Artists in Cardstock 1

It’s Magic storytime again! Check out Storytelling with Cardstock 1 for the introduction to the game and why all the parts of the trading card are important.

This time, I’ll be focusing on my favorite pieces of art from cards, and the artists that make them. Instead of stories of cards, we’re looking at stories of artistic styles. What makes these artists’ best pieces great?

Johannes Voss is a recent addition to the Magic art team. He’s provided a few dozen illustrations, including some real powerhouse cards that have great art as well (Daybreak Coronet and Restoration Angel), but when Voss gets to play with light, his real strengths come through. Commander’s Authority is a fairly bad Magic card, but the art is incredible. He’s also apparently who you go to when you need stained-glass wings. A lot of his Magic art is visible on his ArtStation page. (ArtStation is a great resource for finding very cool artwork from video games, movies, and physical games.)

Picking your favorite Terese Nielsen artwork is impossible. She’s been a part of Magic art since the very beginning, but her early work wasn’t as spectacular. More recently, she’s found her calling: Strong colors and lines. Lot of lines. LOTS OF LINES. Her high levels of detail make her artwork unmistakable nowadays.

If we’re talking about iconic artists of Magic, Rebecca Guay has to be in the picture. An artist with such a connection to Magic that she is the only artist that you cannot persecute, she has contributed many iconic cards to the game. Her art has a flow of movement, but they are rarely complex. Even with detailed artwork, the content is easy to understand. Her work with Magic is mostly over, but she comes back for a few cards now and again (they are foil cards, so the digital image doesn’t do the art justice).

I’ll cap this off with probably the most prolific Magic artist. If you only look at John Avon’s lands (these are super important to play the game), he’s done 169, most of them the basics (basic lands are included in every set). Recently, he did the artwork for an ambitious project: lands without borders. On all the other cards, a black border and card frame cover part of the card, but for these, it would be as little clutter as possible. The work speaks for itself. The use of mostly monochromatic color palettes make each piece feel cohesive in a way that few other basic lands do.

A lot of Magic artwork is available to view on artofmtg.com. I could do an entire analysis of a set’s art design from just this site. Maybe that’ll be Artists in Cardstock 2.