Most of us probably remember playing board games when we were little, maybe even now when we’re all grown up. Usually, they are designed to be colorful, happy, and fun, but what if they were a little creepier? What if they had blood, gore, and monsters?

Graphic designer Justin Bryant from Nashville decided he would take something as innocent as board games and turn them into horror movie posters, which surprisingly went very well. The posters are quite chilling and horror movie fans would probably like to see them in the theaters. The artist was inspired by Tim Burton and his ability to mix cute and scary aesthetics.

The artist shared what inspired him to create these creepy posters: “When COVID wiped out the tour industry, I essentially lost my job as a merchandise designer. One afternoon, I was going through my hard drive and found an old poster I made of Hungry Hippos during a ‘design a poster every day’ phase in hopes to get better and build a portfolio.”

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Hungry Hippos

Image credits: 1126artstudio

“Bored, I decided to reimagine that idea and see how much better I could execute it with my now seasoned Photoshop skills. When finished, I found I really enjoyed working on it and immediately began creating Candyland, and then from there, my brain went wild with ideas on how to do more. It was a fun series that helped distract me from real life for a while and now it’s bringing so much joy to others. It’s quite incredible!”

The artist described himself, his journey, and what led him to become who he is today: “I’m just your average geek. I’m a lover of pop culture, music, movies, comic books, and video games. As far as my life, I’d say it’s pretty average, haha. Graduated high school and then attended design school for 3 years where I received a Bachelor in Fine Arts. After graduation, I spent a short time designing t-shirts at a local shirt shop before landing an internship in Burbank, CA designing movie posters for 3 months. That experience really changed who I was as a person in many ways, from how I view the world to confirming I knew exactly what I wanted to do, but where I didn’t want to do it. After CA, my wife and I moved to SW Florida and I spent the next 6 years designing merchandise for musicians as a freelancer. My wife and I ended up going through a divorce, which led me to Nashville, TN, where I have spent the last 2 years.”

Candyland

Image credits: 1126artstudio

In our interview with Justin, we also asked what inspires him to create art: “Great question. I think life in general plays a big part in my inspiration. My mind is always working when I’m out and about re-imagining things in a surreal way. I would say pop culture is another big one for me. I’ve always gravitated to movie posters, DVD/CD covers, comic books, etc. and all of those have been a consistent fuel for me.”

Justin shared with us how he started to create art, what got him hooked: “I’ve been told that as soon as I was able, I picked up a crayon and never set it down since. Many stories of wanting to participate in local grocery store coloring contests and being told my entry wasn’t valid because ‘it was clear my parents colored it for me.’ In school, I was always drawing characters from Dragon Ball Z, Marvel, etc. My grandma (dad’s side) is a great traditional painter and growing up, I remember my dad drawing with pencils here and there. That’s definitely where I got my initial talent from but I latched onto it and honestly, never wanted to do anything else.”

Chutes and Ladders

Image credits: 1126artstudio

“I’d say my favorite part of creating is that it’s so freeing and when you’re creating for yourself, not a client, there are no rules. No one can tell you what you can and can’t do, you have full control. My least favorite thing is feeling less than or not good enough. In this age, we gauge our ‘success’ and ‘worth’ based on digital likes and thumbs up. It’s so easy to compare yourself to other artists/designers and get lost in the never-ending feeling of ‘I’m not good enough.’ I could honestly give a couple more answers for this one, but I’ll leave it at that, haha,” the artist told us when asked to describe his favorite and least favorite parts about working in the art industry.

Mouse Trap

Image credits: 1126artstudio

“The posters are all created using Adobe Photoshop. They all start with a general concept that I want to execute, usually a super rough sketch just for my own viewing, then I jump into finding images I can work with. I typically start with a super quick placement of the main images to figure out my composition and layout, then start blending everything together from there. I’ve started recording the process and uploading speed art videos to my YouTube if anyone wants to see the process more in depth.”

Justin shared how long one poster takes him to create: “Depends on the concept, really. For example, Candyland took me 12+ hours and ended up being right around 500 layers, but Cooties around 3 hours due to the more simplified concept.”

Don’t Break the Ice

Image credits: 1126artstudio

The artist shared that he absolutely loves horror movies, which is no surprise since he creates such amazing posters: “Scream will always hold a place in my heart, being the first horror movie I saw (secretly btw, sorry mom) as a kid. The opening scene is arguably the best opening scene to a movie of all time. I also love the Nightmare on Elm Street series a lot. Also, shoutout to The Strangers, that movie scared the crap out of me.”

He also mentioned that he doesn’t really play board games anymore. His favorites were Chutes and Ladders and Candyland when he was a kid.

Don’t Wake Daddy

Image credits: 1126artstudio

The artist gave us a sneak peek into what we can expect next: “I’ve got a huge list of games I want to do, but I’m going to be focusing on Guess Who, Operation, and most likely SORRY next. I think there is still a lot more room to explore this concept, and people seem to love it, so I don’t see myself pivoting from this for a while, but we’ll see.”

Cooties

Image credits: 1126artstudio

The artist wanted to share a message with the readers of Bored Panda: “Mostly, I want to say thank you. After my divorce and COVID wiping out my job, I have not been in a great mental state for a long time. Seeing how much people love these posters, it’s really helped pull me out of that hole and I couldn’t be more grateful. But, if you’re interested in following my work more closely, follow me on Instagram. Also, if you are interested in prints, I do have a store online that has them available.”

What do you think of these posters? Which board game would you like to see as a horror movie poster? Tell us in the comments and don’t forget to show some love to the artist on his social media!

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