Jessica Ebner
© Jessica Ebner

PROJECT

JAM CITY – WILD THINGS


ROLE

ART DIRECTOR / ARTIST

Nominated for Game of the Year by Pocketgamer,


As Art Director on Wild Things: Animal Adventure, I led a 20+ person multidisciplinary team and helped define the game’s visual direction while collaborating closely with design and production under tight deadlines. I also worked hands-on creating 2D assets, textures, and concept art for chapters, LiveOps, and marketing. Though a match-3 at its core, the game featured a fully explorable 3D world with characters and narrative.


Here are examples of artwork I oversaw and directed during the game’s development, as well as art I created myself.


Wild Things Animal Adventures – Netflix Trailer

Development Art


These concept images helped kick off early development of the world map—one of the game’s most critical foundational systems. Additional pieces include project-specific pre-visualization art created to support early planning and direction.

An illustration serving both as marketing material and as early visual direction for the game's world.

Totems created by one of the concept artists with my direction.

This is artwork I created to establish the stylized visual direction for the game’s structures.

Early dev art I made to start defining the trees for the Rainforest biome.

Splash Image


This splash page functions as both the game’s main entry screen and a core marketing asset. I led and executed the character painting, collaborating with an external studio whose illustrator produced the background environment.

Homes & Environments – Customization


This work defined the visual formula and modular system for player-customizable homes. As Art Director, I established the structure and guidelines to ensure efficient content production, consistent visuals, and strong player expression across ongoing LiveOps updates.

The same structure shown in “ruined” and “fixed” states—designed for clear readability in destruction and a visually rewarding repair. (Artwork created during development.)

These images show the same hut after being modeled in 3D, with paint-overs by the concept artist illustrating three interchangeable states.

This is another character’s house. The concept art was created both for 3D implementation in-game and to help define the approach to house customization moving forward.

The 3D model shows the final 3D version with completed textures.

Concept art of another animal home in the Rainforest biome. The concept art first shows the design of the home to be made in 3D, then 3 additional color options are designed to 'mix & match' customization. (concept art done by one of the concept artists on the team)

This is a screenshot of the final home in game.

Concepts of a customizable cart made by one of the concept artists on the team. Cart made final for game by 3D artist.

3D Environments | Environment Concept Art


In-game screenshots of the 3D environments. Balancing visual detail with performance requirements—maintaining low-poly models and optimized texture maps—was an important part of the process.

An in-game screenshot of the Rainforest biome.

Screenshot of the Savannah biome.

Commonly used texture art in game. Painted by one of the 3D artists.

Prop concepts I made for 3D production.

Characters – Concept & Customization


These are images of the character design process as well as concepts of wearables and customization that I directed and made some myself.

Final 3D characters

Turn around sketches of the character that I created for our 3D artist, to help save time in modeling.

I designed and rendered this baby pterodactyl character concept for 3D production.

Final low-poly 3D character model used in game.

Concept art of a disheveled lion character designed to illustrate the pet-cleaning mechanic. Players can wash and groom their pets at a cleaning station in-game.

Example of character wearables. Players can choose one full outfit for their character. We used a neutral base shirt that could be reskinned to save on modeling and rigging time. Each character has a few head attach-points for accessories like hats, glasses, or other fun additions.

Final character in 3D with wearables.

Outfit concepts that can be built and reskinned.

Final 3D of more outfits that can be reskinned.

Concepts of outfits by one of the concept artists on the team.

Game Board


Match-3 game board art and background environments. This was a core visual system for the game and required significant art direction and iteration. I worked closely with the art team and game designers to ensure strong readability across many layered gameplay elements, maintaining visual clarity while keeping the backgrounds engaging and not overly busy.

These are the main game pieces. Created by one of the 2D artists on the team.

Image of game board.

Game board featuring a background I illustrated.

The backgrounds that appear behind the game board were a unique challenge—they needed to function as detailed standalone illustrations while still complementing the board visually. (This game board background illustrated by me.)

Game board background illustrated by one of the concept artists.

Final 2D art I directed to show varying bundle pack amounts. Each pack was designed with a clear visual progression in scale to reflect increasing value and cost.

Final 2D trophy designs I created to visually represent escalating levels of achievement.

I modeled and textured these leaves in Maya. They were used as a flat image element for an animated screen transition.

Logo design for game.

This is a logo designed by one of the concept artists for a mini-game.