Nauti
Artist | Illustrator | Graphic designer | Space artist | Tabletop game designer & developer | Storyteller | Creator
Education:
Bachelors degree in Graphic Arts and Intermedia (Grafická a intermediální tvorba) at UHK
currently studying for my masters degree in teaching and art
Residing in:
Czech Republic
Currently working on:
- Canasta: NOMA edition
- Cat Quartets card game
- Fables of NOMA
- Stories from Bel Aetherm
- Space Poems
A little more...
Art has always been a deep-rooted part of my life, especially when things got difficult. Whenever life got in the way, whenever my mental health worsened, art has always been there.
I've been drawing here and there ever since I could pick up a pencil, yet mostly my motivations were only portraying characters for my novels; sometimes I did fanarts as well.
For quite a while, I held myself to a specific standart, never experimenting, and keeping myself in some sort of an artistic cage.
The biggest change came probably with my university course "Graphic Arts and Intermedia". And although some may tell you that art school/art uni won't teach you anything, or be against art schools in general, I can definitely say that choosing this programme changed the course of my life and art. Not only did it give me opportunities to learn things I needed to know - from art history all the way to figural drawings, anatomy, portraits and shading - it has also given me so many opportunities to come out of my self-made shell. No longer was my art "OC portrait only" thing; suddenly I was learning how to do posters, touched on the topic of abstract art, experimented with graphic design, and saw artistic fun in things I didn't consider that much fun before.
All of this discovery of a new art world have culminated to a point - a project that probably made the biggest change of my life so far. Changed the trajectory of my life.
That project being the board game NOMA, my bachelor's thesis.
Creating an entire board game out of scratch was honestly an overly ambitious idea and I have no way of understanding just how the hell did I manage to finish this project on time. But maybe thanks to the aggresive deadline that I couldn't push without paying massive fees to my university, I did my best to finish this work right on time, complete and without any flaws that were pointed out during many testings.
And it wasn't only the admiration and even praise from my university teachers (which feels pretty awesome as it is, let's be honest), it wasn't all about the fact that I graduated thanks to this game, but it was the fact that I managed to do this, managed to finish this and saw myself as something more than a simple sketcher, that changed the way I approach my work. No longer is art "just another sketch to throw in the pile"; finally again, my art feels valuable and worth something, worth being seen.
Ever since NOMA began to be in development, I felt like my art may have its purpose, and the purpose is fun and aesthetic pleasure combined. Creating works that are not only pleasant to look at, but works that also bring fun in the way of board and card games.
Since then, I've started doing my art with certain purpose. I design board games - both its core mechanics and visual design. I illustrate. I create space art. I redesign some typical card games. I'm even starting to write novels to illustrate in the future.
For the first time in ages, I feel like my art is something. Something that can move people, in a way.
