Paul Tobin

Paul Tobin is an Art Director for Chaosium.

Paul’s obsession with imaginary worlds began with role-playing games in the 1980s. After earning a Bachelor of Arts in Ancient History from Victoria University (New Zealand), he travelled widely as a budget adventurer and volunteered on archaeological excavations. Returning to New Zealand, he completed a Bachelor of Design at Massey University and spent the next two decades as a Senior Concept Artist and Art Director at Wētā Workshop, contributing to major projects including The Hobbit trilogy, the Avatar franchise, Bladerunner 2049, Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor, The Expanse, and The Chronicles of Narnia.

Alongside his studio career, Paul helped establish a Concept Design Masters program between Wētā Workshop and Massey University. He founded White Cloud Worlds, New Zealand’s first science-fiction and fantasy art-anthology series, and in 2019 co-founded the board-game company Arkus Games. In recent years he has returned to his earliest creative passion—tabletop role-playing games—with illustrations appearing in Earthdawn, 13th Age, Trinity Continuum, Werewolf: The Apocalypse, and Curseborn. For Chaosium, his two main areas of focus are the Pendragon and Call of Cthulhu roleplaying games.