tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32456625192092866822024-03-16T01:48:50.723-04:00Push And PullThe Work and Musings of Illustrator Steven BelledinSteven Belledinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02798269170915291454noreply@blogger.comBlogger293125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3245662519209286682.post-85483308586769792362018-06-01T11:05:00.000-04:002018-06-01T11:05:46.853-04:00Veteran ExplorerThis one was real simple, but allowed me to flex my art muscles in a direction I hadn't in a while. The piece is a new illustration for an existing card, "Veteran Explorer." This new art is specific to Magic's <i>Battlebond</i> setting and the fine folks at Wizards had everything pretty well figured out before the assignment got to me.<br />
<br />
I was asked to depict a map maker sitting in the top of a tree above the clouds. The map maker, though human, was to be dressed similarly to how the elves in the plain of Kylem (where Battlebond is set) dress and he was to be looking toward the viewer and the uncharted lands beyond. The city of Valor's Reach should be seen piercing the clouds in the background.<br />
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Given to me for reference were images of Valor's Reach and examples of Kylem elven dress. All that was left was to process all the stuff, find a way to depict what they needed from me and draw it up. Simple right? Well, in this instance, it kind of was. I knew exactly what kind of picture I wanted to make as soon as I read the description. The art order describes and adventure picture and when it comes to adventure pictures, there's one name that rings above any other in my mind: N. C. Wyeth. So, I pulled out some N. C. Wyeth art books, opened them to choice paintings that helped inform this piece, and went to town on a sketch, trying to absorb as much of the work around me and find a way to inject it into the picture I was making.<br />
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Here's how that came out:<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgA4YcoFwEBYgvGSgA_eXYT4KkJvELklA5_muJv7vdLXgsu9L_AnYwbyTGuoi3cgl2tzb_50kAzINh1XDNaXiezp1-26x9p56D8VoXjDmfV3qe4BTByL7fFYZtetQQ_MDybGx5d9BlKvkk/s1600/403031_sk.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="900" data-original-width="1200" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgA4YcoFwEBYgvGSgA_eXYT4KkJvELklA5_muJv7vdLXgsu9L_AnYwbyTGuoi3cgl2tzb_50kAzINh1XDNaXiezp1-26x9p56D8VoXjDmfV3qe4BTByL7fFYZtetQQ_MDybGx5d9BlKvkk/s400/403031_sk.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">©Wizards of the Coast</td></tr>
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If memory serves, there was a request that I reduce the scale of the other trees indicated in the background, right. Aside from that I was good to go to paint.<br />
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I used to print out all of my reference images before starting a painting. These images would be taped up around my working surface and were constantly present. But honestly, I found the practice to be pretty wasteful in the amount of paper and ink I was blowing through to create things that were destined for the recycling bin. Plus, its been a long time since I had a printer that I didn't have to fight with every time I turned it on. Nowadays, I print reference very rarely and even then it's only what I absolutely need. The rest of my photos are kept open on iPad or laptop screens surrounding the painting. Less waste, less fuss, and it gets the job done.<br />
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That's nice and all, but what kind of reference did I collect for this image? Well, there are the aforementioned images of the city in the clouds and the elven dress, as well as some other images that I kept looking back to from the style guide that really informed the overall mood of the world. To these image I added images of clouds and skies and trees. I also included images specifically of trees sticking up above the clouds. Additionally, I pulled out a leather case I have to help inform the map bag hanging from the tree. Essentially, if I'm unsure about any aspect of a piece, I typically collect reference for it. I'm looking to make sure that the final result is believable—maybe not completely accurate, mind you, just believable.<br />
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And then there's the reference my wife and I take.<br />
<br />
Usually reference taking works like tike this: my wife takes the photos using my sketch for comparison and I pose for the photos. This is often true even when I am depicting a woman. The reason is that it just always goes faster that way. Sure, I'll take some back up photos of her in the same pose, but I tend to get a bit closer to the pose I want than she does. Of course sometimes I photograph people other than my wife or myself, but that isn't always feasible with deadlines and scheduling. As a result, Amy and I have take a lot of photos of one another in basements or spare rooms over the years. Digital photography has made that a lot easier, cheaper, and a lot less embarrassing. I do not miss the days of picking up my roll of reference photos from the very bemused developer.<br />
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Below is the image I mostly used in this case. There were about twenty-five more, but I picked the one that most closely matched my sketch and used it above the others.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg9sgQlw9Ozs1EkbI-xdOXEX-v4rEqQEuwiQv1uZY6HcV8RNNfl3rLznhO5-RK0B86lijcTVDeByiHo5fqkl773Z0mm4snTtJHfg4e1gnwAMWSTeM4KNUsriixNamnCQ-3a6Fwvt1TrXW8/s1600/Photo+Mar+20%252C+7+43+36+PM.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1200" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg9sgQlw9Ozs1EkbI-xdOXEX-v4rEqQEuwiQv1uZY6HcV8RNNfl3rLznhO5-RK0B86lijcTVDeByiHo5fqkl773Z0mm4snTtJHfg4e1gnwAMWSTeM4KNUsriixNamnCQ-3a6Fwvt1TrXW8/s400/Photo+Mar+20%252C+7+43+36+PM.jpg" width="300" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Behold the unfinished demolition of our murder basement in all its box-filled glory!</td></tr>
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<br />Some folks cobble all their reference together into one, single image via Photoshop. I find that that takes time away from the easel and I'd rather spend the time there than in front of the computer. That's just personal preference, mind you, but it's worked (mostly) for me so far.<br />
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Anyway, after all the reference was in hand, I went to paint. Here are a couple photos showing it at two different stages (with absolutely no indication of how I got from point A to point B):<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhNqIgimeZfkFy_M97GhsH2G4psccpQxj8Fl2tHAa7WUN8zX8-vOUSzCh6PwYx09z9HZPkviydwtgAjmtcv_y8z0jwY-cpq0X28MRSES8_wicYg7AWpl9PCYmhaaEZGpGAKpJljsD6-m2o/s1600/Photo+Mar+24%252C+7+42+48+AM.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhNqIgimeZfkFy_M97GhsH2G4psccpQxj8Fl2tHAa7WUN8zX8-vOUSzCh6PwYx09z9HZPkviydwtgAjmtcv_y8z0jwY-cpq0X28MRSES8_wicYg7AWpl9PCYmhaaEZGpGAKpJljsD6-m2o/s400/Photo+Mar+24%252C+7+42+48+AM.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
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Yeah, a lot happened between those two but I can fill in some blanks. Generally, at the start of every piece I like to find some part of the image to sink my teeth into. Sometimes that's the figure, sometimes that's an element in the background. It depends on the piece and my mood. Here I dug right into the figure. I brought it up to a certain level of finish and then began to branch out from there. I established where the tree would be, using darker browns than it would inevitably be so that I could just go ahead and paint the background right over the branches and still see where they needed to be. Then I went and had a ridiculously fun time painting the background. Seriously. Those clouds were a blast. Eventually, I got back to the tree and the figure and started to tighten those things up. The second photo probably represents what the piece looked like on the Monday before the piece was due (which would have been just a few days later on Friday). There's still a bunch of details left unfinished on the figure and indeed the leaves of the main tree are still incomplete. Missing also are the beams of light shooting out from the city.<br />
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Here's how it eventually came out:<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhryVPalQPpgSNDzzYLhqshxzitwRfIbIeYiZtEI6k45sx4i3OZpqIAMCkCHznBSOQOZ4XVSAnUsyeAxS2vpBUfBrfSvJh8qqZlnEy7dty7dGMDKwRfbQwIuGeyF4iKlptFPurqNZ47kuY/s1600/403031_final.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1080" data-original-width="1445" height="298" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhryVPalQPpgSNDzzYLhqshxzitwRfIbIeYiZtEI6k45sx4i3OZpqIAMCkCHznBSOQOZ4XVSAnUsyeAxS2vpBUfBrfSvJh8qqZlnEy7dty7dGMDKwRfbQwIuGeyF4iKlptFPurqNZ47kuY/s400/403031_final.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">©Wizards of the Coast</td></tr>
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The final painting is oil on hardboard and measures sixteen inches wide by twelve inches tall. It was art directed by Cynthia Sheppard.<br />
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If I had one complaint about the finish, it's that it falls short of the more atmospheric take indicated by the sketch. Part of that was due to the request by Wizards to shrink the background trees, part of that was just decision making done on the fly. I'm sure there was a bit of a difficulty on my part marrying the atmospherics with the puffy, well-defined clouds I settled on. Still, I like where it eventually landed. Why? Well, it mostly comes down to my influences and the rare chances to nod at them in any way. Sure, I am absolutely a product of my all of my influences and therefore every piece I do nods to them in some way, but it's rare that I get to lean on my art heroes so hard.<br />
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In this case, this is probably the closest I will ever get to painting an N. C. Wyeth-esque piece. Obviously it's lacking in a lot of ways in terms of structure and paint application (not to mention scale), but there's a lot of color choices and lighting choices that are absolutely aping his work (or attempting to). Most importantly, I was hoping to capture the spirit of his work. The feelings of adventure and discovery are woven throughout N. C. Wyeth's illustrations and I was really looking to capture those things in a similar way. In the end, I'm mostly just elated that I even got a chance to try to do any of that with a Magic assignment and I'm quite proud of the degree to which I've succeeded.<br />
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<br />Steven Belledinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02798269170915291454noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3245662519209286682.post-17380589876174397342018-04-04T10:39:00.001-04:002018-04-04T10:39:02.198-04:00Mox AmberGetting opportunities to do art for cards like this feels fairly rare to me. Don't get me wrong, I've gotten to do art for some pretty high profile cards in the past—not to mention some extremely playable (though lower profile) cards that have literally been in use for a decade at this point—but in general I'm not the guy Wizards calls to paint something as high profile as an angel or a planeswalker (though I'd be happy to take one on should they change their mind). That's honestly not a complaint. I've been on record as saying that painting a planeswalker would probably be one of the more boring images I could ever be assigned, given how little room there is for invention and editorializing. But, even that is its own interesting challenge.<br />
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But I digress. This isn't about what assignments I don't get, but rather about this one that I did.<br />
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<i>Mox Amber</i>.<br />
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This was big. For the uninitiated, the original five mox cards ("Mox Ruby," "Mox Emerald," "Mox Sapphire," "Mox Jet," and "Mox Pearl") are among what have become known as the "Power Nine"—nine of the most powerful cards in Magic's history. Wizards has subsequently added a few additional mox cards that don't rank quite as high in the lore or on the power scale, at least as I understand it (which is not particularly well considering that my own Magic playing days probably ended somewhere around 1997 or 1998, and things have changed a bit since then).<br />
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Anyway, it's been quite a while since they added a new mox card so I knew it was quite special, and for some reason they chose to assign the art to me.<br />
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As an aside, I want to address something that has been brought up many places on the internet as well as mentioned directly to me. Over the last few years another artist, Volkan Baga, has gotten to paint new art for all of the mox cards. There seem to have been a fair number of folks who expected that Wizards would give Volkan this new mox so as to keep a consistent aesthetic. I get it. I really do. I don't know why they didn't go with him, but I strongly suspect he'll get a chance to do a new version in the future. Clearly there was a specific, non-Volkan direction that Wizards wanted to take this card in and I'm not the one to ask about it. All I know is I got an assignment and then I painted something for them that they liked. I'm betting that eventually Volkan will get to make his version. Even I look very forward to seeing it.<br />
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Again, I digress.<br />
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So, there's a part of my brain that really worries about the weight of such assignments. The rest of me just goes about trying to solve the problem as I would any other. Fortunately, the part of my brain that worries wasn't an impediment to the process. My own sensibilities? Well, that's a different story.<br />
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What Wizards asked for initially was a little confounding to me, but it subsequently was simplified a bit. To start, they wanted a silver necklace with the amber being the necklace's charm. The necklace would be cradled in someone's hands. However, there were two specific stipulations: 1) the piece should not feel like it was part of Volkan Baga's cycle of mox paintings that also include the various moxes cradled in hands; 2) there should be no recognizable things floating in the amber (I assume to avoid any reference to Jurassic Park).<br />
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I took this all in and I thought about it for a while. I knew immediately what I wanted to do with the amber and how I wanted to set it in the piece of jewelry. What I didn't understand was why they wanted hands at all. I mean, if we were trying to avoid any reference to Volkan's pieces, the hands felt like a weird move.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjZj-jlFRwYuNuW091URKuVB0djbp5rCmCHE6a3HufhsHYhR_zXzCx7cGl28dkYnV7qyxaErNxKycxaXa-yxLFQHNnDi_vUCGJZIfdKrXCwjfUfDgtuG6QKIi_ZclbbcuQGYgW7ew2Y5rw/s1600/mox-sketch001.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1080" data-original-width="1365" height="316" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjZj-jlFRwYuNuW091URKuVB0djbp5rCmCHE6a3HufhsHYhR_zXzCx7cGl28dkYnV7qyxaErNxKycxaXa-yxLFQHNnDi_vUCGJZIfdKrXCwjfUfDgtuG6QKIi_ZclbbcuQGYgW7ew2Y5rw/s400/mox-sketch001.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Pencil sketch measuring approximately thirteen and a quarter inches wide by ten inches tall on larger paper.<br />
©Wizards of the Coast</td></tr>
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After handing this in, it was clear to everyone that the hands really weren't necessary and thinking back to the original mox images done by Dan Frazier (which are awesomely efficient), it was decided to go with a simpler approach. So, I was just left to my own devices to find a way to depict this new mox.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj8B9hSr-aGjHuSZU-4P30ac6Lio15jn-JvMsz7X6RXDecuXott7vfU2dmCSHwFLUh92g7c83s13OL5B8PKBYYa4pC9gw5vBfzcIWm91bbfOlZy4DmwbclhZ2BiFm6hAP1ZEUoqCsAbqqY/s1600/mox-sketch002.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1080" data-original-width="1343" height="321" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj8B9hSr-aGjHuSZU-4P30ac6Lio15jn-JvMsz7X6RXDecuXott7vfU2dmCSHwFLUh92g7c83s13OL5B8PKBYYa4pC9gw5vBfzcIWm91bbfOlZy4DmwbclhZ2BiFm6hAP1ZEUoqCsAbqqY/s400/mox-sketch002.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Pencil sketch measuring twelve inches wide by nine inches tall on larger paper.<br />
©Wizards of the Coast</td></tr>
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The thing about magic items to me is that I'm not really a huge fan in general. I think this is largely due to burn out from other properties. World of Warcraft is a really good example. Seemingly everything in that game is magic and has glowing parts or an overall aura. It all is meant to feel important somehow and because it all is meant to feel important, nothing actually does. Instead, it's just flash piled on top of flash and nothing ends up feeling particularly special. At least to me.<br />
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In contrast to that is The One Ring, from <i>The Lord of the Rings</i>. It's a simple, gold band that is unassuming. I absolutely favor this approach. As another example, it's a lot more interesting to me that the genie's lamp could be mistaken for a piece of junk rather than the powerful item it is. And while I've painted plenty of magical items over the years that sort of fall into this category, they still tend to be depicted sitting on a pedestal, lit with god lighting, and presented with a great degree of importance. In my head, it would be more fun to see the genie's lamp just sitting among the junk not calling attention to itself. So, my approach to Mox Amber was in keeping with that idea. I depicted the mox amber sitting upon the leather wrapping in which it was kept secreted away (or so I imagined). Sure it was special, but we didn't need a shaft of light to make that clear.<br />
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But the fine folks at Wizards disagreed. To them this second version felt haphazard and not special enough. And you know what? They were absolutely right.<br />
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My take on magic items is fine and all, but it's also situational. There is room for my version in the greater scheme of things, but it's not in keeping with the moxes. In fact, it's really wrong for the moxes. While they weren't trying to guide me down the aesthetic path that previous mox illustrators had taken, they were absolutely trying to keep me on the right tonal path, and that was where I'd fallen short.<br />
