July 25, 2016: Guest Artist Mike Luckas Answers Our Questions About Legends

Mike Luckas is a talented artist and comic illustrator, so we're pretty excited that he drew the Target-exclusive Munchkin Legends Guest Artist Edition.

So to get a peek into his creative process in drawing the game, we did a little interview. And we didn't even have to threaten him too much to get answers! Below are the fruits of our very mild threats. (Filling someone's house with bees is mild, right?)

1. You first worked with Steve Jackson Games by drawing Munchkin comics. When you got that project, what (if anything) did you already know about Munchkin and the following it has? 

I had played the game a few times during college, but I didn't know much about it outside of what my friends had explained to me during the game, ha ha.

2. What process did you use to develop ideas for the images for Munchkin Legends Guest Artist Edition? 

I looked to a lot of my favorite fantasy-related stuff, mainly JRPGs like Mario RPG, Dragon Quest, and Final Fantasy. My aim was to keep the cartoony feel of the Munchkin series while also capturing the mythology-esque dungeon-crawling spirit of an RPG game.

3. Did you look at the original Munchkin Legends drawings by John Kovalic? 

I definitely did. I was sent a copy of the game to use as reference. I took my own approach for most for the cards, but they helped serve as a guideline for some of the more obscure jokes and monsters. One thing I made sure to do was insert Spyke and Flower wherever I could! Surprisingly, they don't usually show up too much in the card game, ha ha.

4. How was drawing for Munchkin Legends different from drawing for the Munchkin comic? 

Well, there wasn't a script, ha ha. There was less need for rough drafts, too. In fact, after a few concept sketches, I decided to just go right into the final designs. When it comes to the comic, I often have to redraw panels to fix the composition, but there wasn't much redrawing at all for the card designs. It helped me experiment more with the Munchkin style, too. It's different from the way I normally draw, but I think I finally managed to find an approach that I liked – making the characters more squat and round rather than noodle-limbed.

5. What's your favorite card that you drew? 

My favorites were the different Classes, like the Warriors and Elves. The armored woman with the giant sword may be my top favorite of the bunch. I've drawn a similar design in some past illustrations and it was cool to finally find a use for her! Of the monsters, my favorite might be the Cerberus or the Furies. I've always found Greek mythology interesting, so all the Greek monsters were fun to draw!

6. Do you have any upcoming projects fans should watch for?

I have a few personal projects in mind, but we'll have to see what I have the time to accomplish! At the very least, I'm going to start releasing annual sketchbooks at future conventions. I also have some cool stuff coming up for the Munchkin comic series! So keep an eye out for that.

7. How can fans follow your work? 

I'm present on just about every social media site, plus I have my own website. My Tumblr and Instagram pages are best for frequent updates, sketches, and works-in-progress. There's also my Twitter, DeviantArt, and Facebook fan page.

-- Ariel Barkhurst