Now, let's talk about the cover for a second. I honestly believe this might be the best cover created by Vincent Dutrait, to date. Vincent was very clear that he didn’t want to rush into the cover as the first thing that was created for the game (which is often the case for games to be announced), but instead let the game, art, theme, and mechanics steep over time while he thought about the best way to represent it.
And wow did that pay off! Notice the details he’s painted into the violin, starting at the top: the portraits of an older luthier Antonio Stradivari, a young Ludwig van Beethoven with his trademark red scarf, and the composer Clara Schumann playing her piano. Scattered throughout the center are the notations and French curves that demonstrate how violins are created from original drawings and patterns, all set on top of a sunlit scene from a luthier’s workshop.
Finally, at the bottom, the overlaid hands working on the violin truly do communicate the feel of trompe-l'œil, in which we can almost imagine ourselves or someone we know working on the violin with our/their own hands. Additionally, he has created faint sketches of hands working on the scrollwork of the fiddle head and a luthier making some adjustments on a cello.
In case you’d like to learn a bit more about Luthier, the box, the rules, the components, and more, I did a Whisk(e)y Wednesday in mid-April, going over a great deal of this! Feel free to join our Luthier facebook group and watch the stream there, or if you aren’t on the Facebooks, I also streamed to YouTube.
I hope you'll consider joining us on the 16th of July as we premiere this masterpiece of a box cover, along with all the other great components inside, on Kickstarter!