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Anyway, the good news was that they liked the design of the necklace from this second sketch (though I don't recall them ever explicitly disliking the first version) and dug the leather surface as well, so I automatically had something with which to rebuild. The issue then became figuring out how to present the amber necklace in a way that made it feel special. I spent a lot of time trying to hash something out in my sketchbook, but in the end I found it easier to take a piece of my wife's jewelry and arrange it in different ways on the back of her splayed leather jacket. Eventually, I settled on the idea of winding the necklace's chain in a spiral around the amber charm. I mocked it up and asked for Wizards' input.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjJw9czq1PQLqOm-LZdSyutW_20dtwk3Zhv-fvm_EpHcvpoDhtCJtUVxbN1VIxE9pVEvQdqlC5JI4emdPJu_6Zmr5T_oVvKl5OijjXFZQIrPViAP8Ge3vjaNrC1agCHrpQtnwZA9o_IbmA/s1600/mox-sketch003.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1080" data-original-width="1346" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjJw9czq1PQLqOm-LZdSyutW_20dtwk3Zhv-fvm_EpHcvpoDhtCJtUVxbN1VIxE9pVEvQdqlC5JI4emdPJu_6Zmr5T_oVvKl5OijjXFZQIrPViAP8Ge3vjaNrC1agCHrpQtnwZA9o_IbmA/s400/mox-sketch003.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Pencil Sketch measuring twelve inches wide by nine inches tall on larger paper.<br />
©Wizards of the Coast</td></tr>
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They liked this take and I was off to the races.<br />
<br />
In the past, I have bemoaned how much detail I feel compelled to put in a given piece. High amounts of detail can be laborious and often results in paintings outliving my enthusiasm for them. In other words, paintings tend to take so long to complete that by the end of the process I have long-since ceased enjoying myself. The thing that I love doing almost always becomes plain old work. I'd like to work more loosely, but as odd as it seems, I don't know how to. I love loose painting in the work of others, but when I sit down, it just always feels half-finished.<br />
<br />
Anyway, this piece was a bit of an exception. The image contains a lot of detail, sure. But I enjoyed it until the very end. It was easy to get lost in the folds, cracks, seams and wrinkles of the leather and I kept discovering new ones as I went along. Unlike with <i><a href="http://stevenbelledin.blogspot.com/2018/03/the-first-eruption.html">The First Eruption</a></i>, the detail wasn't monotonous and repetitive, instead it was something I got to repeatedly invent along the way. In short, it was fun. A lot of fun.<br />
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Here's a shot of the piece in progress:<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgdcbKv2jXOaSkv1uprbBMFwUEKn1jpdCNTLW5PtpQFsZhatqcyfk3wiRh0F1ByJNX9S8SktRStwqltDtlPAkr9c0PRuv85wzkQz7al_-8i0nU2S5-ehHeh-i-TuhnBCFNlOJ1hM8_SVBI/s1600/Photo+Jun+16%252C+8+15+59+AM.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgdcbKv2jXOaSkv1uprbBMFwUEKn1jpdCNTLW5PtpQFsZhatqcyfk3wiRh0F1ByJNX9S8SktRStwqltDtlPAkr9c0PRuv85wzkQz7al_-8i0nU2S5-ehHeh-i-TuhnBCFNlOJ1hM8_SVBI/s400/Photo+Jun+16%252C+8+15+59+AM.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
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As you can see, I've blocked in the major shapes with paint and am beginning to complete the piece from the center outward. I don't always work that way, but it was helpful in this case since I knew I'd be able to consistently avoid resting my hand in wet paint.<br />
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Anyway, a lot more work went into the piece from there (I know I'm skipping a lot but that is the only photo I took while working on it) and the final painting ended up looking like this:<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjSbrgZZ636fuKGwvUr2g3sO1vMbIjEHDh0Bv1YAEoRTJ_SmijD1UaQofuUqKH-YQebIX8_2xLAnc7oBWy3dyu44SHp5ivmyELpJoKLlu-mk8I5_lGrZ5ijF7Ps4R17ThbI3cMQDidbIiE/s1600/403188_final.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1080" data-original-width="1392" height="310" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjSbrgZZ636fuKGwvUr2g3sO1vMbIjEHDh0Bv1YAEoRTJ_SmijD1UaQofuUqKH-YQebIX8_2xLAnc7oBWy3dyu44SHp5ivmyELpJoKLlu-mk8I5_lGrZ5ijF7Ps4R17ThbI3cMQDidbIiE/s400/403188_final.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">©Wizards of the Coast</td></tr>
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The finished piece is oil on hardboard and measures eighteen inches wide by fourteen inches tall. It was art directed by Mark Winters and Kelly Digges. It is also a piece I like. Seriously—I'm genuinely happy with it. I don't say that often, but its true. It turned out pretty much how I hoped it would. Sure, the necklace isn't as unassuming as I'd have liked, but it's not exactly shouting its value or power, either. It is, in many respects, the perfect example of my aesthetic philosophy (whatever that means), and it's something of which I'm rather proud.Steven Belledinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02798269170915291454noreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3245662519209286682.post-56311521171375007472018-03-28T11:00:00.001-04:002018-03-28T11:00:21.303-04:00The First EruptionThis assignment was an easy one to wrap my head around, but difficult to execute on several levels. The challenge: paint a tapestry depicting the Ghitu people's creation story of their home continent of Shiv. The Ghitu and Shiv are parts of classic Magic history and are names most Magic fans will likely recognize. If you happen to be one who is less than initiated in Magic's lore however, the short version is that the Ghitu believe that an egg of stone hatched and a yolk of flame erupted, becoming the continent of Shiv. Somehow, this tapestry needed to depict that pivotal event.<br />
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The first challenge was that this image was not going to show a tapestry in its context. In other words, the art would not show the wall upon which the tapestry was hanging, nor would it show a loom or any such clue as to what we were looking at. Having such additional elements would be useful and would likely make selling the tapestry that much easier. But for the purposes of the card, it was necessary to show the tapestry by itself. This meant trying to figure out how to make the tapestry read as a tapestry in some other way. I chose to do this through texture.<br />
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Depicting the image on a tapestry is the easy part. The hard part is making it clear that the image one is looking at is a tapestry (vs. a painting vs. a print). That means figuring out how to depict the medium itself, which is woven fabric. I did a lot of research. I looked at a LOT of images of tapestries. Most importantly, I looked at a lot of close-ups of tapestries. In doing this, it became evident to me that recreating some semblance of the weave I saw on many of those close-ups was the key. All I had to do was figure out how to articulate that weave with oil paint.<br />
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Why paint? Well, it's what I use. I confess, however, that I thought long and hard about doing this piece digitally, since I knew that superimposing a weave onto an image in Photoshop would be a piece of cake. In fact, doing that would have taken mere moments whereas my solution took several days. But as much as I knew I could save time, I rather liked the idea of the challenge in doing it all with traditional media. Plus, I thought it worth the gamble that someone would want to buy the finished product.<br />
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Anyway, after some experimentation on a piece of gessoed cardboard, I decided how I was going to go about painting the piece. This involved filling in the basic fields of color within the design, then adding very thin, parallel lines in a darker value, and finishing each strip with dabbed highlights indicating individual fabric strands. It was going to be tedious, but I thought the result was a good compromise between the appoximation of a weave and a painterly finish. Next came the issue of figuring out how to depict the Ghitu legend itself.<br />
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Deciding on the design of the tapestry was less straightforward than I'd expected. I knew that the image needed to contain an egg (or egg shape) breaking open, a volcano erupting, and a couple of dragons. The image also needed to be somewhat graphic in order to be in keeping with a woven tapestry. All that was left was to answer three key questions:<br />
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<b>1) How literal should the depiction of the creation story should the image be?</b><br />
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The solution to this was to create a bit of variety, so I did four different sketches depicting the origin story in different ways. For some, the breaking egg was very literal, for others, it was shown in other ways. In general, though, I kept the elements required to tell the story very clear and pretty literal. I didn't see a need to get too fancy or obtuse.<br />
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<b>2) What kind of stylization (if any) would there be in depicting the image?</b><br />
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The art order provided for the assignment suggested that I look at the aesthetic of Persian rugs as a starting point. Instantly, however, I noticed a real problem with that. Persian rugs are typiclaly extremely elaborate and decorative. While that's cool at life-size, shrunken to card size the designs became a liability and a bit of a visual mess. I decided to go with something more simple and graphic. If that direction were deemed <i>too</i> simplistic, I could easily start to find ways to make the image more decorative. However, I strongly suspected that because of the many elements needed for the composition, even a graphic treatment had the potential to feel pretty busy at card-size. So, I went with a graphic treatment throughout that had a degree of simplification and stylization upon which I could add slightly more decorative elements.<br />
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<b>3) What would the color palette be?</b><br />
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The color palette ended up being the simplest part. In the world guide for the set were very clear color cues for Ghitu costuming. I took those and ran with them and attempted to keep the entire tapestry limited to those colors, but in a broader range of values. It was little paint by number, but it worked.<br />
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The four sketches I drew up were done in Photoshop. My hope was that the folks at Wizards would like one of the designs as is, but I was also prepared to mix and match elements as necessary. So, I kept each element on a separate layer within each document thus giving the folks at Wizards options (after all, this was everyone's first time doing something like this). Once done, I crossed my fingers and submitted the images.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjO1DHYB1CcMHLnjn6V1qMg9XdO-rORCoHtpjaYxl9F65Lm68t0gexoVukW-dv_ZylrcLPS1u8pkbKRD7pH1i2GKErizt2oN55CUwpQk2-nnpnW5mr7q6ejx9GEN2OGCcTQpyndakiXlww/s1600/403221_sketches.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="783" data-original-width="1600" height="195" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjO1DHYB1CcMHLnjn6V1qMg9XdO-rORCoHtpjaYxl9F65Lm68t0gexoVukW-dv_ZylrcLPS1u8pkbKRD7pH1i2GKErizt2oN55CUwpQk2-nnpnW5mr7q6ejx9GEN2OGCcTQpyndakiXlww/s400/403221_sketches.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">©Wizards of the Coast</td></tr>
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To my surprise, they liked elements of all the sketches, but favored one in particular (the one above marked "A"). I ended up doing some additional tweaks and submitted a final version. Then it was time to paint.<br />
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I knew painting this piece was going to be tedious and draining. So, I made things a bit easier for myself and created a colorized sketch that I printed out and pasted down to my surface. The colors weren't exact, but it was basically like having the piece blocked in. Still, I ended up blocking everything in with oil paint in the correct color palette. Once that was done, I moved on to painting the details and instantly made a stupid mistake.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhcfMjNDNTOqUWzqHjPjKRrmGnrRURtATDnWNnlUVTxyo0Cc2i1sdg6C1W1DaFF_7rTLBz9l8cdt_T8p71bv68yiwpmEtG9_z1B7Q464doi0ZnM1KhJ_6z4bJ5k1bBo8wukgfes_gKaq8E/s1600/403221_sketch_master.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="685" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhcfMjNDNTOqUWzqHjPjKRrmGnrRURtATDnWNnlUVTxyo0Cc2i1sdg6C1W1DaFF_7rTLBz9l8cdt_T8p71bv68yiwpmEtG9_z1B7Q464doi0ZnM1KhJ_6z4bJ5k1bBo8wukgfes_gKaq8E/s640/403221_sketch_master.jpg" width="272" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">©Wizards of the Coast</td></tr>
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As stated above, my shortcut for depicting the tapestry's weave was largely built around parallel lines. I could have included these in my printed sketch for ease, but I decided early on that imperfections were necessary to further sell the weave, and there's no better way to add imperfections in parallel lines than doing them freehand. No big deal, really.<br />
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Now, one would think that maybe I'd start painting these parallel lines along one of the edges of the piece and then slowly work my way across the entire painting. That certainly would make sense, but it's not how I chose to do it. Instead, I started in the middle. And no, I didn't start with vertical lines that went from the very top to the very bottom. I just started an isolated set of parallel lines within the yellow section of the volcano's eruption. I had no real clue whether the lines I painted were parallel to the sides of the piece, since I didn't even do tick marks or anything like that. I just went for it without a clue. It took two days of work before I realized I should make sure the work thus far was square.<br />
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Fortunately for me, the starting point was off parallel but such a small amount that it was unnoticeable and required no changes. Still, I can't really explain what I was thinking besides the fact that I simply wasn't. It was a dumb move that happened to work out. If you ever have to do one of these things yourself (or are crazy enough to want to try it for "fun"), then I highly suggest you don't do what I did.<br />
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Anyway, once I'd established that the line segments I'd painted were square (enough) I decided to paint all of the parallel lines for the entire piece. Now, these lines were quite close to one another and are about one sixteenth to three thirty-seconds of an inch away from one another. It was tedious work to say the least. Once done, I turned to filling in the areas between the lines and then finished off the areas with highlights.<br />
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Here's a shot mid-process:<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhyT0-OViHxlOOWdnZXAuOMTyUECtrn3sDCaBV-C_5J-KtLZ9MjUNMxOXPUcGRlJWZo0hZ8tNhEgPISQg5ItQtt6gYu1vDEBuzVSnSXAL-qPiCGdqZnxFUJfEsfqdG3myEqlTld0-rIBys/s1600/Photo-May-16%252C-11-04-15-AM-copy.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="680" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhyT0-OViHxlOOWdnZXAuOMTyUECtrn3sDCaBV-C_5J-KtLZ9MjUNMxOXPUcGRlJWZo0hZ8tNhEgPISQg5ItQtt6gYu1vDEBuzVSnSXAL-qPiCGdqZnxFUJfEsfqdG3myEqlTld0-rIBys/s640/Photo-May-16%252C-11-04-15-AM-copy.jpg" width="268" /></a></div>
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Throughout, the painting was methodical and taxing. My movement was restricted and was mostly from the wrist and fingers. The result was severe hand cramps and occasional hand spasms. It was probably the least fun I've ever had painting in my entire life, and I've been painting regularly since I was nine years old. The pain ended up cutting many days short, which prolonged the process (and the discomfort). Eventually, though, I finished the piece, scanned it, retouched it, and handed it in.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjsGVG5oLyONSDROP6ozt6-3jobaEALGOTYPyN1ot0O29VLlM1zBDFA-Fpl4DQvGbNhrZwa0Q_FBvpcl8Xmuhn_BBy5mCNVt8G1B9ZX0ibfVb5n3NXAn0qaacBkq48qpz6VuOHyNBke3pA/s1600/403221_final.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1406" data-original-width="600" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjsGVG5oLyONSDROP6ozt6-3jobaEALGOTYPyN1ot0O29VLlM1zBDFA-Fpl4DQvGbNhrZwa0Q_FBvpcl8Xmuhn_BBy5mCNVt8G1B9ZX0ibfVb5n3NXAn0qaacBkq48qpz6VuOHyNBke3pA/s640/403221_final.jpg" width="272" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">©Wizards of the Coast</td></tr>
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Above is the painting as I handed it in. The finished piece is oil on paper on hardboard and measures seven and three-quarters inches wide by eighteen inches tall. It was art directed by Mark Winters. The piece did receive one final tweak after I submitted it to Wizards in that I added my initials and the date to it. As it was, adding my signature undermined the illusion of the tapestry, but some form of it is now on the final piece.<br />
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Here are some closeups for your perusal:<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhFUcXOd5D6xoGhvervuhszaZZb4tdTdt-yikP5DeP9njWqReh6fuaAJkjeyPLzUQPIb68ShsxyEEBJxvCxZ605-DQtTGeRGGcLRTb3N7ESpHa68AkTOJmeEBIpTUmDaRQE60qX4Ks6Xzk/s1600/Photo+Mar+27%252C+10+25+49+AM.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1200" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhFUcXOd5D6xoGhvervuhszaZZb4tdTdt-yikP5DeP9njWqReh6fuaAJkjeyPLzUQPIb68ShsxyEEBJxvCxZ605-DQtTGeRGGcLRTb3N7ESpHa68AkTOJmeEBIpTUmDaRQE60qX4Ks6Xzk/s320/Photo+Mar+27%252C+10+25+49+AM.jpg" width="240" /></a></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgeA-VZcElr-sgRYlCjNPVzyJZyMnSAZYfwmS3ODzB0OBz27WH2V3EOXQF4cpGe-713WfDoekK-qtG-Ai_zyAuhli4u982Vt4UvDa4WtDefnew44UxD8boZQ9wBp3eeId5lE6FN0wSF_Nk/s1600/Photo+Mar+27%252C+10+22+46+AM.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1200" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgeA-VZcElr-sgRYlCjNPVzyJZyMnSAZYfwmS3ODzB0OBz27WH2V3EOXQF4cpGe-713WfDoekK-qtG-Ai_zyAuhli4u982Vt4UvDa4WtDefnew44UxD8boZQ9wBp3eeId5lE6FN0wSF_Nk/s320/Photo+Mar+27%252C+10+22+46+AM.jpg" width="240" /></a></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhZZw6EaoRe1-RW4M8NpT-fNSK8DRFYMIOYL1UNVcD9WUyMkqb5Z1KHZW9NOzQRt57NmKtUB5mAuP6orarGpBVT9A3WCfTjQg1gfcvPmikNbi32EXaHAkk0Q1qJABWdH-dV5ac9gEpnwBo/s1600/Photo+Mar+27%252C+10+25+02+AM.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1200" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhZZw6EaoRe1-RW4M8NpT-fNSK8DRFYMIOYL1UNVcD9WUyMkqb5Z1KHZW9NOzQRt57NmKtUB5mAuP6orarGpBVT9A3WCfTjQg1gfcvPmikNbi32EXaHAkk0Q1qJABWdH-dV5ac9gEpnwBo/s320/Photo+Mar+27%252C+10+25+02+AM.jpg" width="240" /></a></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEil1Yfl9VRwZa2IQKaxtzTSOy4lfJfI5i4aCheP8xbqlj7vst_W9Cp_dkGDSCZdNwUVJICxcRYplEFtWYcGRuzfJBC2n9tYyzyJSeE4bFD1mdC68TrBaG-0mDev9nJIDPxocwu8V65knps/s1600/Photo-Mar-27%252C-7-48-49-PM.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1200" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEil1Yfl9VRwZa2IQKaxtzTSOy4lfJfI5i4aCheP8xbqlj7vst_W9Cp_dkGDSCZdNwUVJICxcRYplEFtWYcGRuzfJBC2n9tYyzyJSeE4bFD1mdC68TrBaG-0mDev9nJIDPxocwu8V65knps/s320/Photo-Mar-27%252C-7-48-49-PM.jpg" width="240" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Basically the only two brushes I used for the entire thing.<br />The small round brush in front was basically ruined in the process. </td></tr>
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There are some very important realities that I had to face with this painting. First is that there is a real limit to the amount of detail that would to appear at card-size. In fact, most of the work I did will not be visible at all. It's entirely possible that one will get a hint of the indicated weave at card size, but it's pretty unlikely. So why bother? Well, the image will likely be used for promotional purposes and show up in a much larger format. With those kinds of things, the detail I poured into the piece will be much more apparent, not to mention important. That alone makes the whole thing worthwhile.<br />
