Kiki-Jiki

Where do I begin with this?  How do you go about making new art for a card whose illustration has become iconic enough to have a statue made of it?  This is a card that gets a fair amount of play, and is yet another card that I've been asked to re-imagine that hails from an era predating any of my contributions to Magic, and the implementation of my plan to bring it all down from the inside.

But then I've said too much.

Anyway, here's my commission:

ART DESCRIPTION:
color: red legendary goblin
location: not super important. probably Kamigawa mountains.
Action: kiki-jiki is a legendary goblin shaman that can create short lived fire illusions. maybe adorn him a bit more than the ref. more of those leather wrappings like are on his horns. try to make him interesting. you can show him casting a fire illusion or have one in the shot if you want, or just show him looking as cool as you can.

The reference in question was a larger version of the art as depicted here:

©Wizards of the Coast

The fact that the original image was included is a rare occurrence.  Seriously.  Every time in the past that I've been asked to make new art for an existing card, I have not been given the original.  I suspect that the reason for this is that I was being encouraged to not limit myself.  This time, however, it was obvious that this needed to clearly be Kiki-Jiki.  There had to be connective tissue to our friendly, neighborhood goblin shaman.

So, using the image above as a starting point, I began to ponder what to do with him.  Would there be a fire illusion?  Would that illusion also be a dragon?  How would he be posed?  I did a lot of thumbnail drawings on this one, and I kept coming back to a little thumb of Mr. Jiki smack in the center of the image, charging up, surrounded by flames.  I don't know why, but it seemed the obvious way to go for me.  Some might say too obvious.  But, in my defense, I rarely get to paint red Magic cards and this was the first time I really ever got a chance to tackle fire in any substantial way.  I wanted to really go for it and turn it into a bit of an exercise for myself.

Either way, what I'm not going to show you is my miserable attempts at sketching our friend here.  Nor will you be seeing the sketch I handed in.  Trust me, it's for the best.  It's embarrassing beyond belief and would only lower your opinion of me (if that's possible).  Moving on...

After drawing him up and placing him in a box of the appropriate proportions, I decided he needed something else.  Something in the background.  Sure, fire was cool, but it needed to be pushed a bit further.  I went back to the question of the fire illusion.  Then I looked back at the original card.  The solution, once again, became obvious.  The dragon from the original version would be forming in the flames.  His eyes would be most obvious, but his whiskers would be right in there, as well.  In essence, I chose to depict something that takes place just a moment before what is shown in the original art.  I have him creating the illusion, Pete Venters has him ordering that illusion forward.

©Wizards of the Coast

The original is 12" x 9", oil on hardboard.  As instructed, I gave him more wrappings and hopefully managed the "cool" part.  It's impossible to say whether I came close, as one half of the internet will invariably disagree with the other.  And with great venom, I might add.

Here he is in the card frame:

©Wizards of the Coast

As an aside, this is one of those images that just looks terrible under certain monitor settings.  I kinda had to take a shot in the dark with color correcting it because it's just impossible to please the various settings, web browsers, formats, etc.  Hopefully it doesn't look too bad.