It’s simpler than what you might expect. Normally you receive the assignment in the form of some text that tells you how big the file can be and the name of the card, which never ends up being the actual card name at release. That’s why they’re called “working titles” as they eventually change for reasons of confidentiality. You’re also given the type of card it is, whether it’s a creature, a planeswalker, or a mythic, which lets you know the rarity of the card. On the other hand, we’re not told about any game mechanics because at that stage, all that sort of information is confidential. Essentially, we work on the card art just under a year before it is released. To remedy this lack of information, we’re given some text that tells us about the setting. For example, with Serra, you can see buildings behind her that are reminiscent of Dominaria. With these buildings floating in the background, the setting hints towards that plane.
Then, we’re told about the character depicted in the card. If you have to do something like a spearman or someone carrying some sort of weapon, then that’s outlined in the brief. If we take Serra for example, I was just told to show her in all her glory — it was as simple as that.
Finally, we’re told what we should focus on in the piece, be it the characters, the action, or the spells, and we’re given the atmosphere, whether it has to be badass or terrifying. Alongside all that, we’re given an indication of what the card’s mechanics might be, but no more than that. Wizards finally changes the working title so that it better fits the game mechanics.
They also provide us with reference images. Each plane in Magic has its own visual bible featuring around 300 pages of concept art specific to that plane. In addition, they can also send you a specific page if you’re looking for inspiration for clothing or for armour, so that you can see what the décor is like. That’s what ensures that there’s coherency between all the artists, even though we all work completely separately, so that we can provide the expansion with visual consistency.
It’s more than just illustrations. When the plane has already been around for a while, they’ll include art from older cards. But in truth, they’re treated concept art, created specifically by Magic artists to show us what the plane might look like.
That’s a good question. I think for Ikoria, they already had the concept of giant monsters in mind and they built something from that. I think that’s how they proceeded.
To give you an example, I also do concept art for Magic. I’m one of the artists who contributes to some of the visual bibles used by others and Wizards always gives us artistic direction. I also directed concept art for Return to Ravnica 2-3 years ago and the last expansion that took place on Theros. The first thing you worry about is what direction do you want to go in. Does that bring anything new to the table? What are the new themes going to be? For Theros, the theme was the underworld. We were told that we were going to start developing the underside of Theros. So we worked on the underworld and the land of the dead. We then provided some references to ancient Greece and requested that artists make it a bit more gothic, more dreamlike. But all of this is a fairly unique part of working with Magic, which is another thing entirely.
It’s quite interesting, but what I often note, especially when I talk to players, is that they know very little about how the game is made. I remember when the art books were released, they were very well received as it gave people a slight glimpse behind the curtains. A lot of people wonder how a card is made and that’s to be expected. Us, as artists, don’t really talk about it because we’re so used to it. It feels normal for us to gloss over the process every time a new card is made, even though players may find it fascinating. For example, they have no idea that cards are sometimes worked on so far in advance. Something else I’ve heard is that players believe that we can choose which cards we want to provide art for. They believe that I ask Wizards to only let me draw women, but it doesn’t work like that. It’s Wizards that asks me to draw women. I have absolutely no say over what I do for them.
To give you an idea how this works, cards are assigned in waves every six weeks. Every six weeks, we work on something new and our art director writes to us to ask us how many cards we want to take during that wave. We tell them how many cards we want, and then it’s a bit like a lottery. We don’t know what we’re going to get. It’s up to the Art Directors, who are very knowledgeable about Magic and know us very well, to give us cards that compliment our strengths, mask our weaknesses, and bring the best out of us.
They choose the right artist for the right task. That’s what makes the cards great to look at. This has never happened to me, but if they gave me a card that I didn’t want to do, I believe I’d be able to change my card, but that’s never been the case. All that to say no, we don’t choose our own cards.