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The second reality is that despite the amount of effort and time the finished painting represents, the result is something that I can never use in my portfolio. Why? Well, it's stylistically a total anomaly, as is the execution. The piece simply doesn't fit in with the rest of my work and it doesn't represent a direction I wish to go. Is that a bad thing? Not at all. The challenge of the assignment was interesting and forced me to grapple with a lot of questions regarding my process. I actually had to think about a piece in an entirely different way and couldn't just paint from the hip. That was a valuable exercise. Additionally, this assignment was the first time in a long while where I really questioned whether it was worth painting in oils, and in the end it reaffirmed that aspect of my work.<br />
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Style-wise, it was an escape and a chance to play in a space I normally wouldn't have gone into. Can I see revisiting the graphic nature in some way? Sure. Much of my college work contained a mix of graphic and realistic elements, and I can see experimenting with that again. The results (provided they're worth a damn) would likely not produce imagery appropriate for Magic, mind you. But there's always my personal work (though even then I'm not so sure). But yeah, it was a valuable experience in that way as well.<br />
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Still, I would not fully paint a tapestry again if I was asked to do another one. Instead, I would paint the image in oils and do the tapestry texture in Photoshop. Mostly that decision is built around how vivid my memory is of the pain and swelling in my wrist this piece caused, but part of it is that I genuinely don't see the point of doing it again. I've done it already and didn't really enjoy it enough to dive back into it. But then, I change my mind constantly, so one never knows.<br />
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All that being said, there'd be a part of me that would be pushing to just learn how to actually weave and go that route, instead.<br />
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<br />Steven Belledinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02798269170915291454noreply@blogger.com17tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3245662519209286682.post-16435910692766910142018-03-02T11:41:00.003-05:002018-03-02T11:41:46.955-05:00Moment of Triumph, Moment of Craving<i>Moment of Triumph</i> and <i>Moment of Craving</i> are two pieces commissioned in consecutive art waves, were art directed by two different people, and were two completely different experiences. The first, <i>Moment of Triumph</i>, went so smoothly that writing about it (and reading about it) is kind of dull. That piece went like this:<br />
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Art order: depict a female vampire wielding a sword while riding a giant, white horse in armor as it rears up. In the background there's a spire of the hidden golden city visible and sunlight glints dramatically off the sword's blade. All of the elements mentioned (including the landscape and the flora surrounding the horse and rider) had specific concept art that I was to draw from.<br />
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I took the elements provided, arranged them and handed in this sketch:<br />
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgggB_NuV4gt2Ce6-RgtywmLqNp5En4Utz_7b3nZVDqQEB3eLHK5shnXejPdkkeI6RpvyJS0c0pW3A3AOWDAS3R75ebOiOkf6w9GYa-wW3PDD5z9AGoJVEDpwo-kpqVlbCAoVhyHtAJ2mg/s1600/402722_sk.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="873" data-original-width="1200" height="290" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgggB_NuV4gt2Ce6-RgtywmLqNp5En4Utz_7b3nZVDqQEB3eLHK5shnXejPdkkeI6RpvyJS0c0pW3A3AOWDAS3R75ebOiOkf6w9GYa-wW3PDD5z9AGoJVEDpwo-kpqVlbCAoVhyHtAJ2mg/s400/402722_sk.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">©Wizards of the Coast</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
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The only note on the sketch that I received was that the light glinting off the sword wasn't dramatic enough. More than a fair criticism and something easily remedied. With that I was given the green light to move forward to the final art.<br />
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Here is that art:<br />
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg7uLi34euZmuYjsBHpYWGsrLIYquq9KoArbsUoARScmr3rKy1Y0_I9FT4k_otvKDDp-MZoGSN19LYgLT5azZvsfiL4Fyk2YU79RA3iVPLJ1xkshWZvUcgomI8buSIDTGwHVANDYAWCH14/s1600/402722_painting.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1080" data-original-width="1448" height="297" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg7uLi34euZmuYjsBHpYWGsrLIYquq9KoArbsUoARScmr3rKy1Y0_I9FT4k_otvKDDp-MZoGSN19LYgLT5azZvsfiL4Fyk2YU79RA3iVPLJ1xkshWZvUcgomI8buSIDTGwHVANDYAWCH14/s400/402722_painting.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">©Wizards of the Coast</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
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The finished piece is oil on hardboard, measures sixteen inches wide by twelve inches tall and was art directed by Cynthia Sheppard.<br />
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One will note that there is a major value shift from sketch to final. The finished piece got dark. WAY dark. I don't have a ton of explanation for that beyond the fact that I started with the focal points and established by value range and then proceeded to paint out from there. I knew the piece had gotten dark, but I was really happy with the stuff I'd painted to that point and felt that the added darkness added punch to the highlights. So I rolled with it.<br />
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Also, it's important to note that the above is an image of the painting as it currently stands. When I painted it, I did the glint on the sword digitally so I could add degrees of glint in layers so that the AD could add as much or as little as she wanted. I then painted the piece to match what she chose to do.<br />
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And that was it. No real issues and probably the only horse I've ever painted that I'm not secretly ashamed of. All in all it was a win.<br />
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Then <i>Moment of Craving </i>came along.<br />
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<i>Moment of Craving</i> is meant to depict the same vampire in the same location having succumbed to bloodlust. She needed to be closer to the picture plane, possibly coming right at the viewer.<br />
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The fact that it was meant to be mostly the same allowed me to start with a black and white image of the first painting and then do the sketch on top of it. More than a bit of a cheat, but it helped keep things very consistent.<br />
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Here's how that sketch came out:<br />
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhFHPfdyvMw7hFKtk_9pHdj6AxDCzltel3zlTfa2VhAwpVPiJuVDo-JsTsKtPmucIuWPAHKPT9B-1tzDZyYMt85YMI2-v-ZEppaKj3Pm3tp2ZpNIfoIE4smBiRrG7FK0M09DQ2qzKtwZhg/s1600/402953_sk.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="898" data-original-width="1200" height="298" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhFHPfdyvMw7hFKtk_9pHdj6AxDCzltel3zlTfa2VhAwpVPiJuVDo-JsTsKtPmucIuWPAHKPT9B-1tzDZyYMt85YMI2-v-ZEppaKj3Pm3tp2ZpNIfoIE4smBiRrG7FK0M09DQ2qzKtwZhg/s400/402953_sk.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">©Wizards of the Coast</td></tr>
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I decided to capitalize on the birds I'd put in the background of the first piece as a story-telling device. In this version there are no birds, only feathers floating through the air, a red rivulet of blood dripping from the vampire's mouth. I toyed with the idea of having a dead bird in her hand, but I decided that went a bit too far and was likely something I might have to remove either because that visual would conflict with a card mechanic in some way or may just have pushed the envelope. Plus, no dead bird is more subtle, and I like subtlety.<br />
<br />
Also of note was how excited I was to be painting the motif on the vampire's pauldron (shoulder armor) that depicted the oppression of man. It's clearer in the finished painting, but there are a line of humans being crushed. You can see them below, their heads bowed, holding the slab above their heads. This motif (which I think Tyler Jacobson might have originally touched on) was something that I ran with a bit when trying my hand at a vampire ship. I don't know how frequently that motif ended up being used throughout the set, but I liked getting to incorporate it in my own piece.<br />
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Anyway, the only requested changes to the sketch were that the helmet felt small (which it did) and that the darkness under her eyes was...well, too dark.<br />
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Again, this was all easy to adjust and so I moved forward from there.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh_BN8JUkfxQduJD1tc5nr1iT72JtrvdoeDngEOZ7geeX1f7v27Hcms0jpa5iW2JTvD0W9vpR6whLJqfmz0zd8j5FJiClZ4Z8FnrwsONrQ56fatLMCrkFJutccD1vSYdPSr7QwxcNAuHgM/s1600/402953_painting.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1080" data-original-width="1446" height="298" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh_BN8JUkfxQduJD1tc5nr1iT72JtrvdoeDngEOZ7geeX1f7v27Hcms0jpa5iW2JTvD0W9vpR6whLJqfmz0zd8j5FJiClZ4Z8FnrwsONrQ56fatLMCrkFJutccD1vSYdPSr7QwxcNAuHgM/s400/402953_painting.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">©Wizards of the Coast</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
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The finished piece is also oil on hardboard, measures sixteen inches wide by twelve inches tall and was art directed by Dawn Murin.<br />
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I present this as though it was a piece of cake and a non-issue but the reality is that I had to revise this piece twice. More specifically, I had to paint the vampire's face three times in total. The image above is where the painting ended up, but even that differs from what Wizards ended up using. Allow me to illustrate with all three versions lined up in a row:<br />
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The face on the left (marked "First") was what I initially painted. It is a grey-faced vampire that is mostly lacking color. The issue Wizards had with this version were that the vampire was lacking color in hers face and they requested a repaint. I will not lie, I took issue with this. Why? A couple reasons, actually.<br />
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First off, there's the issue with my degree of familiarity. I was on the second of two concept pushes that helped develop the world of Ixalan. I remember very clearly the excitement surrounding the aesthetic in the concept art for the vampires, a degree of which was tied to the overall lack of color in their aesthetic (outside of the gold armor, of course). So that memory was vivid in my head when painting this piece. The provided world guide supported that memory as the pages addressing the vampires showed them with pale, gray-white skin and black hair — even in color images. That lack of color wasn't a bug, it was a feature. So, I interpreted the stuff I saw and delivered something that I felt was well within model.<br />
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The thing is, I was not privy to decisions made subsequent to the concept push I was in, nor was I privy to how the vampires had evolved in the previous waves of assigned artwork. It turns out they ended up having a bit more color in their skin tones than the world guide indicated (whether this was through independent decisions made by the artists, conscious choices by the art directors, or a combination of the two is yet another thing I am not privy to). So, my vampire ended up being off-model despite adhering pretty strictly to the concept art in the provided world guide.</div>
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So back to the easel I went.<br />
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A day or so later, I sent in a version of the piece with the face seen at center (marked above as "Revised"). I erred on the side of too much color as I figured they could always desaturate the skin tones to their liking. And that's exactly what they did. Dawn kindly sent along a jpeg of her completed version for my approval (which they really don't need, but it was awful nice to have my input considered). This led to one last trip back to the easel to square it with what would eventually be printed on the card (this version is marked above as "Final").<br />
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High drama this is not. But it is a part of the job and is the kind of thing that can be a real hiccup in one's schedule, though this instance was not nearly as bad as other clients I've had, nor what other illustrators have seen. Point is, the client was happy and I had to jump through more hoops than usual to get there. Admittedly, there was also a lot more swearing behind the scenes than usual as changes can sometimes be frustrating. But the change wasn't pointless, and the frustration proved to be well worth it as I feel that the piece was improved by it all.<br />
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<b>Final note</b>: keen eyes will see that the images on the card ended up being far redder than the images shown above. This is primarily due to a lighting issue I had when color correcting the finished paintings. I replaced a lightbulb in the room I usually do my color correct in and it changed the way the paintings looked to me. Only after seeing them in good light (it rained most of the time I was painting these) did I realize how inaccurate the images were. So, I recalibrated the images to match the paintings. The above images most closely match what the finished works look like.<br />
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Steven Belledinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02798269170915291454noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3245662519209286682.post-43486022995430866002017-08-18T14:52:00.002-04:002017-08-18T14:52:41.396-04:00Scavenger GroundsFor the collectors, players, and fans of Magic: the Gathering, months separate the release of one set from the next. For the artists, that separation simply doesn't exist. And for me the sets all tend to flow together. As soon as have I handed in one assignment, the next rolls in and the two assignments can be sets—or literally be worlds—apart. As a result I can sometimes have a difficulty remembering which card is from what set, and this difficulty is exacerbated by the addition of code names, temp card names, and finally the real names of both the sets and the cards upon release. It's a lot to keep straight.<br />
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Anyway, immediately after coming off of the <i><a href="http://stevenbelledin.blogspot.com/2017/07/greater-sandwurm.html">Greater Sandwurm</a></i> assignment I was again asked to revisit the subject of the Amonkhet sandwurms, but this time in a very different context. For this new piece I was asked to show a wind-blown, black sand desert with bones strewn about, the centerpiece of which would be the skeleton of the sandwurm in question.<br />
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While the wurm itself was depicted in the styleguide Wizards provided, the wurm's gross anatomy was not. So, figuring out exactly how to design a sandwurm's skeleton was the difficult part. While a "worm" is an invertebrate, and thus has no backbone, a "wurm" is a different thing altogether. Classically, the creature called a "wurm" is a just a dragon, but Magic typically has pushed its "wurms" in much more of a "worm" direction. So, I split the difference and started by looking at snake skeletons.<br />
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While a snake skeletons were a good place to start, they don't quite fit the design of the Amonkhet wurm, which is far flatter and has the vague appearance of being segmented. What to do, then? Make stuff up. Sure, I looked at a lot of different creatures in an attempt at making informed decisions, but truthfully the solution was largely just playing around with shapes until I found something that was satisfying and felt like it might actually fit inside the wurms as they were depicted in the styleguide.<br />
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg06oImSVGeqtSkRZ8EQTXKxrRjQYRdtiIz6CjqBW-DLlxhF7HD2oW17ESCAkNgHVMTORGfO7W2MPzNuI0-Ou_cRPGuFg_Q2R6v4E7-WX-tBRcEHsUMHH4YX-v9lmSWIlZtHIGHyqbVr4U/s1600/401851_Boneyard_skt.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="933" data-original-width="1200" height="310" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg06oImSVGeqtSkRZ8EQTXKxrRjQYRdtiIz6CjqBW-DLlxhF7HD2oW17ESCAkNgHVMTORGfO7W2MPzNuI0-Ou_cRPGuFg_Q2R6v4E7-WX-tBRcEHsUMHH4YX-v9lmSWIlZtHIGHyqbVr4U/s400/401851_Boneyard_skt.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">©Wizards of the Coast</td></tr>
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Were I to design the thing all over again, I think I'd go a different route and maybe rely more on snake anatomy and find away to flatten it out believably. Instead, I got hung up on the idea of them being segmented and tried to find a way to sell that. As it was, the fine folks at Wizards approved the piece and I was off to the races.<br />
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhHGGfTkTvjbCTiR1HZ43NeTEAVOKWtLVKWhn4EI4lL2BGOODygKfLpsyUERlOw-kMz4a3co3XAn81Wc-jfm4XxRVFu3VWUAtl9OAEC-m7fkq_tLXPC6ILVmgaWA5t9F5J13ML59lfi_c0/s1600/401851_Boneyard.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1080" data-original-width="1386" height="311" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhHGGfTkTvjbCTiR1HZ43NeTEAVOKWtLVKWhn4EI4lL2BGOODygKfLpsyUERlOw-kMz4a3co3XAn81Wc-jfm4XxRVFu3VWUAtl9OAEC-m7fkq_tLXPC6ILVmgaWA5t9F5J13ML59lfi_c0/s400/401851_Boneyard.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">©Wizards of the Coast</td></tr>
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The finished painting is oil on hardboard and measures eighteen inches wide by fourteen inches tall. It was art directed by Cynthia Sheppard.<br />
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In terms of painting the piece, it was among the easier pieces I've ever had to paint. There was very limited color, so it felt more like a value study than a full-fledged painting. The work went smoothly and I'm pretty happy with the results. Sure, I'd make some different choices were I to do it again, and sure there's some stuff that I had to fudge to make it work, but I think I managed to get what I wanted out of the piece in terms of mood and atmosphere. Most importantly, this was a fun piece to work on. Seriously. This one was a win.<br />
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<br />Steven Belledinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02798269170915291454noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3245662519209286682.post-61660490451583229172017-07-20T11:50:00.001-04:002017-07-20T11:50:12.716-04:00Greater SandwurmThis post is overdue, but it has a bit of crossover with the next post, so it's kind of worth having pushed it back to be in closer proximity to talking about <i>Scavenger Grounds</i>.<br />
