Ok, so I've been playing Magic since Unlimited and have seen the progression from hand-drawn artwork through to today's digital stuff. You can guess that I think the hand-drawn stuff is largely better, but I'll accept most of the digital stuff today. And, yeah, I miss the unique likes of the Foglios or Drew Tucker (and mostly Pete Venters...Pete, where are you?). I've been reading these thread for years, never with a need to post as I'm not one to generally bemoan the new set as most do or complain. But, the art of Igor Kieryluk has got me so miffed I had to post. It's so awful.
Have you looked closely at some of his stuff? It mostly looks like it was rendered by a video game. All straight lines, no shadowing or texture. Cheap computer generated looking fog obscuring the need for real detail. No depth. It's all so flat and lifeless and without and feeling of "real-ness." Infinite Reflection? Gather the Pack? Grasp of the Hieromancer? Eyeblight Massacre? Murder Investigation? Ravenous Demon? Selhoff Occultist? Whatever, it's all total crap that looks like it was generated during a game of Unreal Tournament.
I know I have to live with digital art, but c'mon Wizards some of this stuff is freaking third rate.
100 percent agree. I miss a lot of the art stylings for cards like Show and Tell and Humility. I can live with digital art but the art direction in recent blocks like Khans of Tarkir is appallingly bad. Cards like Jeskai Ascendancy look like complete trash.
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You don't seem to know much about digital art, but digital art looks exactly like an oil painting would look. The only difference is it is cheaper, easier fix mistakes and faster to do as you don't have to wait for paint to dry.
Igor Kieryluk is a brilliant artist. I don't see what you mean at all when you say "all straight lines" and "no shadowing or texture"
This piece of his for example has no straight lines, and plenty of shadows and texture.
This looks like "total crap" and "third rate"? Can you do any better?
This isn't third rate art at all. Wizards of the Coast does not hire scrubs. Kieryluk is one of the top fantasy artists in the world. Art is subjective but my opinions entirely disagree with what you've posted.
When printed at small size like magic cards are, Kieryluk's cards look find to me. I wish there was more stylized stuff like Rebecca Guay but I respect WoTC's art direction decision to try to make all the cards more unified with a realistic style.
I like cards like Stasis, I think they're funny and have character. I also used to love a lot of the old cartoony goblins. However I understand that a majority of players like realism, so it makes sense wizards is moving in that art direction.
For me personally, I can't see how anyone can look at the art on those cards and call it lazy. They both look amazing to me.
Ghoulflesh looks like it was sketched/drawn/not sure what the computer term is from an image of a guy sitting in a chair, then he just fuzzed up one half of the face. Infinite Reflection looks like literal copy paste of the same face on different mirror fragments - the colors are also oddly flat.
Speaking as a relatively new player here, but I look back at a lot of the older artwork and it just looks bad. Yes, most of it is good but a lot is disjointed, flat and has absolutely nothing to do with the card it's on. Can you honestly say anything done recently is worse than Timmerian Fiends? Or Mold Demon? Or Word of Command?
Speaking as a relatively new player here, but I look back at a lot of the older artwork and it just looks bad. Yes, most of it is good but a lot is disjointed, flat and has absolutely nothing to do with the card it's on. Can you honestly say anything done recently is worse than Timmerian Fiends? Or Mold Demon? Or Word of Command?
Those all look fantastic to me. The art just jumps out at you.
The current art is just highly regulated. I don't think there is a single bad artist doing work for Wizards right now, but back in the old days there were plenty of bad pieces getting cards.
Just because a piece of art stands out doesn't make it good, it just means it stands out. Word of Command, Mold Demon, Stasis, even Time walk, some of the best cards had some terrible art.
I feel that at worst, I'd only regard some of his art being somewhat bland and mediocre, but never offensive. And say what you will about his artwork overall, but I'll always appreciate the arts of Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite, Griselbrand, and Linvala, Keeper of Silence.
I'd take a Swandland over a Folgio any day of the week. I honestly think the silly looseness and cartoonishness along with the lack of professionalism the art presented is part of the reason I never got into the game until much later. Don't even start me on how the pre-8th frames were unappealing to me before I played either...
In case some of you are still stuck on RT3000, here's how digital art actually works. Most illustrators working with computers use a piece of hardware called a WACOM tablet and stylus. The tablet functions as the painted surface and the stylus as the paint brush. The artist moves the stylus around on the tablet like a mouse on a mouse pad. The “painted” marks show up on the computer screen instead of on the tablet. It really is just like painting, but without the paint. The artist's hand is still in control. Dexterity, fluidity, and drawing ability are not improved or altered by the computer. In many cases, artists work on the computer the exact same way they work in paint- starting with sketch, moving to color and value blocking, then adding texture, detail, and color over the top until finished.
