So I've been noticing a higher than usual quantity and caliber for the artists on this forum lately, and I miss the contests for frequent challenges, so I figured why not start a sort of collective amongst one another, where we can provide challenges to each other, post work progression, and critique one another's work to build each other up as a community of artists who happen to love Magic? I'll reserve this first post to put up challenges if you all want to do any, but for now, I'd just like to get us all together and start helping one another improve. Let me know if you're interested.
This is already an awesome turnout. I respect each of you highly as artists, and our individual styles couldn't be more different. Feel free to post whatever you're working on, or even finished pieces that you'd like critiqued. I plan on putting up some of mine as soon as I can. Work is a little in the way of artistic progress right now.
Hey Trancebam, thank you for the compliment. Nice sketches!
Now, I don't know how much you're trying to break the convention of WotC's basic lands, so I'm going to make a lot of assumptions. If there are things you did intentionally, I understand.
When I was in Painting 1, we had an in-class assignment to paint a still life. Our palette was five tubes of paint. I think it was... Burnt Sienna, Burnt Umber, Raw Umber, Cadmium Yellow, and Titanium White. Not quite monochromatic, but restrictive. I, for whatever reason, remember taking out my Cad Red to do just a liiiittle detail. Even mixed in with other colors, the Cad Red was blatantly obvious. There was just something "off" about that extra hue in there.
My teacher walked by and he smirked and commented on the little spot where I'd deviated. He could instantly tell exactly what had happened. I learned a lot about localized color and the benefits of a limited palette that day.
Each hue you add into a painting makes things harder. If you think of each color as an axis... a painting with two dominant hues is on an X and Y axis. When you add a third color, you're adding a whole new topography, a Z-axis, and giving your painting a whole new dimension it has to succeed in. The same for the fourth and fifth hue and so on.
Why is this so? Well, for one, the issue of local color. When you're painting, not only does the composition need to work, but each hue needs to work as an isolated composition. Remember that composition is all about the eye moving around the page. You can have the best composition, but if one quadrant of the painting is bright orange, that's where the eye will go.
So my advice would be, if you want an easy time finishing these lands, reduce the number of colors that goes into each one.
As much as this is true for painting, it kind of goes double for Magic cards. Magic cards have bright monochromatic frames. What do you see when you picture Force of Will? The card art is almost completely red, but I bet you picture blue and red. (Lands are a little different, adding brown, but they're still mostly a color.)
If I go and google Magic Card Islands, I see a lot of monochromatic pieces of art. The most successful ones, the John Avons, the Craig Mullins, and so on, are really only using one hue. This is because when you take their blue hue, Magic's blue hue, and the brown accents, you've got quite a lot going on.
Now you might be thinking, "come on, you want me to go toe-to-toe with John Avon?" Well, not necessarily, but he's doing the monochromatic thing to make the job easier. Right now, you're going golfing with John Avon and giving yourself the higher handicap.
I guess that's a pretty long-winded way of saying that I think you're making things hard on yourself by going with that many colors. If your goal is to use a lot of different colors, of course feel free to pursue that as far as you like.
I tried a paintover of your island, but it got away from me a little. I ended up changing the geometry a lot. The one thing I tried to hang onto was your bright vibrant orange. I couldn't decide between blue-and-orange or purple-and-orange, and it's obviously super rough... one thing I'd suggest that is really helpful is, looking at the card in the frame, early and often.
Also, congrats on being the first person to upload art to this thread! Cheers.
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Edit: And just to prove how much the Basic Land card frame works well with some "mono-blue" art, I just turned everything blue. It's still two hues - a cyan and an ultramarine, but that quick paintover almost feels fit-to-print when the whole thing is blue.
The concept for these basic lands was to create a composition based on the five mana symbols. I have worked in a monochromatic palette, and I'll certainly upload some of that work, but I feel like for this piece it would lose a lot in the final image if I were to reduce my palette to only one hue. I am certainly trying to keep my hues to a limited number of choices, and the piece uses oranges, pinks and blues. I based my color palette roughly on this piece by Veronique Meignaud.
