Who is the best MtG artist and why is it Daarken?

I must be the only person i the world to unironically like Ron Spencer aside of his close family relatives.

It's like Jojo in between endless haremshit.

Ron Spencer's art is very good, magic would be better if it had more Spencer

I can see the appeal of Spencer's art but to me he overdoes his style and as a result the characters portrayed a lot of the time just look like a lump of lines.

I have a soft spot for Blatant Thievery though.

Purely for nostalgia reasons Quinton Hoover is pretty high up the list for me.

...and no not JUST because of Earthbind.

>no love for Richard Kane Ferguson
His style is immediatley recognizable and I think he portrays the abstract parts of magic very well.

His art always seems really busy and visually noisy, if you get what I mean.
The only card of his that I like is Jasmine Boreal, all of the other card arts he's done are really hard to tell what's going on and have no real clear focus imo.

So any opinions on Daarkens art? Any fans?

>best artist
You spelled Seb Mckinnon wrong, user.

>RKF
this guy knows what's up

I like Mark Tedin a lot too. Not as impressionist though.

I like busy noisy shit, haven't really ever had a problem figuring out what was going on in card art. Hot opinions coming up, but I find it a lot more interesting that most of the contemporary focus on literalism.

>His art always seems really busy and visually noisy, if you get what I mean.
That's the point. It's busy and messy because it's just an impression of the concept, something that your imagination is supposed to expand on.

It can be hard to see a lot of the detail of his art on the size of a card, though. I wish there was some easier way to get access to larger prints. Same goes for a lot of mtg artists, really.

>Based Seb

mah fuckin nigga

Muh chippy

Forgot pic

Whoever painted this is best MTG Artist

Favorite art, artist, and card in the game

my favorite card

Ah, a Nils Hamm fan like me.
I like you.

I too like Nils.
I also very much like Rebecca Guay but it feels like everyone does.

Will they ever have hand drawn/not so "realistic" art ever again? Seems like everything after the Shadowmoor era has been progressively getting more digitized and "realistic".

That island is the reason I fell in love with Chippy. Easily my favorite land in magic, and I fucking hate blue as a color.

>Seems like everything after the Shadowmoor era has been progressively getting more digitized and "realistic".

That's on purpose. Around the same time the Nu-Walkers came out Wizards began tightening up on card art in an effort to create a recognizable M:TG visual identity. It's part of Wizard's attempt to get new people into the hobby. Wizards has no intention of going back.

Some artists get a little more leeway than others, but generally speaking Wizards really wants artists to stick to the Style Guide nowadays.

For me at least, WOTC ramrodding a consistent visual style is what stripped MTG of a visual identity

I couldn't even name one of the more recent artists to you, how little anything stands out from the pack, but I could name a dozen MTG artists of yore that I love

>not Pudd'nhead
Cmon

Is the top one Chinese version?

Im not sure

Rk post, Kev Walker (some are meh but sheer amount of gems is respectable), John Avon and many others. I pity that Dan Seagrave only had like 2 pieces comissioned, it would be great if they gave him so more. Pic related would be a great UR shockland/fetchland.

Seriously, who in WotC thought this was a good idea? The art of magic is one of the most beloved aspects of it. It's amazing and some of the best fantasy art out there.

Some good pieces make it through, but the digital moder art overall looks so bland and generic and lacks any kind of identity. It's really sad. I got back into magic this past fall having quit during Mirrodin Besieged and every new set to come out I feel more and more disappointed when I look at it.

There was some good stuff to come from sets I missed like Innistrad and Theros. Sad I wasnt playing then.

How is this even a question?

like seriously.

tedin is the man.

Chris Rahn is up there for me.

Overall Clint Clearly is kinda eh, but his art for Candelabra is goddamn incredible.

Mentioning death in any way or form is an extreme taboo in China.

Skulls = dead people = not allowed

Anything that is translated to Chinese gets completely stripped from any mention of "death".

Death Knights in world of warcraft for instance are named Void Knights. All undeads are just pale humans. They replaced all models of meat or bones in the game with models of bread.

Somehow they missed the dinosaur skull and the ribcage in the image I gave, but I guess they can't catch everything.

I am sad because apparently Lord of thePit was already posted in another thread because it won't let me post it here, and that is my favorite Tedin Card, but he has a whole ton of them that I love.

...

I prefer Kev Walker or Rebecca Guay.

rk post is the main man

Faggot doesn't have any of his shit posted online, he has like a blog from a decade ago or something and no other web presence. Give me that Esper basic lands art in high rez you nigger jew faggot kike cuck pollock blonde dick shitter

Also, the correctly best artist is Claymore J. Flapdoodle. But Magic art would be boring if it didn't have a whole bunch of different artists. Even the bad art serves its place by making the better art stand out more.

Am I the only person that unironically loves art by Wayne Reynolds?

Terese Nielsen, Chippy, Seb McKinnon, and that woman who did the good full art lands from Zendikar are all top tier. Izumi is also great.

Man, I really miss the days before MtG turned all samey with their house style guide. I miss when the art had some fuckin character to it.