I HATED the old abstract art. Stasis is famously bad in a lot of players opinion, including my own.
Stasis is a terrible example of Magic art. Not because it's bad art, but because literally no other card art in the game has ever been produced in the same way.
Stasis was painted by Richard Garfield's aunt as a favor to her nephew. Fay Jones is a fairly well-known symbolist painter in Seattle, and a common comment on her artwork is that it is flat, that to a casual observer it might have been done by a seventh grader. Which, yeah, describes the art of Stasis perfectly.
But that's not how all of the other art in the game is procured.
You don't seem to know much about digital art, but digital art looks exactly like an oil painting would look. The only difference is it is cheaper, easier fix mistakes and faster to do as you don't have to wait for paint to dry.
Igor Kieryluk is a brilliant artist. I don't see what you mean at all when you say "all straight lines" and "no shadowing or texture"
This piece of his for example has no straight lines, and plenty of shadows and texture.
This looks like "total crap" and "third rate"? Can you do any better?
This isn't third rate art at all. Wizards of the Coast does not hire scrubs. Kieryluk is one of the top fantasy artists in the world. Art is subjective but my opinions entirely disagree with what you've posted.
When printed at small size like magic cards are, Kieryluk's cards look find to me. I wish there was more stylized stuff like Rebecca Guay but I respect WoTC's art direction decision to try to make all the cards more unified with a realistic style.
Yeah, yeah. I get that digital art is here to stay, and I get that WotC wants realistic art. But the art doesn't have to be bad, there are plenty of artists who can do good work. Look at Grasp of the Hieromancer closely. There is no texture, no depth. The hair and clothes looks like they were dragged and dropped on to it. Everything is sharp and angular, like that from a video game 10 years ago. I'm not picking on Igor. No, there are plenty of other similar, "looks like crappy video game screen shot art." Arrogant Bloodlord by Mike Biereck and Stromkirk Noble by James Ryman suffer from the same. No texture, no depth. The buildings in Stromkirk Noble look like they were rendered on a computer, not hand drawn on a computer. Sorin's Vengeance is another good example of angular, depthless digital junk. Look at the sword on those perfectly angular, straight stairs...terrible IMO.
Compare that to (I'm just grabbing random stuff) Archers Parapet. No perfectly straight walls, we can see texture of the walls, one can discern depth from the arrows and cracks/diamond shapes in the wall, no crummy fog to obscure the lack of actual details. Or Bloodsoaked Champion, for another example. The clothes on the Champion actually look like they were meant to be there instead of selected from clip art. I'm sure that those two pieces are digitally made and I like them a lot. Compare that to Igor's Gather the Pack...
And no, all digital art does not look like all oil paintings would look. Some does. Others look like Infinite Reflection.
I HATED the old abstract art. Stasis is famously bad in a lot of players opinion, including my own.
Stasis is a terrible example of Magic art. Not because it's bad art, but because literally no other card art in the game has ever been produced in the same way.
Stasis was painted by Richard Garfield's aunt as a favor to her nephew. Fay Jones is a fairly well-known symbolist painter in Seattle, and a common comment on her artwork is that it is flat, that to a casual observer it might have been done by a seventh grader. Which, yeah, describes the art of Stasis perfectly.
But that's not how all of the other art in the game is procured.
But that's the thing. Terrible art like that slipped through back then. Word of command would be a good example, as mentioned earlier. We could go piece by piece of terrible art examples from back then but I think you know the sort of stuff I have in mind. Essentially I prefer the realistic art to the abstract.
This isn't to say terrible art doesn't get through today like jeskai ascendancy, but it was worse and more frequent then.
In case some of you are still stuck on RT3000, here's how digital art actually works. Most illustrators working with computers use a piece of hardware called a WACOM tablet and stylus. The tablet functions as the painted surface and the stylus as the paint brush. The artist moves the stylus around on the tablet like a mouse on a mouse pad. The “painted” marks show up on the computer screen instead of on the tablet. It really is just like painting, but without the paint. The artist's hand is still in control. Dexterity, fluidity, and drawing ability are not improved or altered by the computer. In many cases, artists work on the computer the exact same way they work in paint- starting with sketch, moving to color and value blocking, then adding texture, detail, and color over the top until finished.
I can't up vote this enough. My fiancee currently is trying to get used to her WACOM tablet I got her. They come with different tips for user preference, you can set the style of stroke (water color, oil, colored pencil and such) and the amount of pressure you put on the surface will not only change the area you cover, but also the darkness of said color. You can also color blend with the tablet, but that is far beyond my understanding. WACOM tablets are incredible tools of the art world, and I'm bummed more people don't understand the term digital art, and what it entails. My fiancee is skilled with acrylics, water color, pen and ink, and colored pencil mediums, and yet the WACOM is giving he head aches as she tries to learn all of it's little tricks.