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Anyway....<br />
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So, <i>Greater Sandwurm.</i><br />
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Within the style guide for Magic's world of Amonkhet, there was a sandwurm that I believe was designed by Victor Adame Minguez, who was a member of the concept team that built the world. I was asked to paint such a sandwurm, but bigger. Much bigger. The wurm would be rising up above the horizon as it plowed through a band of mummies shuffling through the desert.<br />
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I'm not going to lie, I looked forward to this assignment with relish do to a variety of art nerd reasons. It wasn't the wurm itself, nor the world it inhabited. It was that I had a clear vision of the lighting in the piece and was looking forward to the challenge of getting it right.<br />
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As I've discussed before, my work tends to go pretty dark value-wise as I paint it. I don't exactly spot blacks in the dark areas or anything, but a lot of times shadow areas of my work get dark enough to seem that way. The result is that I feel that a lot of my work lacks the degree of luminosity that I'd like it to have, and I wanted to see if I could do something different with this piece. That the wurm was white and the desert was brightly lit was a big help, I just had to find a way to restrain myself from diving too deep into the darker end of my palette too quickly.<br />
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Approaching the piece, I had a clear picture in my mind that I was pretty passionate about. I had a definite idea of the composition and moment I wanted to convey, I had a clear idea of the color and value structure, and what narrative there was to convey fell easily into all of it. I was pretty eager, so I dove into Photoshop and knocked out this sketch:<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjHDu_6v2n9lxCU6X9Ux9VQcFMQyvqQS6uNfKilP5VFYRw0aFfCIYu9B1ed7k7rjyaBKrEKgBvGENFk6hOOhqZ5DX99NysiJQYgWYwQoFpU8JiaxuTJOccNXEjmgqWqk_2rSmEr5GADAv0/s1600/400878_wurm_sk.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="900" data-original-width="1200" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjHDu_6v2n9lxCU6X9Ux9VQcFMQyvqQS6uNfKilP5VFYRw0aFfCIYu9B1ed7k7rjyaBKrEKgBvGENFk6hOOhqZ5DX99NysiJQYgWYwQoFpU8JiaxuTJOccNXEjmgqWqk_2rSmEr5GADAv0/s400/400878_wurm_sk.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">©Wizards of the Coast</td></tr>
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When asked to paint a giant sandwurm rising up from the horizon, it's kind of impossible to avoid a <i>Dune</i> vibe. Rather than try and fight it, I feel like it's just better to embrace it, instead. I doubt that I'll ever be on the list of aritsts someone asks to illustrate that classic, but I enjoyed the chance to reference the world of Arrakis while I could.<br />
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Unfortunately, when painting a sandwurm rising from the horizon, it's also kind of difficult to not paint a giant phallus. And that, as was pointed out to me by a fellow illustrator, is exactly what I'd done with the above sketch. That's not necessarily a huge issue, mind you, after all there's plenty of stuff we see every day that is phallic. In this case, however, it felt blatant enough that it could be mistaken for being intentional (which it wasn't), and that's not something that Wizards would want to deal with. More importantly, my fellow illustrator felt that the wurm's pose was a bit dull and I kind of agreed, so I revisited the sketch.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj6CGDiMQSC9k47IvixvKWeQwysBi72gPRt58j_LUVuV8T4xftF8RqpVDlXVOUNr2vrefYr19z6Ixb2hkwVYVlSnhAoy4tgbF5nefsiwySmy_Aq8oHC7SjOzX-s19wWOTDDx1zOTXbbKH8/s1600/400878_wurm_sk2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="900" data-original-width="1200" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj6CGDiMQSC9k47IvixvKWeQwysBi72gPRt58j_LUVuV8T4xftF8RqpVDlXVOUNr2vrefYr19z6Ixb2hkwVYVlSnhAoy4tgbF5nefsiwySmy_Aq8oHC7SjOzX-s19wWOTDDx1zOTXbbKH8/s400/400878_wurm_sk2.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">©Wizards of the Coast</td></tr>
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Though I think the revised pose had a positive impact on the piece, there's a real part of me that prefers the original version—dull, phallic (or both) or not. I feel like the the image is more balanced and the composition appeals to my love of starkness. Plus, the pose insinuates scale and weight in a way that second version just doesn't. Lastly, it also nods more firmly to the aforementioned Dune vibe (but that bit's not exactly within the parameters of the assignment or Wizards' needs).<br />
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That being said, the folks at Wizards liked the sketch and I went on to the final.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgmFXzzIUduuaRuzjRKDaYeFmvIrWSgc0gAVMjis-ImVjhvZtWjD4QdLN8EhRC1csypqoqjEBF6b7kPDsYDaFBciWdXJ3yRV_m3TGEY3KOZlzhDnZlPqfWn66s_BiQg9InhRxrS5EAUAbU/s1600/400878_sandwurm.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1080" data-original-width="1445" height="298" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgmFXzzIUduuaRuzjRKDaYeFmvIrWSgc0gAVMjis-ImVjhvZtWjD4QdLN8EhRC1csypqoqjEBF6b7kPDsYDaFBciWdXJ3yRV_m3TGEY3KOZlzhDnZlPqfWn66s_BiQg9InhRxrS5EAUAbU/s400/400878_sandwurm.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">©Wizards of the Coast</td></tr>
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The finished piece is oil on hardboard and measures sixteen inches wide by twelve inches tall. It was art directed by Mark Winters.<br />
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Looking at the piece a little over a year after I painted it, the question of balance still nags at me. After revising the sketch, I kept moving the wurm within the piece further to the left only to end up putting it back in its original position. I did this probably a dozen times, and will all that pushing and pulling, I never really found a final placement that made me completely happy. Obviously, I settled on a placement at the time, but I'll never be one hundred percent certain that it was the correct call. Right now, I feel like I should have moved it further left, tomorrow I might feel like it's fine where it is. When I see it framed, it'll probably cause the debate to begin anew, but we'll have to see.<br />
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So yeah, there's something that nags at me on this one, but I can't say I dislike the painting, either. In fact, there's a lot I'm really happy with. I didn't quite nail the degree of luminosity I was hoping to achieve, but I got much closer than I expected to. Additionally, I like the limited color palette and I enjoy a lot of the details throughout—especially the mummies, the blowing sand, and the landscape beyond. I'd call it a win.<br />
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<br />Steven Belledinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02798269170915291454noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3245662519209286682.post-19072264265745030752017-05-10T10:28:00.000-04:002017-05-10T10:28:05.467-04:00Amonkhet SwampBasic lands tend to be pretty simple, straightforward processes for me. There aren't characters to live up to, there very rarely are strict designs to imitate, and rarer still is a ton of back and forth between me and the fine folks at Wizards. The swamp I did for Amonkhet kept that streak going.<br />
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The art description asked for a desert swamp. A spring or trickling stream perhaps creating a marshy area in the desert with some scrubby plant life scattered about. The sunlight would bet weak as well, so this wasn't going to be a cheery landscape conjuring thoughts of fertility. All of this sounded just fine to me.<br />
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There are folks who will ponder the apparent oxymoron that is a desert swamp. While most of our mental images of deserts are sand-covered, hot and dry, this actually doesn't define the biome. Deserts are just places where very little rain falls, and a lack of rain doesn't mean there isn't any water present. Deciding how much of that water existed and how it interacted with the land was going to be the hardest thing to decide.<br />
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I tried the idea of a bubbling spring, but it somehow had too much life to it. The swamp I was being asked to depict wasn't meant to have evoke the idea vitality, so an active spring felt at odds with the goal. Instead, I decided that a very shallow stream from an unknown origin might be better. I put that stream in a bit of a gully to add the impression that at some point there may have been substantial water moving the land, but no longer. What remained was not much deeper than the stones it washed over and was as much a mud pit as it was a body of water.<br />
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Here's how the sketch came out:<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhd9Y0un9FRwNpKNpIsAh-oe0hObG8r7WQSY8cryQjVAf8890IG4aLY7dRK9dJ59fjcVHuBXvRCslaRmIgIFeDLRcoAwMh-HnbdSRpwBySwmtMInqBFjLyR3s_kmA6jr2mX1oUGmVLJvUw/s1600/400893_swamp_sk.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="310" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhd9Y0un9FRwNpKNpIsAh-oe0hObG8r7WQSY8cryQjVAf8890IG4aLY7dRK9dJ59fjcVHuBXvRCslaRmIgIFeDLRcoAwMh-HnbdSRpwBySwmtMInqBFjLyR3s_kmA6jr2mX1oUGmVLJvUw/s400/400893_swamp_sk.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">©Wizards of the Coast</td></tr>
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Two oddities in this sketch are that it is in color and also includes some painted-over and manipulated photo elements. Both are a rarity for me. If I colorize a sketch, it's typically only after I've gotten approval, when I spend a bit of time puzzling out some color choices before committing to paint. This time I felt that the color was necessary for clarity since a lot of the mud and water lacked separation in black and white. I think there are three colors used in total.<br />
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The photo elements are admittedly a bit lazy. I could have articulated all the dried grass, mud and stony shallows myself, but it would have taken more time than I wanted to spend, frankly. I knew I'd be painting the entire thing from scratch and articulating all that detail as I worked on the final piece. The idea of having to do it twice wasn't something I wanted to get into at the time. I don't think I've included photographic elements in a sketch since this piece, however. Nothing against using photos, but it doesn't feel like a particularly organic part of my process.<br />
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Anyway, the fine folks at Wizards gave it the go ahead and I took it to paint. Here's how the finished piece came out:<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj-RGyQc0b1YqigrnlpNvngMGD3lVrrqWf-wcjBfrh46beggzI6fsCjPrIF1pd5U4nju4BGkZi2gCyj5UbNAly7XwZ3J6-Q4LNbz05Eoju2YQ_sKDTo0YNkmZlR8dBnpiFgwrkm-4NT99Y/s1600/400893_swamp.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="311" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj-RGyQc0b1YqigrnlpNvngMGD3lVrrqWf-wcjBfrh46beggzI6fsCjPrIF1pd5U4nju4BGkZi2gCyj5UbNAly7XwZ3J6-Q4LNbz05Eoju2YQ_sKDTo0YNkmZlR8dBnpiFgwrkm-4NT99Y/s400/400893_swamp.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">©Wizards of the Coast</td></tr>
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The finished painting is oil on gessoed hardboard and measures eighteen inches wide by fourteen inches tall. It was art directed by Mark Winters.<br />
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Basic land images like this may be beautiful, but in general they lack any real hook or deep problem solving. Because of this, I kind of feel like they're out of place in the broader body of my illustration work, and so I don't typically include them in my portfolio. These landscapes fall into a weird category. I like them and think they represent good examples of the quality of my work, but at the same time they don't feel quite like they're a good representation of what my work is actually all about. All of that would make a lot more sense if I could rightly point out what exactly my work <i>is</i> actually all about.<br />
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So then why not include this piece, my basic forest (<a href="http://stevenbelledin.blogspot.com/2011/07/revisiting-reprints-forest.html">link</a>), or any of my Theros lands (<a href="http://stevenbelledin.blogspot.com/2013/11/forest-of-theros.html">forest</a>, <a href="http://stevenbelledin.blogspot.com/2013/11/the-plains-of-theros.html">plains</a>, <a href="http://stevenbelledin.blogspot.com/2013/11/island-of-theros.html">island</a>, <a href="http://stevenbelledin.blogspot.com/2013/11/swamp-of-theros.html">swamp</a>, <a href="http://stevenbelledin.blogspot.com/2013/11/mountains-of-theros.html">mountain</a>) in my portfolio? Maybe it's a fear of becoming pigeonholed as "the landscape guy," maybe it's the feeling in my gut that they're somehow a whole different genre, or maybe it's because those images fail to tell any kind of story. There are plenty of pieces in my portfolio, however, that contradict some or all of the potential reasons listed above. Plenty of that work tells no real story of substance, the inclusion of the architectural landscapes disproves a blanket prejudice, and based on the assignments I get there is no real danger of my becoming just a landscape guy. I think what it all boils down to is that the landscape pieces in question simply don't feel like fantasy and I am (mostly) a fantasy illustrator. While none of the landscapes I've painted actually exist, they feel very much like they could. They seem equally grounded in our world as the worlds they represent. Part of that is due to the assignment and the rest is due to my sensibilities. Either way, the end results feel set apart somehow.<br />
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Despite not seeing them as straight-up fantasy, boy are they a lot of fun to paint. That bit is paramount. Doing lands of any type—even if they contain architecture—are among my favorite assignments. Seriously. They're criminally fun. And I have truly been spoiled by the opportunities I've gotten to work on land art over the years. Even better, for the most part I've really liked how my lands have come out and the Amonkhet Swamp feels like a tick in the win column. Here's hoping the opportunities continue.<br />
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<br />Steven Belledinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02798269170915291454noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3245662519209286682.post-59275513775462522562017-04-25T10:46:00.002-04:002017-04-25T13:46:56.666-04:00Black LotusThe vast majority of the work I do has no baggage attached to it. Most of the images I create are for things that have never existed before and so there's little to nothing to live up to. On the occasions where this wasn't true and I have re-illustrated things that have had previous iterations, the stakes simply weren't that high. Being asked to paint a new image of <i>Black Lotus </i>is a whole other thing. <i>Black Lotus</i> is big. Really big. There's very little else that comes close to it in terms of notoriety in the world of Magic: the Gathering. There were only 1,100 copies of the original card ever printed and individual cards have sold for more than $27,000 a piece. This is the kind of thing that some people steal for and others use as an investment. It's a totally different level than I am used to.<br />
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To an extent, all of that is largely irrelevant to me and this assignment. This painting wasn't for a new printing of a <i>Black Lotus</i> card and so wasn't going to be for anything that vast playerbase could ever use. The original <i>Black Lotus</i> artist, Christopher Rush, will likely be the only person to ever have seen his version in physical print form. The only other artist to have painted a version, Chris Rahn, at least had his image utilized in Magic: the Gathering Online. My version was going to be a prize painting—a one-off—to be given to a tournament winner at the Eternal Weekend event in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania this coming October.<br />
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By "prize painting" I mean just that, a painting that is a prize. It's like a two dimensional trophy. I've painted one of these before (<a href="http://stevenbelledin.blogspot.com/2013/10/wasteland.html">link</a>), so I knew the drill upon getting the assignment. For the most part, such paintings are new illustrations of rare, out of print (and sometimes game-breaking) Magic cards. These paintings tend to be set into a large, printed card border and framed. It's like one of those giant novelty checks one sees when someone wins a golf tournament or the Publisher's Clearinghouse Sweepstakes, only there's an actual painting inside it and unlike its novelty counterparts is actually worth something.<br />
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But despite this being a one-off, it's still an important piece that would make for a pretty valuable prize and would make me a small part of the <i>Black Lotus'</i> history. Just another assignment, right? I'm not going to lie. I felt the weight of it.<br />
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Usually, I'd include my art description at this point. But now's as good a time as any to explain that I won't be doing that any longer. Instead, I'll be giving a summation of what was in the assignment, rather than quoting it directly. Before anyone jumps to any conclusions, this is not due to a mandate from Wizards. I've not been silenced in any way. I'm making this choice because someone actually wrote the art descriptions and they deserve credit, but it's credit that I don't know how to give. Wizards employs writers who toil away at hundreds and hundreds of art descriptions a year. Then the written descriptions get edited and tweaked both by other writers and even the art directors before they pass them along to us. Who is responsible for what is simply something I don't know and it feels weird quoting someone else's work without giving proper credit. As it is, I edit the descriptions to varying degrees in order to summarize or remove references to things that aren't ready for public consumption, so fumbling through translations of sorts is only a small next step. I hope you all understand.<br />
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Anyway, in the art description I was asked to paint the black lotus in water. Wizards wanted the lotus to have metallic leaves and stems. I was asked to include some natural lotuses as well, so as to offset the black lotus and its unnatural state. And that's about it. What they were looking for was pretty clear.<br />
