Big Lake Artist Flips The Table On Her Love Of Board Gaming

BIG LAKE (WJON News) -- Big Lake artist and graphic designer Jody Henning joined Table Talk (WJON's bi-weekly show on board gaming) on Saturday to discuss her career doing artwork for board games. Henning attended Alexandria High School and then went to Alexandria Technical and Community College for Communication Art and Design.

Get our free mobile app

After graduating she worked for a newspaper in Washington D.C., then became a stay-at-home mom. After several years at home, she started to get back into her artwork and a chance meeting at a convention got her started with board game art:

"Through a mutual friend, Travis from at that point he was in Atlas Games, introduced us to Prolific Games, which was John and Bill, and we just kind of started talking and they were like oh you do graphic design and I was like yeah, you know I dabble."

That first game was "Witch Slapped" by Prolific Games. After doing art for a "Flapjacks and Sasquatches" expansion Henning found the word about her spreading and she started doing art for more and more games and designing Kickstarter crowdfunding webpages. She says it is incredible to see her artwork hit the table:

"It's been neat to be a gamer ahead of time and so I kind of like understood how games work and how the different the user experiences are and then to be able to do art for games and see people play the games, it's been really fun."

She says after a few years she was creating art and designing so much for Trick or Treat Studios they hired her on full-time. Henning has done the artwork for over 20 games for Trick or Treat Studios now and has been with them for three years. Henning is currently working on a new game for Trick or Treat Studios but couldn't reveal what it is just yet.

Our game expert, William Pankratz from Games by James, was also on and discussed two new games that recently arrived at their stores, "Kelp," and "Rebel Princess." "Kelp" is a two-player asymmetrical game in which players take on the role of a shark or an octopus. The octopus player is trying to hide while the shark player is trying to find/hunt them down.  "Rebel Princess" is a trick-taking game played over five rounds where players try to avoid taking tricks that contain Prince Charming or the Enchanted Frog.

Wiliam also told us that kids can Trick or Treat at any Games by James store on Halloween Day to get a free set of dice. Table Talk airs at 8:10 a.m. every other Saturday opposite the Woods Garden Show on AM1240, 93.9 FM WJON. The next show is on November 2nd.

READ MORE FROM AUTHOR PAUL HABSTRITT:

• A Pillar Of Little Falls Community Celebrates 120th Anniversary
• Tri-County Humane Society’s Companion Walk A Howling Good Time
• Como Park Zoo Announces Historic Two New Additions
• Rocori Students Unlock History As They Bring A Park Back To Life
• Sartell Coach Making Wheels On The Bus Go Round & Round
• Red Truck Ice Cream Rolls Into The Hearts Of Cold Spring