'Toverpad 2' (2024).
Sjan Weijers is a Dutch visual development artist, illustrator and comic creator, mainly active in the fields of video games, toy design and animation backgrounds. Her work in comics has included collaborations with her partner Chris Evenhuis, as well as creating the humorous 'Toverpad 2' feature for Tina magazine (2024- ).
Early life
Born in 1981, Sjan Weijers grew up in the province of Limburg, where she attended high school in Venray. As a child, she developed a passion for creating fantasy worlds, with a particular fascination for monsters and zombies. Self-taught as an artist, Weijers began selling individual drawings at age fifteen. Between 2000 and 2007, she studied Developmental Psychology at Radboud University in Nijmegen and graduated with a master's degree, but ultimately felt more comfortable in a creative job. Among her graphic influences are Chuck Jones and André Franquin.
Concept art by Sjan Weijers.
Concept artist
Around 2005, Weijers started her graphic career at Triumph Studios in Delft, providing concept art, textures, models, storyboards and other designs for the fantasy Xbox games 'Overlord', 'Overlord Raising Hell' and 'Overlord II'. For Spellborn International Ltd, she made concept art of monsters and zombies for the online role playing game 'The Chronicles of Spellborn'.
Since then, Sjan Weijers has been working as a freelance digital background illustrator, character designer and concept artist for a great many gaming and animation projects. Her client list has included such companies as Troma, W!Games and the Vanguard Entertainment Group, as well as Sony Video Entertainment, DreamWorks Animation and Pencilmation. Between 2011 and 2022, she was senior concept artist and toy designer with UNGA Toys in Amsterdam, providing character design, marketing art and concept art for toys, games and apps. With her background in psychology, she has also provided her clients with psychological insights into various forms of online media and game design with a focus on children's experiences related to online gaming, animation and other visual storytelling.
'Season's End', from 'Past the Last Mountain' #2 (2016).
Comics
In addition to her work in the gaming and toy industries, Weijers has been active as a comic artist, again with a focus on playful horror. She is in a relationship with comic artist Chris Evenhuis, and has regularly collaborated with him, mostly as a colorist. In 2002, she provided the artwork for the story 'Hunger' in the Evenhuis-scripted story collection '3', published under Robin Schouten's Incognito imprint. The other stories were drawn by Chris Evenhuis and Jorg de Jong. In later years, she has provided the coloring for several of Chris Evenhuis' comics, for instance 'Notorious Circus' (2012) at the French publishing house Horizon, and the 'Monstro Mechanica' series, about Leonardo da Vinci's assistant and her robot bodyguard, at AfterShock Comics (2018). In 2016, Weijers drew a story for the second volume of the 'Past the Last Mountain' fantasy miniseries by writer Paul Allor.
Toverpad 2
In 2023, Weijers had a brief interlude as a story artist and comic colorist with the Dutch Disney magazines, but was then redirected by the editors to the girls' magazine Tina, where she could develop a comic in her own style and with her own characters. In Tina issue #11 of 2024, her gag comic 'Toverpad 2' took off, starring the magical world of the teenage witch Bonnie and her vampire bestie Nikkie. As a funny fantasy strip with otherworldly characters, meta humor and outlandish creatures, 'Toverpad 2' has been a deviation from Tina's otherwise more reality-driven comics.
'Toverpad 2' (Tina #28, 2025).