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After absorbing the description and its various parts, the first thing I did was start looking for pictures of lotuses and collecting them. The second thing I did was start reading more about lotuses only to find out that most of the images I'd collected were of waterlilies and not lotuses (the two major points of difference being: 1) that waterlily leaves float on the water's surface and lotus leaves tend to be above the water; and 2) that lotus flowers have a different structure in their center than waterlilies do that includes a seedpod). So back to looking for pictures of actual lotuses this time. Once I'd gotten enough of those, I started pondering the metal leaves. For this, I grabbed some wire and aluminum foil. I sculpted leaves out of the foil, taped them to wire and stuck them in the ground in my backyard so they were facing lots of greenery, then photographed them with the appropriate light. Additionally, I dug out a Christmas ornament we own that is a silver maple leave and photographed it in the same setting.<br />
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Reference in hand, I started thumbnail sketching.<br />
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Based on the timing of the assignment, I knew this was going to be the last painting I'd work on of 2016. Both because of that fact and the weight of what I was being asked to do, I wanted to really knock it out of the park. Given that my wife had to work through the holidays, I decided I had some time to experiment and try some different things in the process of making the painting. Of late, I've gotten into the habit of doing my sketches digitally, but I've always really loved Dave Palumbo's painted sketches. I wanted to give that a try, and so I did.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">©Wizards of the Coast</td></tr>
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I painted two different sketches. Both of these are oil on hardboard and each measures seven inches wide by five inches tall. While the second sketch doesn't deliver on the assignment's concept, I thought I'd give them an alternate take. Additionally, I went into the first sketch digitally to offer up a couple other options for a total of four.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">©Wizards of the Coast</td></tr>
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Option "A" was pretty much what they'd asked for in the art description. Option "D" was my alternate take. Option "B" was along the same lines as the art description but with a small tweak. Since the art wouldn't be printed as a card, I really didn't need to worry quite as much about the image being readable at card size. There was opportunity for a more subtle take. I thought it might be interesting to restrict the metal in the leaves to only the leaf veins and stems, leaving the rest of the leaf to the normal, green, organic variety. Finally, option "C" was inspired by a Christmas ornament I rediscovered when digging for the aforementioned silver leaf to photograph for reference. Option "C" keeps the black lotus leaves metal, but gives them a green hue. In all versions, I decided to make the lotus' stamens, stigmas, and seedpod metal as well, limiting the only organic aspects of the lotus to the the black petals themselves.<br />
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The fine folks at Wizards decided to stick with option A.<br />
<br />
Before committing to the finished painting I looked at the calendar and realized I had the time to experiment with my process even further. I decided to try a color study. While I've never really painted a traditional oil color study before, I have been doing digital color studies on an increasing basis. Since I'd already painted two sketches, I figured it was worth trying my hand at a painted color study, as well.<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgBLbcknx4fEriF9BVSmKazRIlscLuLPmrxqS4PKg3Qqg8zIt4h23dKf9R_lR2NMT3WA6tB14r3GowoMnm3WBaMKIXbEFL0a5TJb4GAoJ7RYvFrI0vDrnKjfuiImgHYzl627rZzyZjkmSg/s1600/Black-lotus-study001.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="318" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgBLbcknx4fEriF9BVSmKazRIlscLuLPmrxqS4PKg3Qqg8zIt4h23dKf9R_lR2NMT3WA6tB14r3GowoMnm3WBaMKIXbEFL0a5TJb4GAoJ7RYvFrI0vDrnKjfuiImgHYzl627rZzyZjkmSg/s400/Black-lotus-study001.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">©Wizards of the Coast</td></tr>
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<br />
The study is also oil on hardboard and measures ten inches wide by eight inches tall.<br />
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The study allowed me to work a few kinks out that I hadn't completely resolved. It also gave me something pretty developed to show my peers in order to get some solid feedback before moving on to the finish. The feedback was quite useful (thanks to all of you who put their two cents in), and I implemented most of the suggested changes to the color study, choosing to hold off on the remaining changes until I began painting the final painting.<br />
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Speaking of the finish, here's how that came out:<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEigyp-Yqw2r3k2ma3Kshp6LZSgjSyfGMBRKxPjY6MmqJo3EWK8JXb4Ug9FGKro8RPAc0pvR12k-2CAT3VRNUT8nAQ5FsIahV7QrEkVMp7bUIoXP8nRn_WpYlaSQ1gubunshEDegkBaC4Ck/s1600/_blacklotus+copy.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="288" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEigyp-Yqw2r3k2ma3Kshp6LZSgjSyfGMBRKxPjY6MmqJo3EWK8JXb4Ug9FGKro8RPAc0pvR12k-2CAT3VRNUT8nAQ5FsIahV7QrEkVMp7bUIoXP8nRn_WpYlaSQ1gubunshEDegkBaC4Ck/s400/_blacklotus+copy.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">©Wizards of the Coast</td></tr>
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<br />
The finished piece was completed in early 2017, is oil on hardboard and measures eighteen inches wide by thirteen inches tall. The entire process was art directed by Cynthia Sheppard.<br />
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Between preliminaries and the finish, I made some changes to the metal leaves both in placement and scale. Additionally, I subtly changed the metal leaves' surfaces. In the preliminaries I treating them as basically smooth but shifted their appearance to better imitate the subtle bumps and ripples found in actual lotus leaves. Outside of that, the finished painting was just a more polished version of the image that was a tad more consistent with the reference I had.<br />
<br />
Whether any of the process experimentation was valuable remains to be seen. On some level I learned a lot and I went into the finished piece with a higher degree of confidence. On the other hand, I felt like the painted studies had removed any experimentation I might otherwise do in the painting of the finished piece. In short, painted the final piece felt rather rote. Whether I paint sketches in the future or do any painted color studies seems somewhat unlikely for the vast majority of my commercial work. Even for my personal work I feel like so many developed preliminaries would undermine much of the spontaneity I quite enjoy. All that being said, I still think it was worth trying and I was glad that I had the time to do it.<br />
<br />
In the end, the result is what it is. I'm rather happy with it, but there will always be folks who feel that there is only one true <i>Black Lotus</i> painting, that being the <a href="http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=600">original</a> by Christopher Rush. Then there will be those who look at Chris Rahn's <a href="http://www.rahnart.com/black-lotus/">take</a> on the subject done for Magic Online as the more definitive. I have no control over such things and it's hard to argue with the various points of view. It's like trying to argue with someone over which cast of Saturday Night Live was definitively the best if you even believe there is such a thing in the first place. Point is, folks will either dig mine or not.<br />
<br />
Regardless of fans' and collectors' feelings, I'm now weirdly part of Magic history in a way that I didn't ever expect to be. I mean, I've contributed a fair bit between my concept art and the many paintings I've done, but the <i>Black Lotus</i> is singular among fans and collectors of Magic: the Gathering. And whether I like it or not, the <i>Black Lotus</i> painting I've done will be equally singular in my body of work.<br />
<br />
Still, this job did offer up a unique event that I will remember for a long time to come. Once it was done, I drove the finished painting down to Renton, Washington and delivered it by hand to a very eager art director. I felt bad since I was interrupting her lunch, but I have rarely felt the degree of appreciation and excitement professionally as when she took the painting into possession. That was a good day.Steven Belledinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02798269170915291454noreply@blogger.com9tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3245662519209286682.post-5242285166950277382017-01-26T11:34:00.003-05:002017-01-26T11:34:40.356-05:00Aethertide WhaleSome assignments require a lot of problem solving and a ton of revision. Other assignments simply don't. <i>Aethertide Whale</i> is definitely one of the latter, which makes it extremely difficult to write about. As much as I like to explain my decision-making and my thought processes, pieces like this don't really have a lot that bears in-depth analysis. Most of the decisions were made for me. While that may sound like a complaint, it isn't. It's just another facet of the job.<br />
<br />
It's probably best to backtrack and start with the art description:<br />
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<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: small;">Art Description:</span></span><span class="s1"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: small;">Setting: KALADESH</span></span><span class="s1"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: small;"><br />Color: Blue creature</span></span><span class="s1"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: small;"><br />Location: The aether-swirled sky of Kaladesh (for aether reference, see p. 21 in the World Guide)</span></span><span class="s1"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: small;"><br />Action: Show a gigantic flying sky leviathan like the one on p. 128B (note the scale). In this shot, it swims through a small fleet of whaling airships (see p. 105C and D for ship profiles) that scatter to avoid getting smashed. The ships are tiny by comparison. All around are swirls of aether currents. </span></span><span class="s1"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: small;"><br />Focus: the sky leviathan</span></span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br />Mood: a creature completely in its element</span></blockquote>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: small;"><br /></span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: small;">Upon getting the assignment, I must confess that I was immediately taken back to my comic collecting days in the mid-nineties. Among the various titles I collected was Sam Kieth's, </span><i style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: medium;">The Maxx</i><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: small;">, a comic which on at least one occasion featured flying whales—"air whales" if I recall. While I'm sure there are instances of implied or blatant flying whales in fiction before that comic series, flying whales will always remind me of that series. Well, that series and the whale from </span><i style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: medium;">The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy</i><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: small;">.</span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: small;"><br /></span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: small;">Anyway...</span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: small;"><br /></span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: small;">Normally, when writing posts I remove references to World Guide page numbers in the descriptions whenever possible as they lack context. Since I can't show the pages and the designs upon which I base the illustrations, I feel that leaving such references in is a bit of tease. In this case I'm making an exception so as to be clear about what an assignment like this actually requires.</span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: small;"><br /></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: small;">So, taking a second look at the description, we see that the aesthetic for the setting is indicated by images in the World Guide. There were several concept pieces from which to draw inspiration both on that specific page and in several other places throughout the guide and it was clear what they needed. As for the creature, that design too was pretty well established. The description was pointing to a full-color concept design that I stuck fairly close to. The ships were a bit less fleshed out and were just silhouettes on the page. As they were silhouettes, they contained no detail, just the broad strokes of how they should be shaped. There were, however, other ships in the World Guide from which to glean information. There was a little extrapolating to be done, but it mostly entailed looking at the other ships from the World Guide and applying design elements from those to mine all while retaining the overall shapes indicated by the aforementioned silhouettes.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: small;">With most of the elements figured out for me, my job was to take them and assemble them in a manner consistent with both the letter of the description as well as the spirit of the description. There was a bit of trial and error to make the image work, but in the end my responsibility was just to compose all of the things, toy with the scale, etc. In the end, I came up with this:</span></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjWVyhZwB4G9rFHfB5wlgMrFVOh_JlChkA6qdD73MIQoRq0awhs-tXMNzSb0KR2Yivgj3-62GdyZjypHO8O6fpFEw-D7xFgYWdgpWIo_ZKWYy77Rf3P0id2HVJDsKGsTxu6rPKfCuJgNiQ/s1600/400274_leviathan_sk.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="313" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjWVyhZwB4G9rFHfB5wlgMrFVOh_JlChkA6qdD73MIQoRq0awhs-tXMNzSb0KR2Yivgj3-62GdyZjypHO8O6fpFEw-D7xFgYWdgpWIo_ZKWYy77Rf3P0id2HVJDsKGsTxu6rPKfCuJgNiQ/s400/400274_leviathan_sk.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">©Wizards of the Coast</td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: small;">When building a digital document like this, I typically keep the various elements on separate layers so that I can move them around, hide them, and resize them as much as I need to. In this case, each ship represents a different layer, and the swirling aether (seen as the white streaks) is on three separate layers depending on where it is in space. The front of the whale is on one layer and the tail is on another. Once I've locked down a composition, I'll typically wait until the following morning to send the sketch off to the client so as to be sure the image still works for me. If not, I tweak it as necessary and then send it on its way.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: small;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: small;">Wizards gave me the green light with one requested change going forward: the Art Director asked that I change the shape of the lower jaw a bit. Super minor and easily done. I took it to paint and here's how it came out:</span></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiYoTepoVb4nvyperhlw1y_qp60CZBDix9swL24rHo3AOO9ofgbMTB7j4StX8mKTxVkE-uTnc6qjh5gbOMAAt644ZdnO5_9f850p2xBY205l8Zqob3KRMkk2TcAvRwot0NTbxayKUiS5bE/s1600/400274_leviathan.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="312" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiYoTepoVb4nvyperhlw1y_qp60CZBDix9swL24rHo3AOO9ofgbMTB7j4StX8mKTxVkE-uTnc6qjh5gbOMAAt644ZdnO5_9f850p2xBY205l8Zqob3KRMkk2TcAvRwot0NTbxayKUiS5bE/s400/400274_leviathan.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">©Wizards of the Coast</td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: small;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: small;">The finished piece is oil on gessoed hardboard, measures fourteen inches wide by eleven inches tall and was Art Directed by Mark Winters.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: small;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: small;">Despite being represented by white streaks in the sketch, the aether in Kaladesh is meant to be sort of an aqua color. As I painted the piece, I found that I was having difficulty keeping that color as vibrant as I wanted it to be. The aether tended to disappear into the sky and so I pushed it lighter in color to add more contrast, which only weakened the vibrancy of the intended aqua hue. Keeping the color of the aether was important to me, and so my best option turned out to be pushing the sky in a darker direction in order to allow the teal streaks to pop. Beyond that, there really weren't any struggles of note post sketch.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: small;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: small;">Jobs like this can sometimes be easier than others which require a lot of problem solving. I mean, there was relatively little for me to think about in this particular case, so what's not to like? However, sometimes these kinds of jobs can be far more difficult than others. After all, they are based upon pre-existing designs and frankly some designs are a heck of a lot easier to implement than others. Some designs or aesthetics don't mesh well with a given artist's sensibilities. Some designs are just plain difficult. And living up to the most difficult designs can be a huge headache and represent far more hours of toil to bring to fruition than something created from whole cloth. So in a way, they represent a problem solving as well. It's just a very different kind.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: small;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: small;">Fortunately, this time around it was just a whale, some ships, and some swirling aether. It's hard to complain about any of that.</span></div>
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Steven Belledinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02798269170915291454noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3245662519209286682.post-7574927557012430222017-01-13T12:50:00.000-05:002017-01-13T12:50:23.205-05:00Prismatic GeoscopeSmack in the middle of doing work on Kaladesh and painted alongside <i><a href="http://stevenbelledin.blogspot.com/2016/12/herald-of-fair.html">Herald of the Fair</a></i>, came a piece I was assigned for the Commander 2016 set of Magic: the Gathering. It was kind of nice, frankly, to get away from the Kaladesh aesthetic. Nicer still was the opportunity to design something from whole cloth that was unaffiliated with any of Magic's established realms.<br />
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Here's the art description as it arrived in my inbox:<br />
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<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span class="s1">ART DESCRIPTION:<br />
Setting: NOT SETTING SPECIFIC<br />
Location: Unimportant</span><span class="s1"><br />Action: This is a close-up of a large, multi-faceted crystal set in an ornate metal mounting. Within each of its visible faces, we see landscape stretching out that matches one of Magic's basic land types--plains, island, swamp, mountain, and forest. We don't need to see all five, but we should see at least three, and each facet of the gem should give a "window" into a different land type. Lit from within by the light of the landscape scenes, the crystal glows with iridescent light.</span><span class="s1"><br />Focus: The crystal</span><span class="s1"><br />Mood: The different magical power of many lands is gathered at your fingertips.</span></blockquote>
