The best example I can think of is Mishra's Factory. WotC has reprinted it a few times. With Masters 25, it would have been a gorgeous card to use the Winter or Fall artwork. But instead, they chose to use the more modern artwork, which to me is OK, but not classic.
I played Devil's Advocate in my own mind and had a few thoughts to why they would not use the old art (by the way, this discussion can apply to any of the cards reprinted from ABUR, Arabian Nights, Antiquities, Legends, and The Dark:
1) They want the old printings to keep their monetary value, where a reprint of the old art work may bring down the vintage value.
2) WotC, as part of the New World Order (or some other internal decision) want the artwork for reprints to be computer generated and more professional.
3) Old artwork, for some reason, isn't to be in a black border, for the collectors, which this reason sort of hearkens back to thought number one.
Am I missing anything? Does anyone else want to see older cards get a reprint, with a black border (of course), modern borders, but with old art?
Bonus: If anyone has good Photoshop skills, please put a mock-up of what it would look like. It'll give me/us a good idea if it would be a good idea in the first place.
I believe it may be more to do with royalties of using old arts. They had different contracts for artists back then. They also don't use artists from the old guard that much anymore. It would be cool if they re-interpreted their old works.
I believe it may be more to do with royalties of using old arts. They had different contracts for artists back then.
This - I don't know the legal details, but wizards doesn't own the older artworks (for cards up to mirage, I think). They'd need to negotiate with each artist (or the current owner of the rights to his artwork) to print those again and that would likely be cumbersome and expensive.
Personally I'd say a lot of older art would look kinda out of place in modern frames, but this differs from case to case for me.
(Of course you could argue for a nostalgia set, that they should use the classic frames for the older cards in the first place. But that would open another can of worms in terms of consistency and readability, that wizards will most definitley not touch).
Royalties. The original artworks was "artists get royalties whenever Wizards uses their art." These days is "Wizards commissions artists, and wizards retains all the rights".
This can be seen with the copyright line on the card. The older cards had copyrights to the artists. The antiquties version of mishra's factory has "(c) Kaja and Phil Phoglio" but the newer ones have "illus [name], (c) Wizards of the coast".
I would expect the primary reason to be something like (2), with two caveats - it's not NWO (that's strictly about mechanics) and it's not computer generated. But yes, I believe Wizards wants card art to be in one consistent "mostly realistic" style.
I see a few people talking about it not being computer generated, as if all Wizards does now is digital artwork. There is no digital-only rule at Wizards. While they have reduced the variance in styles, there still are traditional artists illustrating cards - for example, Chris Rahn.
Stylistically, they want greater consistency, so no more extremely painterly things (which could be accomplished digitally).
I see a few people talking about it not being computer generated, as if all Wizards does now is digital artwork. There is no digital-only rule at Wizards. While they have reduced the variance in styles, there still are traditional artists illustrating cards - for example, Chris Rahn.
Stylistically, they want greater consistency, so no more extremely painterly things (which could be accomplished digitally).
Yes thats true.
They dont require digital art, but they provide a lot of art-directions and the overall "world-building" lends itself to be done in digital form, as you might have to change stuff on the art and thats a hell lot easier to do in digital (especially if you are provided with assets and examples that you might use in your artwork).
Theres still some clearly hand-painted art from time to time, but thats truly RARE , and WotC only does so as players loudly demanded it, otherwise they would have removed it long time ago already.
For World-Building, they really want art to look somewhat similar , like its from the same plane, players have to recognize its from a specific world, tribes have to somewhat look the same, so its clearly that specific tribe so on and on.
Theres some positive things about World-Building, but for artistic freedom its pretty much setting the artist on rails which they cant really leave , unless they get special permissions (Rebecca guay is pretty much the prime example of special permissions, as she gets some artworks in sets that very clearly stand out as they dont follow any world building aspects at all, but WotC accepts that exception as fans are so hardcore backing her up).
As a couple others have said, it's 100% about the royalties. In order to reprint cards with some of the old arts, Wizards would have to pay the artists again. Wizards has since changed the contracts they make with artists, so they don't have that issue with new arts.
I played Devil's Advocate in my own mind and had a few thoughts to why they would not use the old art (by the way, this discussion can apply to any of the cards reprinted from ABUR, Arabian Nights, Antiquities, Legends, and The Dark:
1) They want the old printings to keep their monetary value, where a reprint of the old art work may bring down the vintage value.
2) WotC, as part of the New World Order (or some other internal decision) want the artwork for reprints to be computer generated and more professional.
3) Old artwork, for some reason, isn't to be in a black border, for the collectors, which this reason sort of hearkens back to thought number one.
Am I missing anything? Does anyone else want to see older cards get a reprint, with a black border (of course), modern borders, but with old art?
Bonus: If anyone has good Photoshop skills, please put a mock-up of what it would look like. It'll give me/us a good idea if it would be a good idea in the first place.
Thoughts?
Art is life itself.
This - I don't know the legal details, but wizards doesn't own the older artworks (for cards up to mirage, I think). They'd need to negotiate with each artist (or the current owner of the rights to his artwork) to print those again and that would likely be cumbersome and expensive.
Personally I'd say a lot of older art would look kinda out of place in modern frames, but this differs from case to case for me.
(Of course you could argue for a nostalgia set, that they should use the classic frames for the older cards in the first place. But that would open another can of worms in terms of consistency and readability, that wizards will most definitley not touch).
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This can be seen with the copyright line on the card. The older cards had copyrights to the artists. The antiquties version of mishra's factory has "(c) Kaja and Phil Phoglio" but the newer ones have "illus [name], (c) Wizards of the coast".
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Stylistically, they want greater consistency, so no more extremely painterly things (which could be accomplished digitally).
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Yes thats true.
They dont require digital art, but they provide a lot of art-directions and the overall "world-building" lends itself to be done in digital form, as you might have to change stuff on the art and thats a hell lot easier to do in digital (especially if you are provided with assets and examples that you might use in your artwork).
Theres still some clearly hand-painted art from time to time, but thats truly RARE , and WotC only does so as players loudly demanded it, otherwise they would have removed it long time ago already.
For World-Building, they really want art to look somewhat similar , like its from the same plane, players have to recognize its from a specific world, tribes have to somewhat look the same, so its clearly that specific tribe so on and on.
Theres some positive things about World-Building, but for artistic freedom its pretty much setting the artist on rails which they cant really leave , unless they get special permissions (Rebecca guay is pretty much the prime example of special permissions, as she gets some artworks in sets that very clearly stand out as they dont follow any world building aspects at all, but WotC accepts that exception as fans are so hardcore backing her up).
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