Magic: Exclusive Interview with Magic Artist Magali Villeneuve

Magic, Warhammer, Game of Thrones, Dungeons and Dragons, Star Wars, Lord of the Rings, Legend of the Five Rings, The Farseer Trilogy… all these series share one point in common: they all feature artwork from Magali Villeneueve.

But who is Magali Villeneuve? For the short version, all you need to do is take a look at magali-villeneuve.com. She is an illustrator and concept artist who started out painting book covers in France. Magali Villeneueve has worked with some of the most prestigious companies in the world, such as Hasbro, for Magic the Gathering and Dungeons and Dragons. She is also a concept artist for Wizards of the Coast. Her works can be found in numerous different videogame series, but also in a special edition of Game of Thrones for example.

To learn more about the artist, her work, and her collaboration with Wizards of the Coast, we went directly to the woman herself and spent some time getting to know her. Thanks once again to Magali for this passionate interview and Wizards of the Coast for this incredible opportunity.

You’ve worked with some prestigious companies and artists, such as the author Robin Hobb and his Farseer Trilogy. What was it that made you want to work with Wizards of the Coast?

It’s something that dates back from my time in high school in particular, as I remember where I was at the time, people played Magic between lessons or during study hours, and I saw boys playing it then. To tell the truth, it wasn’t really the card game itself that interested me, rather it was the art on cards themselves — I thought that it was amazing. Yet when I was in high school, I didn’t really set out to be an artist, I wanted to work in animation instead. You could already see that I was destined to become an artist. That made me dream of working as an artist for games like Magic, especially since Magic has always been so well designed visually.

But at the time, that seemed especially far off to me, I wouldn’t have been able to even begin to imagine what I’m doing now. Then, as the years went by, at the start of my professional career in 2006 I realised just how good Magic’s artists and their art was, for planeswalkers in particular. I was a big fan of Aleksi Briclot and Daarken. It seemed an impossible goal, but once again, it made me dream about working for Magic. I’ve dreamt about it for a long time, it should be said.

So, it was the art that first brought you into the world of Magic the Gathering. Given that you’re an autodidact, how were you able to go from being self-taught to becoming an accomplished artist?

As I said earlier, I had a phase where I wanted to work in animation. It lasted till I was eighteen, as that was when I got my first taste of fantasy fiction from Robert Jordan’s Wheel of Time. I had never read fantasy before, as I was only reading general fiction at the time, as well as some classics. It was then that I truly discovered fantasy writing. It was a real revelation for me and my first instinct was to illustrate the cover of that book. That was where I truly narrowed down what I wanted to do and I knew that I wanted to illustrate book covers. As it wasn’t going to be possible to learn how to do it at school, I decided I wasn’t going to let hinder me and I buckled down to work. I drew an awful lot, I studied anatomy from books as well as shadows and lighting, and so and so forth… It was a very artisanal way of learning, all the comforts of my home. I intensely studied the artists I admired. This step lasted from when I was eighteen until I was twenty-six, when I began my fledgling career with my first portfolio.

It was very different from what I draw now, but I used that portfolio to start approaching tiny publishing houses as I wasn’t sure of my level and I thought you had to start at the ground floor and build yourself up. They had links with every small-scale fantasy publisher in France and I received my first contracts very shortly after.

Speaking of Fantasy, how well do you know Magic’s history in general?

I’m quite sub-par when it comes to Magic, aside from what impacts the visual side of the game. I’ve worked on Magic since 2012 (Ed: her first published card was a common: Guardians of Meletis). And for all this time, whenever I’ve been asked if I play Magic, the answer has always been “no”. I don’t know the game, I don’t understand it that well, and if you put me on the spot and asked me how the game has evolved over the years, I’d have to be honest and admit that I know very little about that side of things.

But I know the artists and the cards because I recognise their designs. My favourite aspect has always been the art. What excites me about Magic is seeing how the art evolves over time and being able to contribute to it.

As an artist, what were your favourite Expansions or Planes to work on?

Even to this day, I still can’t choose between Ravnica and Zendikar, which, for me, define Magic very well. I feel like you can find the very core of the game in both these planes, whether it be through the environment, through the characters, or through the clothing. When you go back to these planes, I feel very much at ease as an artist because I’ve always found that they give Magic a uniqueness that can’t be found in any other area of fantasy illustration. That’s to say that Magic serves as a bit of a hybrid piece of fantasy, combining several different elements. It doesn’t stray too far into high fantasy with an excess of silky-haired elves, and it’s not a caricature of the fantasy genre either, since there’s a more adult side to the game that has always managed to evolve artistically and stay fresh.

Magic knows how to stay modern and up-to-date, in the best sense of the word, as the heroic fantasy genre is something that evolves constantly.

You can quite clearly see the Heroic Fantasy tropes of twenty years ago on older cards, with the art bordering on American comic illustration in places. Over the years you can see it’s matured, evolved, and that’s it’s been modernised. They’ve brought in a new generation of artists as well as new technologies, as we’ve seen the arrival of digital artists into a game whose very first works were a lot more traditional in nature. To me, Magic has been around for 25 years, and throughout that time they’ve known how to preserve and even refine their visual identity and aesthetic, all whilst following the artistic trends that have pervaded the last few decades.

The card art in Magic is one of the best ways of bringing in new players, as the art is incredible. There’s a certain captivating realism to them that you don’t typically get in fantasy illustration.

That’s something that you really feel when you’re an artist. You know that there are lots of different kinds of players in the community: there’s players who are less drawn to card art, and there are those that really appreciate the visual side of the game. The fact that Magic is a game that doesn’t discriminate against gender or age in its art allows it to offer up something for everyone.

One of the smartest things about the game is that it isn’t a caricature of itself. It’s not too dated artistically and it doesn’t focus too heavily on appealing to a certain age range, or to a certain type of fantasy fan. Wizards explores a lot of different ideas through the concept of ever-changing planes that allows them to keep exploring new areas. The plane of Eldraine, for example, takes a lot of inspiration from fairy-tales. Sometimes it can be more exotic, other times it’s more akin to classic fantasy. It’s a well-calibrated game.

And one that remains quite inclusive.

Exactly, and I think that’s something that they’ve set out to do. It feels like there’s a constant drive to ensure that nobody is left by the wayside.