The blues in the darker parts of the land are actually the same hue as the larger part of the water, just darker and less saturated. The lighter "brown" areas of land are the oranges of the sky, and the "whites" are even the same hue as the orange of the sky, just much brighter. The purple of the land mass in the back was temporary, to give me a feel of how the eye would travel along the piece. It was done early in the process, and I just haven't gotten to painting over it yet.
Again, thank you for the criticism. I'll certainly keep in mind the importance of making sure my palette remains limited, and I'll try to adjust things where they are now to a more limited palette while trying to retain the power of the original concept as much as possible.
Unfortunately I'm not experienced with pixel art, so take my feedback lightly. I like the look of the pieces, but it feels like they're missing something. Almost like the stylization isn't tight enough. My favorites are the lower left and lower center. The color and style is really solid for those two.
You have a lot of potential. The biggest piece of advice I can give you is to study anatomy for artists. The musculature and hand shapes of the characters suffer from a lack of knowledge about how they're supposed to look. Also, do a ton of life drawing, particularly of the human figure. And use reference photos whenever you are planning to create a finished piece. They aren't absolutely necessary, but at your level they'll help significantly.
My art blog
Claims:
The kicker variant in WWK will be "Kicker without a kicked effect." - proven wrong Jan 2010 : 2 wrongs
Decks:
:symu::symb: Bloodchief Ascension - Modern
:symb::symr: Rakdos, the Defiler - EDH
:symu::symb::symw: Sharuum the Hegemon - EDH
:symw::symu::symb: Zur the Enchanter - EDH
I know I've been a little MIA from the community lately, but I always enjoy discussing fantasy art.
My art blog
Claims:
The kicker variant in WWK will be "Kicker without a kicked effect." - proven wrong Jan 2010 : 2 wrongs
Decks:
:symu::symb: Bloodchief Ascension - Modern
:symb::symr: Rakdos, the Defiler - EDH
:symu::symb::symw: Sharuum the Hegemon - EDH
:symw::symu::symb: Zur the Enchanter - EDH
and here's some of the progression:
My art blog
Claims:
The kicker variant in WWK will be "Kicker without a kicked effect." - proven wrong Jan 2010 : 2 wrongs
Decks:
:symu::symb: Bloodchief Ascension - Modern
:symb::symr: Rakdos, the Defiler - EDH
:symu::symb::symw: Sharuum the Hegemon - EDH
:symw::symu::symb: Zur the Enchanter - EDH
Now, I don't know how much you're trying to break the convention of WotC's basic lands, so I'm going to make a lot of assumptions. If there are things you did intentionally, I understand.
When I was in Painting 1, we had an in-class assignment to paint a still life. Our palette was five tubes of paint. I think it was... Burnt Sienna, Burnt Umber, Raw Umber, Cadmium Yellow, and Titanium White. Not quite monochromatic, but restrictive. I, for whatever reason, remember taking out my Cad Red to do just a liiiittle detail. Even mixed in with other colors, the Cad Red was blatantly obvious. There was just something "off" about that extra hue in there.
My teacher walked by and he smirked and commented on the little spot where I'd deviated. He could instantly tell exactly what had happened. I learned a lot about localized color and the benefits of a limited palette that day.
Each hue you add into a painting makes things harder. If you think of each color as an axis... a painting with two dominant hues is on an X and Y axis. When you add a third color, you're adding a whole new topography, a Z-axis, and giving your painting a whole new dimension it has to succeed in. The same for the fourth and fifth hue and so on.
Why is this so? Well, for one, the issue of local color. When you're painting, not only does the composition need to work, but each hue needs to work as an isolated composition. Remember that composition is all about the eye moving around the page. You can have the best composition, but if one quadrant of the painting is bright orange, that's where the eye will go.
So my advice would be, if you want an easy time finishing these lands, reduce the number of colors that goes into each one.
