I wish I could find a non-cropped version of this painting somewhere, because the cropped version that's on the card loses a lot of the background. In the full painting, you can see more of the temple, and of the landscape in the background. It gives much more of a sense of scale.

Actually, now that I'm looking more closely at the card, it seems like a little bit of a weird crop, with some of the swirling fabric getting cut-off at the top, and the smoking braziers on the temple floor both sort of cut-off in the middle. It looks like they just tried to maximize the amount of the frame that the character filled.



I am an absolute sucker for traditional art. Which I do not say in any way to slight digital art -- one isn't better than the other, and the work that some of the digital artists do just blows me away.

But traditional art just has this romance for me that I don't think digital ever can. I love the fact that the artist put physical paint on a physical medium, and that, at the end of this process, there is a unique physical object that results -- an act of creation, given tangible form. I love that you can see the brushstrokes, and the layers, and the texture of the paint.

There's something about that that I'm not sure I understand how to describe. I am, as you all will have deduced, not an art expert. But it's powerful. Whatever it is, it's powerful.

Actually it's probably worth noting that a lot of art that is done for Magic now is probably digital even if it looks traditional, or semi-traditional at least. I love painting in Krita, for example, because you can get these really wonderful blended brush strokes. You can't get an Original Object that way but I think you can still get a very painterly effect.

I agree that painterly effect is powerful somehow though. We're still very much in the thrall of the Post-Impressionists in a lot of ways I think.

God I love Walk the Aeons. What a great piece of art.

I'm reminded of one of Matt Cavota's earliest articles.


>:?
I'm noticing that rather specifically doesn't answer my question(s), which I was hoping that you, as the resident art-whatchamajigger, would be able to help with.

The only artist I know who unquestionably works in traditional mediums is Volkan Baga.

It occurred to me that basically all of Esper has a strong surrealist nature.

There are actually a bunch of active Magic artists who work primarily or entirely in traditional mediums!

Terese Nielsen is 100-percent traditional, I believe. She uses oils, along with a lot of really cool mixed-media, including watercolor, colored pencil, and gold leaf.

Lindsey Look works in oils (and is also super nice!), and her level of detail is just stunning.

Steve Prescott almost exclusively works in acrylics.

Wayne Reynolds works in acrylics, too.

Winona Nelson does some digital, some traditional, and some work that is both.

Steve Belledin works mostly in oils, I believe. He has a wonderful blog where he walks through the process behind his various illustrations.

Chris Rahn is almost 100-percent oils, I believe. If memory serves, Aaron Miller and Scott Murphy also paint mostly in oils, too.

Drew Baker used to do mainly digital, and has started painting more with oils.

I know that there are a lot more Magic artists doing traditional painting, too. These are just the ones who I was lucky enough to meet at a show or an event, or whose blogs I follow.

Oh yeah I mean I'd say it's pretty surreal, in like the full sense that it really seems to tap into a kind of unconscious realm of thought. It's metaphorical but it's hard to exactly translate the metaphor into a direct sort of idea that it's trying to represent.

You know while broadly I think that Matt Cavotta article is still true, I gotta say that some of the features in Krita and GMIC make me wonder if my computer's going to be doing my art for me soon o_o I mean that is a POWERFUL program.

That said, when I'm working with it everything I'm doing is based on color theory I learned carefully measuring and mixing oil paints.

It's like how films filmed at over 30 (I think) frames per second look weird. We're used to a certain amount of motion blur. Future generations will probably think it's a weird artsy thing. but for us, it makes the action look real. Kind of makes you wonder what the peoples of past times would think of our art.

Depending on the period, they'd likely burn us at the stake.

Mob: People trapped in pictures! It's witchcraft!
Keeper: No, to create a sense of perspective you just need a vanishing point-
Mob: And e's got a book for a head!
Keeper: Well, I admit that on the surface that may appear-
Mob: Bet e burns real good-like!

I do burn real good like. You might even say I'm downright flaming!

...That was a bad joke. Not gonna apologise though.

We know that people in Past Times had a very specific reaction to impressionist, realist, and post-impressionist artwork though. They attacked it with umbrellas. And called it "impressionism" as, you know, an insult.

Though I do think it's always worth pointing out that many people in past times, just as the impressionists did, chose to work in stylistic ways for a variety of reasons beyond just not knowing about perspective techniques.

...Also I'm just gonna put it out there that the tendency of certain Magic artists to put out pieces that look like PS3 era graphics is not something I'm thrilled with. I don't mind digital aesthetics but there's digital aesthetics and then digital aesthetics if you see what I mean.

It's okay. I almost edited in a joke about having a book head being strange at a surface reading. Ooh, I could have said, "While a surface reading of the situation might seem to indicate-". I totally could have pulled that off.

Ok yeah that would've been pretty great. In the sense that it would've been pretty bad.

This community and puns. Goodness.

Man, yeah, Walk the Aeons is brilliant. Those weird faceless non-creatures stopping a giant pendulum in that weird non-space... That's really a great abstraction of taking an extra turn.

By "PS3 era," do you mean dated, as in "that's so 2012!", or dated, as in "it's not even PS4 era quality!", or hyper-realistic, as in "look at all those polys!"

Sorry, I swear I am not trying to be facetious! I'm honestly not sure how to read "PS3 era" in this context.

Just don't lay that on my front door. I would never stoop to that...

Raven, you've clearly gone a step too far...

I just like to make sure my jokes are landing.

Definitely dated though I'd have to think a bit about how. It just feels very like... this is a 3D model.

The Planeswalker Pantheon is honestly one of my least favorite pieces of high profile Magic art for example. It's just. Not. What I'm looking for in my life.

That's just my opinion though, offered foyer consideration.

Yeah, I get where you're coming from. I tend to get that feeling from images where it seems like the level of detail in shape isn't matched by the level of detail in texture. It creates this almost toy-like effect. Texture is so, so crucial.



That's just adoorable.

I was going to do that one, but I got in a little jam while trying to frame it in the proper context. I guess I just can't handle the pressure.