorite characters in [the WoW universe]: Magtheridon.

J.C.: Yeah, that packaging art you created for the Magtheridon’s Lair Raid Deck was great. You also painted a huge mural of Magtheridon surrounded by the Channelers that was split across five cards in the set. Can you talk about some of the challenges for a project like that?

Z. & G.: The biggest challenge with the Channelers mural was the scale; we had to fit a complex composition into an extreme size. Furthermore, all five cards had to work together in one composition, and each had to be strong enough to stand alone on a single card.

Another problem was the size of Magtheridon—from a normal perspective, he is at least as tall as [he is] wide. We had to find a viewpoint that we could use to show his most typical attributes, and we had to insert the Channelers into this viewpoint, too.

Also, during the development of this illustration the concept changed, so we had to remove some figures from the cards. Fortunately, we use mixed techniques, so we could use the advantages of the digital technique, without visible clues.

In general, we use digital retouching on our original works, while still avoiding the “plastic or digital” feeling. Usually, we don’t make colored sketches, but this work was so complex that we wanted to play it safe, so we did it.

J.C.: I knew that would be a tough assignment, but I also knew you guys could pull it off. You know it’s rare to find two artists who work so well together and create such great work. Can you talk a little about how you two met and managed to work together all these years?

Z. & G.: Our high-school friendship, born from the fact that both of us lived far from home in the residence halls of Budapest Secondary School of Fine Arts, blossomed into our first common project right in the very first year when we created illustrations for Galaktika, one of Hungary’s most popular science-fiction magazines. Then, we started the [professional] work together in 1989 after the University years. We got various assignments—fantasy and sci-fi book covers, collectible card game illustrations, storyboards, concepts for movies, PC and console games, illustrations for RPG core books, and many more.

[In] time, we started using a special working method of collective concepts, sketches, and brainstorming. [There] was continuous feedback from [each] other. Both of us are capable of doing any part of the work. We do everything together—sketching, painting, and almost every kind of composing. This kind of cooperation makes our paintings coherent and unique artwork, and it’s an opportunity for superfast brainstorming and instant feedback from each other. It makes the work process much easier. We accept [each] other’s ideas, arguments, and dictums, but in some cases, we reconsider the other’s conception. We complement each other, and we can work together very well. Our main technique is analog. Before we bought our computer [equipment], we had worked with only acrylics and airbrushes. Analog approximation has many advantages. [We eventually] got digital tools and started to integrate the digital techniques, especially into the post-working phase. Now, more than twenty years of drawing and painting are behind us.

J.C.: And here’s to another twenty years! Thanks for your time and for giving us a little insight into your world.