As much as this is true for painting, it kind of goes double for Magic cards. Magic cards have bright monochromatic frames. What do you see when you picture Force of Will? The card art is almost completely red, but I bet you picture blue and red. (Lands are a little different, adding brown, but they're still mostly a color.)
If I go and google Magic Card Islands, I see a lot of monochromatic pieces of art. The most successful ones, the John Avons, the Craig Mullins, and so on, are really only using one hue. This is because when you take their blue hue, Magic's blue hue, and the brown accents, you've got quite a lot going on.
Now you might be thinking, "come on, you want me to go toe-to-toe with John Avon?" Well, not necessarily, but he's doing the monochromatic thing to make the job easier. Right now, you're going golfing with John Avon and giving yourself the higher handicap.
I guess that's a pretty long-winded way of saying that I think you're making things hard on yourself by going with that many colors. If your goal is to use a lot of different colors, of course feel free to pursue that as far as you like.
I tried a paintover of your island, but it got away from me a little. I ended up changing the geometry a lot. The one thing I tried to hang onto was your bright vibrant orange. I couldn't decide between blue-and-orange or purple-and-orange, and it's obviously super rough... one thing I'd suggest that is really helpful is, looking at the card in the frame, early and often.
Also, congrats on being the first person to upload art to this thread! Cheers.
------
Edit: And just to prove how much the Basic Land card frame works well with some "mono-blue" art, I just turned everything blue. It's still two hues - a cyan and an ultramarine, but that quick paintover almost feels fit-to-print when the whole thing is blue.
The concept for these basic lands was to create a composition based on the five mana symbols. I have worked in a monochromatic palette, and I'll certainly upload some of that work, but I feel like for this piece it would lose a lot in the final image if I were to reduce my palette to only one hue. I am certainly trying to keep my hues to a limited number of choices, and the piece uses oranges, pinks and blues. I based my color palette roughly on this piece by Veronique Meignaud.
The blues in the darker parts of the land are actually the same hue as the larger part of the water, just darker and less saturated. The lighter "brown" areas of land are the oranges of the sky, and the "whites" are even the same hue as the orange of the sky, just much brighter. The purple of the land mass in the back was temporary, to give me a feel of how the eye would travel along the piece. It was done early in the process, and I just haven't gotten to painting over it yet.
Again, thank you for the criticism. I'll certainly keep in mind the importance of making sure my palette remains limited, and I'll try to adjust things where they are now to a more limited palette while trying to retain the power of the original concept as much as possible.
My art blog
Claims:
The kicker variant in WWK will be "Kicker without a kicked effect." - proven wrong Jan 2010 : 2 wrongs
Decks:
:symu::symb: Bloodchief Ascension - Modern
:symb::symr: Rakdos, the Defiler - EDH
:symu::symb::symw: Sharuum the Hegemon - EDH
:symw::symu::symb: Zur the Enchanter - EDH
It's been a long time since I've had a reason to do sprite art, so I thought do some little pixellated monsters.
My art blog
Claims:
The kicker variant in WWK will be "Kicker without a kicked effect." - proven wrong Jan 2010 : 2 wrongs
Decks:
:symu::symb: Bloodchief Ascension - Modern
:symb::symr: Rakdos, the Defiler - EDH
:symu::symb::symw: Sharuum the Hegemon - EDH
:symw::symu::symb: Zur the Enchanter - EDH
I just finished this today for a friend who loves both MTG and Silent Hill. I am crap at backgrounds still so any feedback would be appreciated.
I really love those pixel monsters, they don't feel like generic ones, they have a great style/ color palette.
Alters
My art blog
Claims:
The kicker variant in WWK will be "Kicker without a kicked effect." - proven wrong Jan 2010 : 2 wrongs
Decks:
:symu::symb: Bloodchief Ascension - Modern
:symb::symr: Rakdos, the Defiler - EDH
:symu::symb::symw: Sharuum the Hegemon - EDH
:symw::symu::symb: Zur the Enchanter - EDH