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While the art description is explicitly talking about landscapes, reading between the lines it's also talking about the five colors of Magic. For the uninitiated, the five colors of Magic are: red (which is represented by mountains), white (which is represented by plains), green (which is represented by forest), blue (which is represented by islands), and black (which is represented by swamp). Traditionally in Magic, those colors also have other colors associated with them in order to broaden aesthetic potential. Oranges, for example, tend to go more with red aspects of Magic. Yellows and beiges tend to be associated with white. Violets tend to represent black. The primary reason for this last one is especially for cases such as what I was being asked to do here. Black does not emit light and thus cannot be a source of light. Violet or purple does, however, and can. Thus such hues are useful whenever glowing, black magic is depicted.<br />
<span class="s1"><br /></span>
So why are the colors important? Couldn't I just paint some landscapes and be done with it? Yes and no. Were people to get a chance to see the painting at full scale, I could be a lot more subtle about things. But this image needs to read at card art size, which is 2.103 inches (53 mm) wide and 1.543 inches (40 mm) tall. Were I to just superimpose landscapes over crystal facets, it's highly likely that it would be difficult to tell where certain landscapes ended and others began. In order to clarify that, I felt it a natural step to cheat the colors of each landscape in the direction of the color it is associated with. For some it would be easy (forests are already green and mountains can sometimes be red), but things like a swamp are rarely, actually purple. How monochromatic to go would be a balancing act, but I was determined to make each landscape/color read clearly.<br />
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The thing is, I'm not the greatest colorist in the world. Balancing the five colors of magic can be a difficult task at times even for artists whose color sense is far greater than my own. While I have been asked to do images that required a full articulation—or at least insinuation—of all five colors of Magic in the past, one of these assignments happen to have resulted in what I consider my weakest Magic painting to date: <i><a href="http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=179540">Maelstrom Nexus</a>. </i>I'm not going to get into why I dislike it so much or why I destroyed the painting, but suffice it to say that at least some of my displeasure had to do with a complete failure in making the color work the way I wanted it to. Suffice it to say that that piece made me a little gun-shy, but also more than a little determined.<br />
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For the purposes of this new piece, I felt that I needed to err on the side of yellow for the planes facet. This is primarily due to the fact that I didn't want to go in the direction of pure white and wash the landscape out color-wise as it likely would have read as a bit weak compared to the other facets. Additionally, it made sense to utilize purple in lieu of black. While these choices solve some problems, they created another: now I had a piece that would contain fairly pure hues of green, blue, purple, red and yellow and could potentially become a candy-coated nightmare of competing colors.<br />
<br />
While I still worried about the failure of <i>Maelstrom Nexus</i>, I feel like I've also had some success in pieces that required a bright, multi-colored composition. Most of the time, I would just take a few of the colors and use them as the primary visual push of the piece and relegate the other colors to secondary elements. This time around, because of what I had in mind, it would be difficult to do that. Instead, the solution would be better integration of the five colors throughout the piece. So, I'd be doing things like bringing the overall hues of one crystal landscape into the shadows of other crystal landscapes, and the same with the highlights. Additionally, I had the advantage of a the metal construct holding the crystal in place which afforded the opportunity for the various colored glows to play against one another and blend. At least I hoped.<br />
<br />
Anyway, with a basic plan in place, I began to cobble the whole thing together digitally. It's assignments like this where digital sketches make the most sense to me. In a matter of a few hours, I can have a potentially workable sketch and sometimes in color. In this case, I went a bit further and even incorporated some of my reference into the sketch in the name of clarity. Usually I'd have scribbled furiously to articulate the planned mountains and trees in the crystal's surface, and indeed that's how it began. In the end it felt like green scribbles and orange scribbles rather than actual landscapes. So, to help the Art Director better understand what she was getting, in the photos went.<br />
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As I sketched away, it became obvious to me that the image based on the art order's description wasn't as visually interesting as it could have been. A single crystal with a few visible facets solved the assignment, but it wasn't really clicking completely. Still, I did my best with it and finished it up, then immediately executed a second version based on a quartz crystal cluster. Instead of one crystal, there would be many and each of the crystals would reveal the brightly lit landscapes within. For me, this second version was in keeping with the spirit of the assignment but added more visual appeal. I submitted both and awaited further instruction.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgcbmJBHNeDHPq6XKMUDxbEFutEIGcswuzrz8xOJmBGXKCK2mpz__j6x05mLdr1klXjMLr1v5oY4dtElyRV7yrUZifvCKcY-9PSt0WaX6tDl22L_zvRxnUNoHYsR-ia5YyDi0GqTFGyp74/s1600/162398_prism_sk_both.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgcbmJBHNeDHPq6XKMUDxbEFutEIGcswuzrz8xOJmBGXKCK2mpz__j6x05mLdr1klXjMLr1v5oY4dtElyRV7yrUZifvCKcY-9PSt0WaX6tDl22L_zvRxnUNoHYsR-ia5YyDi0GqTFGyp74/s640/162398_prism_sk_both.jpg" width="384" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">©Wizards of the Coast</td></tr>
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The Art Director replied with a single concern: regardless of the version, it was felt that I should consider pushing the swamp imagery toward a more violet hue in order to more clearly separate it from the forest. Seemed fair enough. In fact, I took that opportunity to deepen the color of the various landscapes and reinforce the five colors of Magic (or their adjacent counterparts).<br />
<br />
Beyond that, I was given a green light to move forward on either of the sketches provided as the fine folks at Wizards were content with both. I decided to go with the multi-crystal version, and here's how it came out:<br />
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjXsxkm9WHAARrRVdaR_qgzKj5EVa_xX_1BvP7Cekpl6Wvd0rx9uCCu13SWJI0yJaA_ZWiDVW09AtvPThssf4qGLVgDWOw2MxDJ8qcOIgkll6gHnkPG_6TyjOb0OO1ZyuPJFI20AmI5fIo/s1600/162398_prism.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="298" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjXsxkm9WHAARrRVdaR_qgzKj5EVa_xX_1BvP7Cekpl6Wvd0rx9uCCu13SWJI0yJaA_ZWiDVW09AtvPThssf4qGLVgDWOw2MxDJ8qcOIgkll6gHnkPG_6TyjOb0OO1ZyuPJFI20AmI5fIo/s400/162398_prism.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">©Wizards of the Coast</td></tr>
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<br />
The finished painting is oil on gessoed hardboard, measures sixteen inches wide by twelve inches tall, and was Art Directed by Cynthia Sheppard.<br />
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Clearly upon a cursory glance there are obvious changes between the sketch and the finish. The sketch speaks of a brighter, more luminous crystal. Frankly, I lost that to a degree. I got really fascinated by the articulation of the imperfections within the crystals and spent a lot of time working out how the various colors devolved into the neutral base. Additionally, I ended up tamping down a lot of the blown-out areas in an attempt to better control the eye. Lastly, there was an overall shift in the various colors.<br />
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In the sketch, I'd achieved a degree of color harmony while still being fairly true to Magic's colors (minus that swamp crystal, of course). All five of the colors are fairly warm versions of themselves. Upon adding that violet, the whole thing changed a bit in a way that I disliked. The violet swamp crystal just stuck out and called too much attention to itself. So, I ended up shifting the colors throughout until the five colors stopped competing and sat well next to each other.<br />
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Looking at the sketch there's a real part of me that finds humor in how far toward completion the sketch got. Much of that is an illusion, however. Most of the photos are fairly raw. Sure they're manipulated, but had I continued digitally, they would have been painted over completely. Still, it feels genuinely like I could have taken this one to completion digitally in a fairly short amount of time. Instead, I chose to project the sketch onto a board and paint it all up from scratch with oils. That's probably a strange thing to some, but I am quite happy I did it. I learned a fair bit from working on this piece and ended up making something I quite liked in the end. Plus, I have this one-of-a-kind thing to hang on the wall. I'm not entirely sure why that matters to me, but I'm fortunate that there are as many folks who share my affection for traditionally painted illustration. But then, regardless of the medium, I'm pretty fortunate that there are as many folks who continue to be interested in illustration at all.<br />
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Steven Belledinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02798269170915291454noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3245662519209286682.post-57696050126772550512016-12-30T12:22:00.000-05:002016-12-30T12:22:27.105-05:00Herald of the FairAs with every Magic expansion, there is a story that goes along with Kaladesh, and that story centers on an inventors' fair. Machines and contraptions of all kinds are on display and the world is abuzz over the new technology on offer. Standing above the throngs of citizens eager to take a gander at the latest and greatest devices on offer stands the the <i>Herald of the Fair</i>. Equal parts salesmen, town crier, and circus ringleader, he directs the masses and keeps them abreast of each day's events. At least, that's my take on him. I'm sure there's a lot more to him. Or not. But for the purposes of the depiction I was asked to make, that's about all I needed to be concerned about.<br />
<br />
The vast majority of illustration work I do for Magic requires little in the way of really deep thought or conceptualization. Many of the images I create can simply be boiled down to figuring out what elements need to be included (often times this is made clear in the art description provided by Wizards of the Coast—complete with reference images or styleguide page numbers that lead me to those reference images), figuring out the priority of those elements (this is usually pretty clearly indicated by the aforementioned art descriptions), arranging those elements in a way that I (and hopefully the fine folks at Wizards) find interesting, and finally making the image. Most of the time, all I need to know is in the styleguide. Sure I'll supplement that with additional reference imagery that I dig up or photograph myself, but the vast majority of the design choices are already made by the time I get my assignment.<br />
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<i>Herald of the Fair</i> is no different from such cases and thus is as simple as they come. The art description (which again I failed to save), asked for a man standing above a crowd of people beckoning them to enter a large building or arena to see the wonders of the fair. He needed to be speaking into a device that amplifies his voice in some way. Images of how he would be dressed were provided (though I got to make a few minor aesthetic choices), and his location was also made clear (though that ended up being a bit more generalized for the purposes of the piece).<br />
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Taking that art order, I looked at the various pieces and assembled them thusly:<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEij6sYIzYzIicwtPY4vKgyU6lVHvcu38jF78svHfacugs_OVpLzDgXHP4B-rkvatGUzpYTNG0387LaLUhcmEiGQqpEEKIGuLHMcaFVYMgH44q0ukEDrhJ_tRRP2BK1OAQ7AziDnSCSJxgA/s1600/162230_promoter_sk.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="290" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEij6sYIzYzIicwtPY4vKgyU6lVHvcu38jF78svHfacugs_OVpLzDgXHP4B-rkvatGUzpYTNG0387LaLUhcmEiGQqpEEKIGuLHMcaFVYMgH44q0ukEDrhJ_tRRP2BK1OAQ7AziDnSCSJxgA/s400/162230_promoter_sk.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">©Wizards of the Coast</td></tr>
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Despite lacking any kind of detail in the crowd, this piece was approved.<br />
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While I don't do this all the time, in this case I printed the sketch out as a monochrome image (I think it was reddish-brown) on watercolor paper. I then take that printed sketch and paste it down onto a piece of hardboard. The printed sketch is then sealed with several layers of matte acrylic medium which I'll sand down when dry to a relatively smooth surface. Then it's ready to be painted on with oils.<br />
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Here's how the painting came out.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhfg3JBVrnr7dNW8KxndXm3LqKrDC-S8gxcIR_xrkRXGmASd0qzniJoSIkPV7rPaEWIzz-nlXy6k7HLnKPb-JlMKhIo3UYM5CRBUfMltL_E5JQ3zJbfNJ3Nk9ovFyiUji-593F7gT2mo24/s1600/162230_promoter.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="312" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhfg3JBVrnr7dNW8KxndXm3LqKrDC-S8gxcIR_xrkRXGmASd0qzniJoSIkPV7rPaEWIzz-nlXy6k7HLnKPb-JlMKhIo3UYM5CRBUfMltL_E5JQ3zJbfNJ3Nk9ovFyiUji-593F7gT2mo24/s400/162230_promoter.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">©Wizards of the Coast</td></tr>
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The finished piece measures fourteen inches wide by eleven inches tall.<br />
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One will note immediately that there are some obvious differences between sketch and finish. For one, the herald now has a sash. I think he was always meant to, but I'd forgotten to put one on in the sketch and the Art Director somehow missed it. I ended up double-checking with the Art Director in the midst of painting the piece and learned that my suspicions were correct, so I included one. Additionally, there are some minor architecture changes in the background that I felt necessary as I fleshed the piece out (a better way to put this might be that I made the scribbles into architecture). Beyond that, I ended up tweaking the herald's pose a bit to make him a bit (mostly the hands) to push him a bit more toward performer. Pretty nit-picky stuff, but I somehow felt it all necessary at the time.<br />
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Anyway, as with much of my work I handed the piece in and sort of forgot about it. The painting sat in my flat files for about a year waiting for the set to be revealed. When Wizards of the Coast began to ramp up promotion for the set, I was surprised and amazed to find that the herald was featured in the set's video trailer. Not only was he featured, but he moved and talked. Pretty weird to see something I've done come alive to that extent. And a little unsettling. But hey, I'll take it.<br />
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<br />Steven Belledinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02798269170915291454noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3245662519209286682.post-18355917242095206862016-12-23T12:56:00.000-05:002016-12-23T12:56:27.680-05:00DemolishI've had the distinct pleasure of being a part of several concept teams over the years that have helped build some of Magic's many worlds. The plane of Kaladesh was one such opportunity, and while it wasn't exactly in my wheelhouse aesthetically, I did a niche to explore: the gremlins. The gremlins were something I worked quite hard on and though the finalized versions printed in the Kaladesh styleguide ended up having very minor differences to my original designs in the end, they were still very much mine.<br />
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Funny enough, the design itself isn't exactly out of the ordinary—frankly, the gremlins ended up looking a lot like baby aardvarks—but they took a bit of a winding path to get there. Originally, my designs were deemed to goblin-like, which was a problem because the gremlins really needed to be distinctly separate from goblins. What Art Director Jeremy Jarvis wanted to get across with the design was that these things caused damage but did so without any intent or malice. Destruction was just a side effect of their being. That sentiment immediately led me down the path that produced the first drawing of a gremlin:<br />
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjNQuU9pQ9cpNJrUMh-aWmkEozpKmxZkQZ67wkbA__3-N6JuheKjXlGyxqv9hAYitIlKIZbjFEPyZxONykHc89BvzcS60FvTWE119gjSkgD4JV_b39ByyPJPFqON2S518f35RhSVxMUnLk/s1600/Gremlin.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="277" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjNQuU9pQ9cpNJrUMh-aWmkEozpKmxZkQZ67wkbA__3-N6JuheKjXlGyxqv9hAYitIlKIZbjFEPyZxONykHc89BvzcS60FvTWE119gjSkgD4JV_b39ByyPJPFqON2S518f35RhSVxMUnLk/s320/Gremlin.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">©Wizards of the Coast</td></tr>
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Sure, things evolved from there (I ended up giving them another pair of legs, bigger eyes, different proportions and various color treatments), but this was how they started, and from there I got to explore them quite a bit.<br />
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I'll be getting to those explorations in a future post, but for now here are two important things to understand about Kaladesh and its gremlins: first, in the world of Kaladesh all of the machines, vehicles and contraptions runs on this magical element called "aether" that swirls about in the sky and is harvested by great airships. This aether is blue and glowy, and it is the thing upon which gremlins feed. Second, as stated above, gremlins destroy things and do so unintentionally—they're probably not even aware that they're doing it. As the design evolved, it was decided that gremlins secrete an acidic and corrosive oil from their skin and this is what does all the damage. This corrosion is typically indicated by a purple and green crust that forms on metal.<br />
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Anyway, after working so hard on the little guys it should be no surprise that when one of the Art Directors inquired as to whether I had any requests for assignments that requested a gremlin. And a gremlin is what I got in <i>Demolish</i>.<br />
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For some reason during this period of time I was out of the habit of saving my actual assignment descriptions, but this one I remember fairly well. I was asked to paint a gremlin laying in the remains of a mechanical construct called the <i><a href="http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=398581">Chief of the Foundry</a></i>. The gremlin, having just fed on the aether running the device, has a telltale glow and sits among the wreckage as the remaining aether dissipates around him.<br />