I'm pretty sure it's because WotC doesn't agree that its current art direction is terrible.
Hopefully the market speaks, but I don't have a lot of hope that we'll see more cards that look like Mirage (my personal vote for best art, hands down).
I'm pretty sure it's because WotC doesn't agree that its current art direction is terrible.
Hopefully the market speaks, but I don't have a lot of hope that we'll see more cards that look like Mirage (my personal vote for best art, hands down).
WOTC doesn't agree because a good deal of players don't agree that it looks terrible. I'd say it's around a 50/50 split between old art and new art. Or more like 10 old, 10 new, 80 don't give a crap, but whatever.
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You don't call "dying to removal" if the removal is more expensive in resources than the creature. If you have to spend BG (Abrupt Decay), or W + basic land (PtE) to remove a 1G, that is not "dying to removal". Strictly speaking Goyf dies to removal, but actually your removal is dying to Goyf.
There was good art and bad art back in the older magic days. Foxfire is one of my favorite arts of all time. However Margaret Organ-Kean also did Freyalise's Charm, aaaaaand that art I don't like so much.
Art will never be appealing to everyone all the time. Some people will love it and some people will be bummed. That's the way it is.
WOTC doesn't agree because a good deal of players don't agree that it looks terrible. I'd say it's around a 50/50 split between old art and new art. Or more like 10 old, 10 new, 80 don't give a crap, but whatever.
And if Wizards can get away with paying lower-quality artists less money for work that only 10% of the playerbase will dislike (of which the majority won't dislike it enough to stop playing over it), then they come out ahead. It's largely a financial decision. Same principle as the one they use for hiring programmers for MTGO, except they care enough to ensure the art is merely passable instead of horrible.
I HATED the old abstract art. Stasis is famously bad in a lot of players opinion, including my own.
Stasis is a terrible example of Magic art. Not because it's bad art, but because literally no other card art in the game has ever been produced in the same way.
Stasis was painted by Richard Garfield's aunt as a favor to her nephew. Fay Jones is a fairly well-known symbolist painter in Seattle, and a common comment on her artwork is that it is flat, that to a casual observer it might have been done by a seventh grader. Which, yeah, describes the art of Stasis perfectly.
But that's not how all of the other art in the game is procured.
But that's the thing. Terrible art like that slipped through back then. Word of command would be a good example, as mentioned earlier. We could go piece by piece of terrible art examples from back then but I think you know the sort of stuff I have in mind. Essentially I prefer the realistic art to the abstract.
This isn't to say terrible art doesn't get through today like jeskai ascendancy, but it was worse and more frequent then.
I'm not saying there isn't bad art in the game, I'm just saying using Stasis as an example is disingenuous.
Have you looked closely at some of his stuff? It mostly looks like it was rendered by a video game. All straight lines, no shadowing or texture. Cheap computer generated looking fog obscuring the need for real detail. No depth. It's all so flat and lifeless and without and feeling of "real-ness." Infinite Reflection? Gather the Pack? Grasp of the Hieromancer? Eyeblight Massacre? Murder Investigation? Ravenous Demon? Selhoff Occultist? Whatever, it's all total crap that looks like it was generated during a game of Unreal Tournament.
I know I have to live with digital art, but c'mon Wizards some of this stuff is freaking third rate.
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Igor Kieryluk is a brilliant artist. I don't see what you mean at all when you say "all straight lines" and "no shadowing or texture"
This piece of his for example has no straight lines, and plenty of shadows and texture.
http://www.this-is-cool.co.uk/wp-content/gallery/igor-kieryluk/igor-kieryluk-art-illustrations.jpg
This looks like "total crap" and "third rate"? Can you do any better?
This isn't third rate art at all. Wizards of the Coast does not hire scrubs. Kieryluk is one of the top fantasy artists in the world. Art is subjective but my opinions entirely disagree with what you've posted.
When printed at small size like magic cards are, Kieryluk's cards look find to me. I wish there was more stylized stuff like Rebecca Guay but I respect WoTC's art direction decision to try to make all the cards more unified with a realistic style.
I quite dislike the current direction of Magic's art, but I feel that that is almost a bigger issue than the individual artists.
Igor Kieryluk will never be my top pick for MTG artist, but he's actually done some cards I quite like: Elspeth, Knight Errant; Cloistered Youth; Enclave Cryptologist; Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite; Death Cultist. No question he's done lazy stuff like Ghoulflesh and Infinite Reflection, though.
