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Art of Magic the Gathering - Characters, Lands, Creatures, Spells, Artifacts to Study
🕑 Added 2021-02-19 10:28:32 +0000 UTCThere are hundreds of Magic the Gathering cards and illustrations. It occurred to me that some students and aspiring card artists might not know which artists tend to specialize in certain areas - whether it be characters, environments, or unique art. Of course, some artists can cover multiple areas/specializations, so to be clear, I'm not trying to box anyone in (which you will see in examples below)! This is meant to be an at-a-glance post for anyone wishing to research more into these specific areas of Magic the Gathering art.
In general, my advice if you want to get into mtg art is - look at illustrators already working for the client in the area you want to do work in. Wanna do lands? Look at Titus Lunter , John Avon. Characters? Livia Prima, Karla Ortiz. Creatures? Jesper Ejsing, Leesha Hannigan, Ilse Gort, etc., and study their work.
To expand on this further - this doesn't mean copy their style, but rather, study how they control their values, color harmony, how they communicate storytelling through the agency of characters and environment design, the accuracy of anatomy and and how believable poses are, how they utilize light & atmosphere to push those narratives. Studying other working artists for their foundations, techniques, and storytelling can help allow your own style to come through. Studying contemporary artists, like master studies, is also a great way to learn.
Here is a short list of some Magic the Gathering artists whose work have stuck with me over the years.
Characters
Livia Prima
Karla Ortiz
Martina Fačková
Winona Nelson
Ekaterina Burmak
Tyler Jacobson
Howard Lyon
Yongjae Choi
Jason Rainville
Chase Stone
Seb McKinnon
Mike Daarken Lim
Donato Giancola
Creatures
Ilse Gort
Jason Rainville
Jehan Choo
Jesper Ejsing
Chase Stone
Chris Rahn
Mike Daarken Lim
Simon Dominic
Leesha Hannigan
Viktor Titov
Lands
Titus Lunter
John Avon
Alayna Danner
Eytan Zana
Adam Paquette
Richard Wright
Sam Burley
Dimitar Marinski
Artifacts
Howard Lyon
Ryan Pancoast
Lindsay Look
Volkan Baga
Billy Christian
Spells / Spellcasting
Tyler Wadpole
Jason Rainville
Paul Scott Canavan
Billy Christian
Unique Art
Lately they've been commissioning artists to do art for unique sets/special briefs. So if Magic isn't at the top of your list, continue to do your own thing tbh!
Yoshitaka Amano
Thomas Zenteno
Fiona Hsieh
Rian Gonzalez
Wolf Skull Jack
Edge
There's so many more incredible artists and Magic the Gathering art but I only have time to show a few favs!
Hope this was useful!
- Jenn