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Pretty simple in concept, honestly. In delivery, however, I knew it would be a bit of a challenge. The primary cause of this challenge is that mechanical constructs really aren't my strong suit. I mean, it's a lot of straight lines, gears, and reflective metal. I knew I could do it, but I also knew it would be a heck of a time investment to really make the image sing. Fortunately, I didn't have to worry about so many specifics in the sketch. I knew pretty quickly what I wanted to do with it and tore through my preliminary quickly in order to give myself as much time as possible on the finished painting.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiaUgQ6Byb7VdjbLTMlyuazdrj484o-7XtxWbbG81I4xpRJhbY7Nye2nkvpVe7txTymxF15GwNupfZ_mpz5KGkoSqJg8fsGG4UPXIX3E6YnJhVTSL9rEYvr9LqMnXngEVKFrH9Uemrmb58/s1600/162457_v2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="290" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiaUgQ6Byb7VdjbLTMlyuazdrj484o-7XtxWbbG81I4xpRJhbY7Nye2nkvpVe7txTymxF15GwNupfZ_mpz5KGkoSqJg8fsGG4UPXIX3E6YnJhVTSL9rEYvr9LqMnXngEVKFrH9Uemrmb58/s400/162457_v2.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">©Wizards of the Coast</td></tr>
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The advantage of getting away with sketches like this is that I get to merely indicate aspects of the mechanical construct rather than fully articulating them. While there are some recognizable shapes in there, the rest is just scribbles. I knew I'd have to reconcile that when the time came to paint the piece, but for the time being I was just hoping the fine folks at Wizards liked where I was headed. Fortunately they were. Unfortunately, I was once again reminded of how not having everything planned can sometimes be a headache.<br />
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The thing is, the style guide for a world like this has a wealth of information. It had examples of decorative gears, various types of filigree, and even basic shape language. I knew that in order to keep the construct feeling like the <i>Chief of the Foundry</i>, that I needed to nail a few key components. So, I kept the head and chest plate in as well as a few legs and hip joints. Then I started adding additional parts of the creature's design jumbled together. Beyond that I really didn't know what to do. Deconstructing something like this is pretty beyond me so in order to figure it all out I started asking some serious questions like: do these things need wires? I mean, they don't run on electricity, they run on aether so does that even require wiring of any kind? What about pistons? How do the joints work? Etc., etc., etc.<br />
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While there is a degree of importance to making it feel believable, it took a long time to realize that I was probably overthinking things. After all, I'm not an engineer and these questions were just a distraction. Answering them was only tangential to the success of the piece. In the end, my biggest issues would come from how reflective to make the metal and how accurate the reflections needed to be. I discovered the solution to those issues as I painted. Because of the jumbled nature of the construct's remains, I found that the more accurate and reflective the metal became, the more difficult it became to read the piece. It became harder and harder to see the larger shapes among all the reflections. Luckily, the gremlin was always easy to see given how different he is from the metal, but much of the construct's remains became visual noise that I decided I needed to quiet down and simplify.<br />
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So, what started as a panic to try and figure out the inner-workings of a fictional, aether/mechanical-driven construct ended up being about paring things down and making things readable. In doing this, I effectively painted much of the piece twice.<br />
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEji_c3rN4o8R3EeCODbYHPxhU_hyWDNF8P9pyvvWASMoAMnhFh2G1D6-D14nC574WdjMEaXtK2d8vGbn6KaKOR3MxcQNs4MfU1fo_p-4ky7OpDh4LzBbKV8tRXG-cStlrbuTeo2td1oCvg/s1600/162457_GREMLIN_PAINTING.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="298" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEji_c3rN4o8R3EeCODbYHPxhU_hyWDNF8P9pyvvWASMoAMnhFh2G1D6-D14nC574WdjMEaXtK2d8vGbn6KaKOR3MxcQNs4MfU1fo_p-4ky7OpDh4LzBbKV8tRXG-cStlrbuTeo2td1oCvg/s400/162457_GREMLIN_PAINTING.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">©Wizards of the Coast</td></tr>
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The finished painting is oil on paper on hardboard and measures sixteen inches wide by twelve inches tall.<br />
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One of the saving graces of this painting is that the various elements I was asked to include in the piece had relatively limited palettes. The construct was sort of a brass color with red and blue accents. The gremlin was a pinkish color with purple accents and its corrosion the aforementioned green/purple. The aether was vibrant blue. These few colors in their variations meant that the piece could be accomplished with a relatively limited palette. It also meant that I could utilize things like the red accents on the metal and the purple of the corrosion to move the viewer's eye around the composition. Lastly, the shock of bright blue juxtaposed next to the bright, fleshy pink was really valuable in terms of hammering home a focal point.<br />
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In a very real way, this piece probably represents the most effort I've ever put into a Magic painting. There's a lot of stuff in there and the fact that I ended up reworking vast areas of the piece meant it ate up a fair amount of time. That I struggled with it and came away with something I actually like is no small miracle to me. So often I have a difficult time getting past the adversity I experience in the making of a thing and end up with strong negative associations. This one, though, felt like a real win—even at the time.<br />
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<br />Steven Belledinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02798269170915291454noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3245662519209286682.post-34265552372334198562016-12-09T14:26:00.000-05:002016-12-09T14:26:34.869-05:00Tangleclaw Werewolf, Fibrous EntanglerAs part of the concepting team that brought world of Innistrad to life back in May of 2010, I did not expect to get a chance to revisit that world beyond in the assignments to come. I figured that upon completing my last piece for that expansion block of Magic, I would be done with that world of gothic horror forever. I was wrong. Magic would return to Innistrad, and while I was not officially on the concept team for this new sojourn, I ended up contributing a few things since I happened to be in the Wizards of the Coast office for something completely unrelated. I also got to paint a few things. Here is a tale of two of those paintings.<br />
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One of the new card types Magic introduced in the original Innistrad block were double-faced cards for changeling creatures. On one side would be Dr. Jekyll, on the other, Mr. Hyde. In this case (as in many others), the double-faced card represented a werewolf. In the first go around with Innistrad, I got to do art for one of these (<a href="http://stevenbelledin.blogspot.com/2012/02/hinterland-hermit-hinterland-scourge.html">link</a>). This time, however, the art would require something a bit different. The starting point would be the wolf rather than the human, and card's other face would reveal the horror that that wolf would become.<br />
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While I could go on about Magic's storyline and the implications for the sets "Shadows Over Innistrad" and "Eldritch Moon," suffice it to say that this return to Innistrad reveals that something has entered that world and has begun to change it. People and creatures are becoming deformed, buildings are changing shape, tentacle-like vines are cropping up everywhere. There is clearly something more horrifying than usual going on. The result being that much of the art done for these bits of story required some pretty weird deviations to the usual Innistrad nightmares.<br />
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Anyway, I seem to have lost my art descriptions on these two but as memory serves, in the first piece I was asked to paint a werewolf with some minor, subtle deformities in an alley. Perhaps there might be some people running for their lives. In the second piece, I was asked to depict the horrifying, tentacle-covered creature that that werewolf turned into about to pounce on a villager. This horror needed to be somewhat recognizable as having been a werewolf at some point. Seemed pretty clear to me, and so I went to work.<br />
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Here's our werewolf with a few elongated fingers and hints of tentacles in his fur.<br />
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And here's our horror, lunging at a poor villager.<br />
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The Art Director approved the werewolf piece, but felt I could push the horror further. It was decided that the creature felt too much like a werewolf, and so I was asked to give it another go.<br />
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This one, they liked and they gave me the green light.<br />
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Here's the finished <i>Tangleclaw Werewolf</i>. The painting is oil on paper on hardboard and it measures twelve inches wide by nine inches tall.<br />
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Here's the finished <i>Fibrous Entangler</i>. The painting is also oil on paper on hardboard and measures twelve inches wide by sixteen inches tall.<br />
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Looking at these pieces, I don't have a lot to say. I don't have any distinct memories of working on either one and I remember them being pretty straightforward. The only thing that really sticks out at me on these pieces is how dark I got with both of them. I treated them more graphically from the start and I feel like that's somehow evident even in the finish. Normally it takes me a while to build up to the level of darkness seen in this work, but I remember going for those darks pretty early in the painting process. Maybe it was the gothic horror aspect of it, maybe it was the digital color studies I'd done, or maybe these pieces were just in my comfort zone. Whatever the case, they came pretty easily for me, which is unusual.<br />
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In the end, I'm pretty pleased with how both paintings came out. Subject matter-wise, they have a pretty small audience and probably aren't the kind of thing most folks want to hang in their house, but that's hardly the concern of the assignment. Whatever the case, they're done and out there, and I get to move on.<br />
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<br />Steven Belledinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02798269170915291454noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3245662519209286682.post-7279755070816797372016-11-21T11:31:00.000-05:002016-11-21T11:31:41.897-05:00Fevered VisionsI've failed miserably at posting regularly on this blog. Honestly, I can't really say what has kept me from keeping up to date for most of this year, but I know that I've gotten other stuff done along the way. I updated my website, built a store there, got a few things done around the house, and even got to go on vacation. Beyond that, though, it's been a bit of an off year for me to this point, and the blog has suffered. However, I shall endeavor to finish the year strong and bring the content up to the present in the coming weeks. That all starts here. With <i>Fevered Visions</i>.<br />
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So, <i>Fevered Visions.</i> It went pretty smoothly and had virtually no twists and turns. I got my assignment, did my sketch and painted the picture. As usual, we'll start with the assignment:</div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: small;">ART DESCRIPTION:</span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: small;">Setting: INNISTRAD</span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: small;">Color: Blue and red spell</span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: small;">Location: See below</span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: small;">Action: This spell represents a cultist going mad from the influence of cosmic truths. One way to show this might be: show a close-up of a man's face, a terrified expression on his face. He's floating in an insane nonsensical landscape -- it looks like the inside of a massive brain, and tentacle-like neurons squirm around him, mimicking the look of Emrakul lattice. Maybe his eye sockets are empty, and we can see the lattice shapes inside his empty head, as well. Is this a glimpse inside the truth of reality, or has he gone totally bonkers? OR BOTH?</span></blockquote>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: small;">I read the above and somehow ignored it. Well, I ignored bits of it. When presented with a description like this, I tend to spend a lot more time thinking about it than actually drawing it up. I start out by reading the description a bunch of times and then walk away and let it sink in. Maybe mull some of it over. After a time, I'll begin to ask myself a series of questions about the piece in order to prioritize aspects of it, and better understand how I want to attack it. In this case, I asked things like: How close are we to the figure? How am I going to show an empty head? How do I even begin to touch on some of the abstract themes mentioned with a single image?</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: small;">For me, the idea for the piece came together once I settled upon two things. First, I decided not to bother showing that the head was empty. I wasn't really interested in doing yet another body horror piece, and I felt it was going to be a bit difficult to truly pull off at card size when the environment itself seemed to be more vital to the image as a whole. Second, I decided that the piece needed a way to connect the space and the mental states described in the art order in order to get at the core of the concept. For me, the obvious way to make that connection was through the eyes.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: small;">Once I'd figured out the solution to the problem, the rest of the piece was pretty academic. The shape language of Emrakul's lattice is not actually too different from how neurons are actually shaped, so making that connection was easy. Beyond that, it was just a matter of figuring out the best way to present the whole thing. Here are the sketches I turned in:</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: small;">Upon doing the bottom version, it became instantly clear that it was a lesser image. Somehow, despite showing more of the face and hammering home the expression of horror, the idea itself felt watered down. Also, the sketch felt to visually connected to <i><a href="http://stevenbelledin.blogspot.com/2012/07/revisiting-reprints-duress.html">Duress</a></i>, a piece I did years ago that had no connective tissue to this piece. Still, I'd bothered to make the sketch, and so I submitted it.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: small;">This was a bad idea.<br /><br />There is a common school of thought throughout illustration that if an illustrator submits multiple sketches, the Art Director (or editor, or committee) will invariably chose the one the illustrator likes the least. The best way to combat this is for the illustrator to give them only sketches of things that the illustrator wants to actually paint. By submitting this second sketch, I opened myself up to the possibility of having to paint something I was unhappy with from the outset, and that is truly a miserable experience. Fortunately, the Art Director in this case was smarter than me and the first sketch was the one that was approved.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: small;">So I took it to paint.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: small;">The finished painting is oil on paper on hardboard and measures fourteen inches wide by eleven inches tall.<br /><br />This assignment was one of an increasingly rare breed where I got to do some deeper problem solving. The piece could have been a dude floating in space amidst a web of neuron lattice with maybe a hint of that lattice within. That might have been a fine painting, and indeed there are some who would have knocked that piece out of the park. For me, though, that image fell short of addressing the mental state. I needed to find a way to allow the viewer to more directly ponder whether the man has plugged into something deeper, or whether the whole thing is of his own creation. The resulting painting is probably no less distressing than that other version, but I think it ended up being more about the question than the man.</span></div>
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Steven Belledinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02798269170915291454noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3245662519209286682.post-88105318337086273262016-09-23T11:54:00.003-04:002016-09-23T11:54:56.647-04:00The Sword of Feast and Famine<i>The Sword of Feast and Famine</i> is likely the highest profile piece I've ever done in the eleven years that I've worked on Magic. Sure, other cards I've done art for are more ubiquitous, but this one has had greater fan and collector interest than pretty much anything else I've ever done. One might think that because of the card's weight, the assignment would bring with it an extra degree of pressure and stress. Honestly, though, I didn't feel it. Maybe I should have. In truth, I approached this piece the same way I might approach any other.<br />
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Normally, I'd start out with art description, but the art description contains a lot of stuff I'd end up having to explain and so I'm just going to cut to the chase and give the explanation. Story-wise, we find the world of Kaladesh in the middle of the Inventor's Fair. Widgets and doodads of all varieties are on display for all of Kaladesh's citizens to peruse and consider. The Sword of Feast and Famine is one such item and I was asked to portray the sword sitting on a stand in a display. The sword was to be elven in make and design and so would be made of both wood and metal. The metal would be near black in its darkness, the wood alive and flourishing.<br />
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The shape of the sword was based largely on the ground work done by the team of concept artists that created the world-guide. Elvish motifs and design were fleshed out quite clearly and it was pretty easy to extrapolate the sword's look. Beyond that, I decided that rather than living wood, vines might be a better way to make clear the contrast to the deadly metal blade. In my thinking, vines provided two advantages: 1) I could more densely concentrate lots of living leaves and greenery in order to hammer home the life/death contrast, and 2) vines provided a means of transitioning from one material to another more easily. Sure, I could have integrated wood pieces throughout the sword, but I felt the contrast between the black blade and living plant life was visually a bit too stark and could benefit from a greater degree of nuance. So, being able to wind vines throughout felt more advantageous in that respect.<br />