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For me personally, I can't see how anyone can look at the art on those cards and call it lazy. They both look amazing to me.
Ghoulflesh looks like it was sketched/drawn/not sure what the computer term is from an image of a guy sitting in a chair, then he just fuzzed up one half of the face. Infinite Reflection looks like literal copy paste of the same face on different mirror fragments - the colors are also oddly flat.
UTeferi, Temporal ArchmageU's prison: blue is the new orange is the new black.
Mizzix Of The Izmagnus : wheels on fire... rolling down the road...
BSidisi, Undead VizierB: Bis zum Erbrechen
GTitiania, Protector Of ArgothG: Protecting Argoth, by blowing it up!
GYisan, The Wanderer BardG: Gradus Ad Elfball.
Duel EDH: Yisan & Titania.
In Progress: Grand Arbiter Augustin IV duel; Grenzo, Dungeon Warden Doomsday.
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Those all look fantastic to me. The art just jumps out at you.
Nowadays it's just an ocean of sameness. Boring.
Just because a piece of art stands out doesn't make it good, it just means it stands out. Word of Command, Mold Demon, Stasis, even Time walk, some of the best cards had some terrible art.
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Stasis was painted by Richard Garfield's aunt as a favor to her nephew. Fay Jones is a fairly well-known symbolist painter in Seattle, and a common comment on her artwork is that it is flat, that to a casual observer it might have been done by a seventh grader. Which, yeah, describes the art of Stasis perfectly.
But that's not how all of the other art in the game is procured.
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Yeah, yeah. I get that digital art is here to stay, and I get that WotC wants realistic art. But the art doesn't have to be bad, there are plenty of artists who can do good work. Look at Grasp of the Hieromancer closely. There is no texture, no depth. The hair and clothes looks like they were dragged and dropped on to it. Everything is sharp and angular, like that from a video game 10 years ago. I'm not picking on Igor. No, there are plenty of other similar, "looks like crappy video game screen shot art." Arrogant Bloodlord by Mike Biereck and Stromkirk Noble by James Ryman suffer from the same. No texture, no depth. The buildings in Stromkirk Noble look like they were rendered on a computer, not hand drawn on a computer. Sorin's Vengeance is another good example of angular, depthless digital junk. Look at the sword on those perfectly angular, straight stairs...terrible IMO.
Compare that to (I'm just grabbing random stuff) Archers Parapet. No perfectly straight walls, we can see texture of the walls, one can discern depth from the arrows and cracks/diamond shapes in the wall, no crummy fog to obscure the lack of actual details. Or Bloodsoaked Champion, for another example. The clothes on the Champion actually look like they were meant to be there instead of selected from clip art. I'm sure that those two pieces are digitally made and I like them a lot. Compare that to Igor's Gather the Pack...
And no, all digital art does not look like all oil paintings would look. Some does. Others look like Infinite Reflection.
But that's the thing. Terrible art like that slipped through back then. Word of command would be a good example, as mentioned earlier. We could go piece by piece of terrible art examples from back then but I think you know the sort of stuff I have in mind. Essentially I prefer the realistic art to the abstract.
This isn't to say terrible art doesn't get through today like jeskai ascendancy, but it was worse and more frequent then.
I can't up vote this enough. My fiancee currently is trying to get used to her WACOM tablet I got her. They come with different tips for user preference, you can set the style of stroke (water color, oil, colored pencil and such) and the amount of pressure you put on the surface will not only change the area you cover, but also the darkness of said color. You can also color blend with the tablet, but that is far beyond my understanding. WACOM tablets are incredible tools of the art world, and I'm bummed more people don't understand the term digital art, and what it entails. My fiancee is skilled with acrylics, water color, pen and ink, and colored pencil mediums, and yet the WACOM is giving he head aches as she tries to learn all of it's little tricks.
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Hopefully the market speaks, but I don't have a lot of hope that we'll see more cards that look like Mirage (my personal vote for best art, hands down).
WOTC doesn't agree because a good deal of players don't agree that it looks terrible. I'd say it's around a 50/50 split between old art and new art. Or more like 10 old, 10 new, 80 don't give a crap, but whatever.
"I hope to have such a death... lying in triumph atop the broken bodies of those who slew me..."
Art will never be appealing to everyone all the time. Some people will love it and some people will be bummed. That's the way it is.
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And if Wizards can get away with paying lower-quality artists less money for work that only 10% of the playerbase will dislike (of which the majority won't dislike it enough to stop playing over it), then they come out ahead. It's largely a financial decision. Same principle as the one they use for hiring programmers for MTGO, except they care enough to ensure the art is merely passable instead of horrible.
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