In reality, all this is pretty solitary. I’m already a non-American artist, so we’re not even on the same continent, even though there are more and more international artists. I almost never meet my colleagues. Sometimes we end up crossing paths at a Grand Prix, which lets me meet some of them. The one place where I can meet my fellow artists is during a Concept Push. Essentially, we work together and we really have to work as a team, as we’re typically put in teams of 5 artists. We have to collaborate with one another, it’s part of the job. Besides that, for the rest of the time, there isn’t anywhere where I can go and talk with other artists. Ultimately, I work at my home, in the countryside. I don’t know anyone else, It’s just me. My relationships are somewhat sporadic. I know some artists, but no more than that.
I know that some artists have groups where they collaborate, for example, when they’re in the process of working on card art. I know that some artists send their sketches to one another to get their opinions. As for myself, I don’t really have a need for that as my husband is an artist. I’ve already got an assistant at home, it’s perfect! Also, I don’t think it’s in my nature to mix much with others, I’m a bit like a wild animal in that sense.
That’s never happened to me. I don’t know if that’s ever happened on a larger scale, but I feel like that would make Magic feel even more like an assembly line than ever before. Across the history of Magic, it’s sure to have happened based purely on the number of cards that have been made over the years. But I think that collaborations can’t have been very frequent because they’re difficult to organise, even more so in Magic’s current climate, as the game has drastically expanded in scale. You feel it as an artist. Creating new art is a constant race. You finish painting something and you’re given something else. You feel it from the Art Director’s side of things as well; they need to be efficient, whether things are on time or delayed. There’s just so much to do.
ED: After some research, here’s an example of artists collaborating on a card.
I think that products like Secret Lair would be the place to do a collaboration. For example, when I did Secret Lair – Thalia, I contributed cards to it because I had already portrayed Thalia in the game in an earlier expansion, and Johannes Voss also did two cards for it for the same reason. It was a way of bringing us together, the two iconic artists for Thalia. But we both discovered that our cards were being released together when Secret Lair – Thalia came out. Otherwise, we wouldn’t have had any idea. When I was told that I was being given Thalia, I knew that cards and I was doing two cards out of a series of four, but I had absolutely no clue who was working on the others. It was the same when I did Sisay for Secret Lair – International Women’s Day, I thought that there might be other Magic artists involved, but I didn’t know which.
I think that it’s also a matter of confidentiality, regardless of the fact that they have confidence in us as a group. We can always let something slip during a conversation on social media, and if we know too much about what other artists are doing, we may sometimes give something away, which is something they want to avoid. This is because they realise that Magic players are always switched on. They never let anything pass them by, so even at the smallest leak, they’re going to ask themselves whether it means anything. I think that Wizards are trying to limit that as well.
There is one. Search for Azcanta, and on the back, there’s also Azcanta, the Sunken Ruin. It’s a legendary land, and the only land I’ve worked on.
Ultimately, we end up returning to the incredible professionalism of the Art Directors. At Magic, they know, even without me having to tell them, that landscapes are not my base area of expertise. You may think otherwise looking at my figures, but making a background to border a character and making a well-constructed and interesting landscape in itself are two different things entirely. For instance, I find that harder to do than designing a character.
If I’m given the opportunity, like I was with Azcanta, I’ll dedicate myself to it. But I do recall that I was a bit more apprehensive than usual when I was working on that piece.
Yes, I added some small merfolk swimming breaststroke. That made me feel a bit more at home.
Yes, with a point of his finger, the merfolk sort of brings you into the rest of the setting, on the front side of Search for Azcanta. There’s also a tiny Easter Egg. When you look at the front side of Search for Azcanta, with its extremely vibrant and green river, the river that feeds into the waterfall on the front of the card is in fact the same waterfall that you see on the other side of the card. It’s the waterfall that descends on the left of the ruins. That’s where they end up when they follow the river, like salmon.
To give you an answer to your original question, my favourite types of cards are quite obvious; creature cards and planeswalkers. I love doing planeswalkers, even if these sorts of cards are harder to design as they have to be composed vertically. Basically, half of the piece is concealed by its format. Though even if it is hidden by the text box, we’re still asked to do planeswalkers in full as they can be used for marketing purposes, and so on and so forth. That’s why those characters are always drawn from head to toe, even if sections end up hidden by the card.
Vertical composition isn’t easy. But personally, as long as there’s a creature or a planeswalker, I’m in my comfort zone.