>the guy who drew the cover art for Left Hand Path, Altars of Madness, Effigy of the Forgotten, and Like an Everflowing Stream also did magic artwork
Neat

I'm very fond of Goblin Spymaster's art.

I think my favorite is unironically Raymond Swanland though, his art has a nice character to it.

For me it will always be Kaja (occasionally with Phil)

...

Ken Meyer, Jr. Mostly because I comissioned him and it came out amazing

It's wierd for me, because Tedin was essentially the guy who defined the style for a lot of the oldschool stuff. Almost all phyrexian stuff draws directly from how he made them.

Wayne's great. As much as people rag on him for his crazy overdesigned characters, I love his style.

Brom was always a favorite of mine, especially for his Greel and Latulla.

Reynold's art for RPGs sucks ass, but his art for MTG isn't universally terrible.

Dark ritual is one of those cards where almost every version looks good.

I love to shit on him because I don't like his style.

HOWEVER, I'd also say that at least he has a distinctive style that he commits to, and he's really good at portraying action in a very static medium.

I'd take a set done entirely by Reynolds than more art by the monster responsible for pic related.

...

Some people would probably argue that is correct.

Fay Jones did the art for the card Stasis and she is a very well respected and award winning painter. Stasis is the only card she ever illustrated for Magic. She did the card art as a favor for her nephew Richard (Garfield) who was making a card game and needed artwork.

style guide literally ruined mtg

Still better than the card from when Nissa and Chandra were locked in the vault.

Jesus Christ, how horrifying.

I'll raise you.

I hate the fact that he's got that weird stylized shading that not only makes things look flat, but sort of calls attention to itself.

It's fine to have a style, but for me WR's style lands smack dab right in the center of the uncanny valley between realism and shading-free flat 2D obviously-cartoon styles (like FLCL or Ed Edd & Eddy or something.)
I can respect his art, and I even sort of think his crazy overdesigned characters can be charming in their own way, but I can't stand the style.

>"Beefslab. Teehee."

...

Background looks more like a disneyland attraction than a city.

They're showing signs that they're reverting back to more stylistic allowance. There's one common fro HOU that looks straight out of Borderlands.

>"How many inches?"

Reportedly Steve got his wage docked until he promised, in writing, to "never draw displays of affection between licensed character unless explicitly instructed to".

Honestly I don't think it's entirely the guide. They've been hiring a lot of artists who aren't producing good art.

I mean just look at Fiend Binder here, it feels more like a half-finished lighting study than a finished piece of art.

while i'm not going to specifically defend that piece of art i will say that wotc obviously wanted haladesh to be a vibrant and festive place. you can dislike the artists work but a lot of the basic choices aren't actually up to the artist. wotc dictates the subject, mood, and style. they color correct all pieces before printing as well.

Whoops, forgot the art crime.

I thought he got fired, but at least he's got some cards back in Amonkhet.
God damn though, that's a dick move for something that's barely suggestive.

That is legitimately some of the worst art I've seen

>haveyouheardaboutjace'stinypeen.jpg

I hope when they do the Dominaria set they bring back some of the old guys, or at least a little more freedom for making weird, abstract and stylized shit.

Wait, Garfield's aunt was a serious painter?! I thought she just made Stasis because she was related to the guy, not because she was actually a good artist.

I really like Jason Chan's work, but when I think of the quintessential Magic art, I always think of Zoltan.

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>but when I think of the quintessential Magic art, I always think of Zoltan.
True

I just don't understand how Wizards okays their main, public facing characters to look this awful. What the hell is Nissa supposed to be doing here? Is she constipated?

Terese Nielsen is my fave amongst current day magic artists. I wish I had foils of stuff like this.

It's the same problem with Samut. Her design isn't salvageable, but they've managed to consistently give her terrible expressions and terrible posture/posing that makes her cards look like ass.

EMA foil Forces are endgame for my Legacy collection.

Who would want to see a couple of guest pieces by Mike Mignola? It's way off of their current style, but it'd be cool for a promo or something.

The card itself has no bordering, it's just the "blue tips" that makes it look that way, hence the name of the card.

I mean just look at this card. Same character, same design, but it looks like an actual functional card. The angry face isn't over the top, nor is it innapropriate for the situation. Her posing suggests movement and action in a way that looks interesting and conveys the spell well.

>90 replies
>0 mentions of igor kieryluk
I'm disapointed, Veeky Forums

It's really hard for me to tell what the fuck emotion she's trying to express. It's like somewhere between rage and "my asshole is burning".

Jace's head looks fucking awful in this, everything else is gorgeous.

>tfw Vraska will never turn you to stone and ride ur dick

vraska is a cute

I actually really like Jace in that pic. He reminds me a lot of Superman in it.

In terms of design in recent sets, I think the horrors and archfiends from Amonkhet are my favorite since New Phyrexia.

I've seen enough hentai, I have pretty good idea where this is going.

My LGS has two of those for 250$ each.

That art for Haze of Pollen is fucking atrocious, though.