Early life and education

He was born in Burnaby, British Columbia, Canada and studied at Simon Fraser University

Simon Fraser University

Simon Fraser University is a Canadian public research university in British Columbia with its main campus on Burnaby Mountain in Burnaby, and satellite campuses in Vancouver and Surrey. The main campus in Burnaby, located from downtown Vancouver, was established in 1965 and has more than 34,000...

, Langara College

Langara College

Langara College is a public degree-granting college in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada which serves approximately 20,000 students annually through its university, career, and continuing studies programs...

, and Capilano College

Capilano College

Capilano University is an undergraduate-focused, public, coeducational, teaching-intensive university located in the District of North Vancouver in British Columbia, Canada. It is enabled by the University Act...

, mainly studying archaeology

Archaeology

Archaeology, or archeology , is the study of human society, primarily through the recovery and analysis of the material culture and environmental data that they have left behind, which includes artifacts, architecture, biofacts and cultural landscapes...

, art history

Art history

Art history has historically been understood as the academic study of objects of art in their historical development and stylistic contexts, i.e. genre, design, format, and style...

, fine arts and commercial art

Commercial art

Commercial art is historically a subsector of creative services, referring to art created for commercial purposes, primarily advertising. The term has become increasingly anachronistic in favor of more contemporary terms such as graphic design and advertising art.Commercial art traditionally...

.

Career

After working for Columbia Games

Columbia Games

Columbia Games is a maker of board and role-playing games including Hârn and a variety of games, mostly wargames using blocks instead of the more conventional chits...

 Inc from 1984 to 1989, producing many of their interior color and black line art

Line art

Line art is any image that consists of distinct straight and curved lines placed against a background, without gradations in shade or hue to represent two-dimensional or three-dimensional objects...

 mapping works for their board game

Board game

A board game is a game which involves counters or pieces being moved on a pre-marked surface or "board", according to a set of rules. Games may be based on pure strategy, chance or a mixture of the two, and usually have a goal which a player aims to achieve...

s and for Harn (an RPG world), as well as many of their interior illustrations for their published books, he went freelance and eventually worked for companies/publishers like: TSR Inc. (Dungeons & Dragons

Dungeons & Dragons

Dungeons & Dragons is a fantasy role-playing game originally designed by Gary Gygax and Dave Arneson, and first published in 1974 by Tactical Studies Rules, Inc. . The game has been published by Wizards of the Coast since 1997...

), Wizards of the Coast

Wizards of the Coast

Wizards of the Coast is an American publisher of games, primarily based on fantasy and science fiction themes, and formerly an operator of retail stores for games...

 (Talislanta

Talislanta

Talislanta is a fantasy role-playing game written by Stephen Michael Sechi, with significant stylistic input by artist P.D. Breeding-Black. Initially released in 1987 by Bard Games, the game quickly gained a reputation as an alternative to Dungeons & Dragons that was both much simpler mechanically...

), Atlas Games

Atlas Games

Atlas Games is a company which publishes role-playing games, board games and card games. Its current president is John Nephew.Games published include:...

, and Avalon Hill

Avalon Hill

Avalon Hill was a game company that specialized in wargames and strategic board games. Its logo contained its initials "AH", and it was often referred to by this abbreviation. It also published the occasional miniature wargaming rules, role-playing game, and had a popular line of sports simulations...

. Some of his notable works include the all the card art for the trading card games, Dixie and Eagles (both published by Columbia Games Inc), of which over 1,000 card were illustrated within a year and a half period. Over the last five years, he has gradually been working more for himself, such as creating Whitewash City, a large, and growing, set of PDF wild west card stock buildings, which he took from historical sources, many from actual surviving Old West buildings, and he also created Roman Seas, which is a project of recreating Roman warship

Warship

A warship is a ship that is built and primarily intended for combat. Warships are usually built in a completely different way from merchant ships. As well as being armed, warships are designed to withstand damage and are usually faster and more maneuvrable than merchant ships...

s and merchant ships in PDF file format for paper construction. He has also been known to take on the occasional art project, logo

Logo

A logo is a graphic mark or emblem commonly used by commercial enterprises, organizations and even individuals to aid and promote instant public recognition...

 design, spot illustration for various book publishers, etc., such a Llewellyn projects (tarot card illustration), and much more. In 2005, he founded his own company, Hotz ArtWorks, and has also started a line of silk screened felt game mats (Hotz Mats) from his studio in Canada. Eric Hotz is also the co-authour of the Online comic strip, Larry Leadhead from 2000 through to September 2011, although the artwork he created for the comic strip continues to be used.

External links

• Official website