Eternity: Hi Meek! I have been playing Hobowars for some time now, I'm a big fan of the work you did... how did it come about, did you play the game or were you commissioned?

Meek: Hey there, and thanks for the kind words! I started playing Hobowars right as I was starting Grad School to get my Masters in Illustration. About a year into playing, Andy put up a job posting saying he needed art sort of similar to Grand Theft Auto and I sent him some samples. We worked out terms and I was hired!

Eternity: I checked your website, but couldn't find any Hobowars art. Do you know of any online gallery?

Meek: Hobowars is so far in my past work (I think the bulk of it was done over 5-8 years ago?) that I feel like it's not as strong next to my current portfolio. I'm not sure there is a full gallery of it anywhere.

Eternity: I understand that. I can see how your art has developed stylistically - a lot more detail and texture. Your art is however very important to the low brow character of the game, especially as it is otherwise text based. Do you still have any originals, or high res scans? Essentially making a request for prints possible?

Meek: I had a lot of fun making the art and I'm glad I did it! It was really fun to be part of the community for so many years too. I used to have about a phonebook high stack of boards of original art but it seems to have gone missing in my last move. I do have high resolution files of all the art created though. I think prints would definitely be possible! Did you have favourite pieces of art?

Eternity: I remember loving a lot of the art through the adventures, but also like the scene of hobo's just relaxing around the park. Also, the little details in all the rings and food items - like half a sandwich naan.

Meek: I'm really glad to hear you liked the art so much. I tried to put a lot of thought into the small details and I'm sure a lot of the mood was a part of my living and working in San Francisco the entire time I was making art for the game. When I first started doing work for the game, I liked doing the larger pictures and hated making item pictures, but by the end I loved the challenge of getting the correct readable details into small items and trying to make them charming.

Eternity: Did you work on other online games?

Meek: I did little bits of work for other games, but nothing significant. I produced a bit of work for Clown Wars but that never really got off the ground. I did a lot for two other games for Andy that never saw the light either- Rise of Egypt and Rise of Rome, which were....very not historically accurate.

Eternity: What is your ambition as an artist?

Meek: I always want to be improving my craft. I don't want to plateau or feel like I've done the same thing the same way over and over and that's it for the rest of my life. I want to feel like I'm always learning how to do things better or more interestingly. For content, I have really been enjoying exploring doing parodies of famous pictures and photos with Star Wars and comicbook characters. It blends my love of history and pop culture nerdy stuff.

Eternity: That's really cool Albert. Thanks for your answers, I will see if anyone else has a questions for you.

Albert Nguyen's Website: http://www.knewwhen.com/