From Blue Lions to the Ibong Adarna: Maëva Da Silva Draws What She Feels

Maëva da Silva, a French art director, graphic designer, and illustrator, was recently in Manila for the biggest board game convention in Southeast Asia: All aBOARD Expo '26. It ran from May 28 to 31 at the Quezon City M.I.C.E. Center. She has illustrated for many board games, including Harmonies (2023), Aurora (2021), Mysterium Park (2019), and Dragomino (2019).

ESQUIRE: You’ve illustrated some of the most beautiful board games. What gives you inspiration when you're making illustrations for a board game?

Maëva Da Silva: Yeah. Actually, Harmonies is a board game [that’s] the most related to me personally. I don't take inspiration [from another) board game. Absolutely not. I take inspiration from music, from my travels, from [how] things make me feel because I don't draw what I see. I just draw what I feel, you know? So it's important for me to live, to experiment life really deeply, really strongly, you know. So of course, in the visual industry, video games have a huge impact on me because they combine origami landscape, environment, props design, character design, sound design. So this is so powerful as a medium. So I grew up in the '80s and '90s, and after all these years with that, also I like the materials, the feeling, the touching the wood, the paper. So I think a board game combines that kind of, uh, sensation altogether. So yeah, my inspiration came from so many things. Actually. I'm such a curious person, you know, so it's a tough question to answer.

You designed a special card for the Philippines. How did you go about making that art?

I was kind of stressed because I didn't want to interpret the culture wrongly in a wrong way, you know? So I was like, 'Oh, can you tell me more about this creature?' And they gave me some input, and I was like, 'Oh, there is so much [going on] with this animal.' Like, it's a spirit. It's not like a normal animal in the card. So you have the moon, you have the musical wave, uh, with the song he made. Uh, you have the healing part, the diamond rocks, everything! The night, and oh my gosh, will I succeed to draw it? And actually, the first sketch was good, and it was like, okay, I captured, I think, the story, the feeling behind it. So yeah, I was relieved, and it was very nice to make it. Yeah. I was really touched that the community wants a Filipino card for themselves, you know, and trust me [to] doing that.

You've also done art for a lot of different games. Which project is your favorite? 

Harmonies. Because I'm not just an illustrator with Harmonies, I'm also the art director, so I can really combine. Yes. Um, the old part, the mechanism with the ergonomics, with the visual, with the illustration, with the component and fabrication, you know. But kind of each game has a step in my career. I started with the Werewolf of Sierra Leone. I don't know if you know, it's a little game. Yeah, so I'm not proud of every game I've made, of course. But yeah, Harmonies. It's kind of special because I was off from the industry [for] four years because something happened in my life, and I came back with thought and I really drew with my soul, with my heart, you know. And, uh, creation, but in a square, you know, (where) you have constraint. Yeah, it actually makes a huge impact. And I think, I feel I find something with Harmonies in my personal way to paint, to draw. And it was important for me because the theme was very … how do you say, nature? We can see nature everywhere. So now I do it my way, you know, and I was like, oh my God. I don't know, I just go with the flow and feel it, and Harmonies happens, and people are connecting with the art. It surprised me a lot. But yeah, it's very nice because we all feel love, death, despair, anger, uh, joy, you know, and I just, yeah. I don’t draw what I see, I draw what I feel. And I feel connected with people I don't know, I don't even, uh, meet through Harmonies. It really warms my heart, you know?

Did you choose all the components for the game as its Art Director?

Absolutely, absolutely. I chose all the incarnations of the game. This is the specificity of the art direction. The illustration is just a component of the art direction. So when we received the game, actually it was just a little square, three-by-three tokens. You don't have animals, you don't have cards, nothing. And when we made some the first test, it's good because the illustration came on a later stage in the pipeline of production, and art direction comes in a very early stage. So I played the game. I said, 'Oh, it's an abstract mechanism. Okay. Very light, very pure.' And then we started to playtest. And I was like, okay, do I illustrate an abstract mechanism with an abstract visual? And it appears not. Absolutely not, because we are creating some landscape, some stuff. You are imagining some (sort of) environment. And with just the abstract tokens, you didn't see much. You just see your score. And I was like, okay, I have to bring more figurative representation in order for people to connect with, I don't know, their memory of their holidays, vacation, uh, what honeymoons they, they love. And so yeah, I think about the shape of the token, the icons on the token, the ergonomics, the graphic design on the card, and the pattern with Thomas (Duterte), who is our 3D artist. Um, and then the illustration, the composition. Everything is combined.

Yellow and blue are not what most people will commonly think of as nature colors. Why did you choose these as your main colors for the box?

It's nice. It's nice, this question, because often people will ask me, okay, what's the story behind this blue lion? Why? Why is the lion blue? And I was like, 'Hmm, I don't know.' Maybe he fell into the water, and maybe he ate some special fruit. Maybe his parents were like that. I don't know, what's your story? Actually, what I know is, like I said, I don't know what I see, I know what I feel, and when I have the lion as a card to draw, um, I was like, I just draw the card first. And it became the cover that I expanded with the art after. But I was like, okay, I feel loneliness, I feel sadness, I feel also joy and power around the lion. So it appears to me in my mind, the blue and yellow were so contrasted. The blue was the deep sadness inside, and the yellow is more, you know, he's the king, so the circle in the square box, everything is about contrast. Because in me, inside me, everything is about contrast. I am 50 percent analytic, 50 percent sensitive. And that's the way I, I feel creation, you know, not in a descriptive way, but more in a feeling way. I don't know how to say that, but yeah.

What medium do you work with?

Today because (our) pipeline is quite short, sometimes I have to work digitally. But it's a matter of production time. But I paint, I don't draw, I paint and colors and mixing colors and the texture of it, it's really important to me. So, in Harmonies you can see I customized my brushes in Photoshop, and you can see there is a lot of texture, but interpreting graphic texture, it's not realism. It's more symbolic. You know, um, if a flower is a kind of stroke of a brush, it is because it’s alive. It's like the way I feel the wind in the flowers. So I make a brush like that. So traditional art has a lot of impact on my digital painting.

Harmonies is getting an expansion.

Yeah. I just finished like two weeks ago. Okay. So maybe you have seen that the expansion is coming in two parts. First, in June, we have a little booster just for you to (ease the) wait because you are so, so nice to wait for the expansion. So much time. Harmonies: Pulse is a booster of 10 new animals with a new biome pattern with three colors, so it's a little harder. It brings a new mechanism. So it's nice. And the second part is a box with new personal boards. New cards. But these are not animals. These are what we call ‘whispers’. You will see. And we have a punch board that you can flip and build some stuff with. I don't know if I can spoil this already because we haven’t started the communication yet, I think, on this box, but, uh, and it's called Harmonies: Crescendo because you are exploring the tiny and the giants. You'll see. Yeah.

We're very excited.

Me too. Me too.

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