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Additionally, the vines afforded me a small story-telling opportunity in that I could show them becoming less healthy as they approached the blade. Given that the healthiest vines exist at the hilt of the sword, one could go as far as to say that the hilt and its connection to the living wielder represents life and the blade, death. No new ground broken in any of that, nor is the idea particularly deep, so I totally understand if you're rolling your eyes at this point. But it ended up being a part of the thinking that went into the piece.<br />
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Outside of the sword, I had to make decisions about the environment and the display. Given that the sword is elvish I though it would be a good idea to reflect that in the design of the stand, as well. Rather than living wood I used dead, sculpted wood (which I guess you could say is dead because it made contact with the sword?) in order to keep the greenery where it was most important. After arranging the elements I had, I ended up with a pretty balanced composition and I decided to double down on that with a symmetrical backdrop of curtain and metal filigree.<br />
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This is the sketch that resulted:<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi3UtrRJnXtVA5gg1RyZZZOjH-QlkCygEtKK24wiON1nhTW_bJxaYgdd13i_SjU1xKj_CifVyRjQFXEE9HfhWBKdT5BkXkWOJ6LtazgsOWE6hVU_60nWG8Ceu1j3GMNRB4vsVO_SITDoTs/s1600/sword3.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi3UtrRJnXtVA5gg1RyZZZOjH-QlkCygEtKK24wiON1nhTW_bJxaYgdd13i_SjU1xKj_CifVyRjQFXEE9HfhWBKdT5BkXkWOJ6LtazgsOWE6hVU_60nWG8Ceu1j3GMNRB4vsVO_SITDoTs/s400/sword3.jpg" width="292" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">©Wizards of the Coast</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
As you can see, the sketch is digital. Increasingly I've abandoned traditional sketching for assignments for the digital alternative. While it's disappointing to collectors, I have to say that the speed with which I can ideate and create alternative designs is something I rather enjoy. Perhaps I'll return to sketching traditionally sometime in the future, but for now I feel it's working rather well for me. If nothing else, it affords a quick means of doing color and value studies.<br />
<br />
Anyway, the above sketch was approved. Here's how the piece came out:<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjIfvUd1Nz069hPuGQtEUsow21ICDqzaVlwcUCSrdI-Gh3BQG4rfGb6_algwRDe-4ruLkHu0p1rwb_HtFCjykNv6kqMejo0ExuaGHFDjyjhHUc08xFP-Hdabhdmpq5jLRI2M2na53wY0sg/s1600/400612_sword_assign.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjIfvUd1Nz069hPuGQtEUsow21ICDqzaVlwcUCSrdI-Gh3BQG4rfGb6_algwRDe-4ruLkHu0p1rwb_HtFCjykNv6kqMejo0ExuaGHFDjyjhHUc08xFP-Hdabhdmpq5jLRI2M2na53wY0sg/s400/400612_sword_assign.jpg" width="311" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">©Wizards of the Coast</td></tr>
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Above is the image as I submitted to Wizards. Some of those who've seen the resulting card online have inquired about whether there was any digital trickery used in the making of the image. My answer to that is yes and no. Digitizing any painting—be it through a digital camera or scanner—can be a bit tricky. Minimally, there is a need to do some color adjustments to make the digital image match the painting. For my work, there's often a need to retouch little ridges of paint in brush strokes that catch the light and cause tiny reflections in the file. It's painstaking work, but very necessary. Beyond that, I might do a bit of tweaking, like making an area darker or brighter depending on what might help make a piece read better when it's reduced to card size. That is the case with this piece. There were a few metal reflections that I painted in oil that I later found to be distracting and I dialed them down a bit in Photoshop. Later, I glazed the painting to match. Here's what the painting itself now looks like:<br />
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgkG-gZ4HuukQBErWt-_QbAibDevFwzCsxk_wZz-ugt4oIEtKJLwaevBnCSJ0me_HmARZpW_jizu1l1POpgkfE4d7_tly5WSWaH_E2CwwmMGyh7UWTwo4_j3ZwGMFXfGdLEElPp-Fie3vs/s1600/400612_SWORD_PAINTING.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgkG-gZ4HuukQBErWt-_QbAibDevFwzCsxk_wZz-ugt4oIEtKJLwaevBnCSJ0me_HmARZpW_jizu1l1POpgkfE4d7_tly5WSWaH_E2CwwmMGyh7UWTwo4_j3ZwGMFXfGdLEElPp-Fie3vs/s400/400612_SWORD_PAINTING.jpg" width="311" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">©Wizards of the Coast</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
The finished image is oil on hardboard and measures fourteen inches wide by eighteen inches tall.<br />
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The very decorative world of Kaladesh has many challenges inherent to it. The biggest of these in this context, is the fact that the world is so heavily adorned with filigree, that it's potentially difficult to show that one thing is more important than another. For this piece, I tried to keep the filigree to a relative minimum, make the shapes nice and large, and compose in a very simple and instantly readable manner.<br />
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In the end, I'm pretty happy with how this one came out. I like the overall contrast between the red/brown piece and the shock of green. I like the isolated black shape in the middle of the piece. And despite its triteness, I like the bit of storytelling with the dying vines. I only wish that that bit of storytelling read better when shrunken down. I think it's probable that however I tried to deliver that message, it would have gotten a little lost at card size. Even were this idea presented in a film, it likely would be been done with a closeup. Fortunately, anyone who sees the painting in person can get up close to it and do that part themselves.<br />
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<br />Steven Belledinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02798269170915291454noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3245662519209286682.post-62310312844646411602016-04-22T11:11:00.000-04:002016-04-22T11:11:49.440-04:00From Under the FloorboardsDuring Magic: the Gathering's first visit to Innistrad, arguably one of my more successful pieces was a little painting of a zombie called, <i><a href="http://stevenbelledin.blogspot.com/2012/01/2012-wait-what.html">Gravecrawler</a><span id="goog_717506991"></span><span id="goog_717506992"></span><a href="https://www.blogger.com/"></a></i>. At least I think so. Sure, it's horrifying. Sure, it's disgusting. Sure, it reveals how warped my mind can be sometimes. But, boy was I happy with how that one came out. The finished piece was about as close as I'd ever come to recreating what I originally saw in my head. So, when I was asked to do a new painting of zombies for Shadow's Over Innistrad, I was practically vibrating in place. Unfortunately the finish didn't quite make it to the level of <i>Gravecrawler</i>, but there's some fun stuff going on in <i>From Under the Floorboards</i>. And there's even a bit more fun that didn't make it into the card.<br />
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As usual, it all started with an art order:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
ART DESCRIPTION:<br />
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">Setting: INNISTRAD</span></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">Color: Black spell</span></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">Location: Some interior location with wood floors (see below)</span></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">Action: Some creeping vines have weakened the wood floorboards of an old mausoleum or church. The floorboards fall away, and out of the hole crawls three zombies. The zombies clamber their way up out of the rotten-wood pit, hungry for the flesh of the living.</span></div>
</blockquote>
<div class="p1">
Seemed simple enough, so I went to sketch and here's how that came out:</div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1"><br /></span></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjoCPawOksV7Bq1ePrc4wvOjbtxC9sxF8tZVGlnTBMe5pJFb9ecXSy_2hlT_aZGhrPPsAbLhMQB4iEPG1vX7EpIyq-H3LuANC9F4TLgYE_sri0KSrBhzxXlJRWZHO31-n_ye26ULN9Knhs/s1600/161609_GhoulsFromBelow_sk.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="290" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjoCPawOksV7Bq1ePrc4wvOjbtxC9sxF8tZVGlnTBMe5pJFb9ecXSy_2hlT_aZGhrPPsAbLhMQB4iEPG1vX7EpIyq-H3LuANC9F4TLgYE_sri0KSrBhzxXlJRWZHO31-n_ye26ULN9Knhs/s400/161609_GhoulsFromBelow_sk.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">©Wizards of the Coast</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">To a certain extent, I thought it would be fun to reference <i>Gravecrawler</i> in the central zombie. It wouldn't be an explicit tie-in and is by no means canon, but I was hoping to channel on some level a degree of the success I'd had in the previous piece. I got approval for this, and went to paint.</span></div>
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As I reached the middle of the painting process, for some reason I started to think about the description. "Three zombies," it said. While there were only three main zombies in my sketch, there were others insinuated. What if there was an explicit reason for there to be three zombies? What if it was part of the card's mechanic? I decided it was a good idea to shoot my art director an e-mail for clarification. It was a good catch. Three was the number we wanted to count to, with the number of counting being three. And so I eliminated most of the additional zombies, save one. The last I removed digitally.</div>
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Here's the piece as I turned it in.</div>
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjbwVr86DQckNraa_c6I_fvEdcH3A7YGzIOmO3sC95zaYDRJ3NgC_9U__34meBsgHSiUsN7WgCBCJJ2VhZLZ3-ScRWURSaxrSyBKHhJ5BAc-7yfNEWt7A25-2ile6c0S1tTIucYG2j_3So/s1600/161609_GhoulsBelow.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="297" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjbwVr86DQckNraa_c6I_fvEdcH3A7YGzIOmO3sC95zaYDRJ3NgC_9U__34meBsgHSiUsN7WgCBCJJ2VhZLZ3-ScRWURSaxrSyBKHhJ5BAc-7yfNEWt7A25-2ile6c0S1tTIucYG2j_3So/s400/161609_GhoulsBelow.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">©Wizards of the Coast</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="p1">
<br /></div>
There's a fair bit of digital trickery going on in the painting you see above. First, and most importantly, I painted out the one, additional zombie and added a bit of debris in his place. Second, I recognized that the vines were too thin to be legible at card size, so I fattened them up a bit. I was pleased enough with how these thicker vines came out that I ended up going back into the original painting to do the same. Overall, I was pretty proud of my ability to blend the digital with the traditional. But honestly, it wasn't that difficult a job to begin with. Either way, if the folks at Wizards noticed, they never said a word. In fact, they approved it as is.<br />
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Still, I really missed the zombie in the sketch whose head is just beginning to rise above the floor level. He's barely more than a shape, but there was something about him that amused me, and so I kept him. Here's what the the original painting looks like with that zombie still included:<br />
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEikVtAH1aAoTwVDtuua3oZ2UGD7FiD1Y5q_q9Hkcbr1DzCBhFg4OKPxg1YgZAlqQnFWrwT2MFgFAGYoRv3yKv43d3JteoMFuoNGNbf7-fq1_tGThqGrJG89aeVBvLHDkRgroJdZDbj-s6M/s1600/zombies003.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="297" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEikVtAH1aAoTwVDtuua3oZ2UGD7FiD1Y5q_q9Hkcbr1DzCBhFg4OKPxg1YgZAlqQnFWrwT2MFgFAGYoRv3yKv43d3JteoMFuoNGNbf7-fq1_tGThqGrJG89aeVBvLHDkRgroJdZDbj-s6M/s400/zombies003.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">©Wizards of the Coast</td></tr>
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The finished piece is twelve inches wide by nine inches tall and is oil on hardboard.<br />
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This was one of the most difficult pieces to color correct that I've ever painted. Seriously. It took forever. It's still not 100% right, but it's as close as I've been able to get with what Photoshop skills I had at the time. Upon rescanning the piece for this blog post, I took another shot at it and got a bit closer. So, I guess maybe my skills have sharpened a bit since last year.<br />
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If I had any complaints about the piece it's that it feels a bit murkier than I'd like it to. For whatever reason, I went darker faster than I usually do. In fact, it got dark enough that I'm fairly sure it wasn't really necessary to paint out the extra zombie at all. Seriously—he's hardly visible. The piece is dark enough, in fact, that I fear I may have undermined any figure/ground separation that might have helped the image read clearly when shrunken down.<br />
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Additionally, from a purely artistic level, this is a rare occasion where I feel like more would have been better. Zombies? More zombies! Debris? More debris! Let's just pile it on! Unfortunately, while that might have made for a more interesting piece to me, it would have failed to solve the needs of the assignment. After all, three was the important number here. Still, it would have been a lot of fun to paint even more zombies bursting out of that hole.<br />
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All that being said, I still dig the piece quite a bit. It's weird and fun, and pretty creepy. It's not exactly reinventing the wheel or telling any epic story. It's just zombie's busting out of the floor. But what fun it is to paint such things. Still more fun is that I'm never working on anything long enough to grow tired of it. One job is a mythical landscape, the next a mad scientist. Then it's on to zombies.<br />
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This gig can be stupid levels of awesome.<br />
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<br />Steven Belledinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02798269170915291454noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3245662519209286682.post-28930723949168318822016-03-30T10:38:00.000-04:002016-03-30T10:38:16.578-04:00Invasive SurgeryIn the past couple of years, Magic has revisited a number of its worlds and for the first time, Magic's storyline has returned to a world I helped build: Innistrad. Once again the game would explore the gothic horror genre and while I wasn't deeply involved as a part of the world-building team for the story's expansion, I was pretty excited about getting a chance to dig into the weird and wonderful plane, its brooding atmosphere, and it's varied inhabitants.<br />
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
<i>Invasive Surgery — </i>the first piece assigned to me — was a great opportunity to dive into the deep end of the horror inherent to Innistrad, and I was ready to roll up my sleeves.<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">ART DESCRIPTION:</span></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">Setting: INNISTRAD</span></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">Location: In a mad scientist's lab</span></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">Action: Show a close-up of a female human "mad scientist" who is crouched over her test subject -- an exposed brain. (It should be pretty bloodless -- maybe we only see brain matter through a square in a sheet, or maybe the subject's opened head is angled away from us.) She looks like she's about to go taking samples from this brain -- maybe she has a small bowl in one hand and some sort of drill-like scooping tool in the other. She leans in with slightly twitchy glee, eager to take her first scoop.</span></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">Focus: The mad scientist</span></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">Mood: "This is for SCIENCE!"</span></div>
</blockquote>
Reading the art order and looking at the world guide reference, it seemed pretty obvious to me what the fine folks at Wizards were looking for, and so I went at it. Here's what the sketch ended up looking like:</div>
<div>
<div class="p1">
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgqInWX8NkR-mmrN_TCU5pWkIwg25ygwYY3m4EcDasEzNzZo83E4n8p-RbCgCVhhlyoxsTLF4f7vfai6rmuNy8NwHO8mwLFS_i0QCMXMa6iJm3Uu-Ygp_2XVUpOMQh9VcG9BtYtr6fg8dA/s1600/161427_Lobotomist.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="290" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgqInWX8NkR-mmrN_TCU5pWkIwg25ygwYY3m4EcDasEzNzZo83E4n8p-RbCgCVhhlyoxsTLF4f7vfai6rmuNy8NwHO8mwLFS_i0QCMXMa6iJm3Uu-Ygp_2XVUpOMQh9VcG9BtYtr6fg8dA/s400/161427_Lobotomist.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">©Wizards of the Coast</td></tr>
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<div class="p1">
<br /></div>
<div class="p1">
Balancing the needs of the piece was a little tough when pulling this together. I really wanted to show the patient's face and the description clearly was steering me away from that urge. I tried to find a compromise everyone would be happy with. When I got my feedback, the need for bloodlessness in the piece was reiterated and a request was made that lengthen the fabric covering the patient's face to just below the tip of the nose. Simple enough, and still allowing for some degree of showing the patient in some way. After agreeing to the changes, I went to paint.</div>
<div class="p1">
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgllEXIfTS2TxqzSDaTG6D-NBigXniO4pE5WP-PlzMyHi95-eWFo_jmgBGxjYffQA-X4aZAhj5DdJbT7WvaCLEpz-5a82grMqFFTzZd1r3JuTL-sZLVLCXXZlr4soZSnQhnqTtMWWIbFqo/s1600/161427_Lobotomist_final.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="312" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgllEXIfTS2TxqzSDaTG6D-NBigXniO4pE5WP-PlzMyHi95-eWFo_jmgBGxjYffQA-X4aZAhj5DdJbT7WvaCLEpz-5a82grMqFFTzZd1r3JuTL-sZLVLCXXZlr4soZSnQhnqTtMWWIbFqo/s400/161427_Lobotomist_final.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">©Wizards of the Coast</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
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The finished piece is the usual oil on hardboard and measures fourteens inches wide by eleven inches tall.</div>
<div class="p1">
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<div class="p1">
While there are the usual tweaks I'd make to this piece and things I'd like to fix, I'm pretty happy with the final painting overall. If nothing else, it was a really nice reintroduction to the insanity of Innistrad and a fun chance to touch on parts of the world that I didn't get an opportunity to depict during the last go around. Honestly, for me there's nothing quite like getting to paint a manic lobotomist enjoying herself while plying her trade — even if it does make for another in a long line of creepy images I've created for Magic: the Gathering. This would only be the first from this new Magic set to to add to that pile of work, however...</div>
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Steven Belledinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02798269170915291454noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3245662519209286682.post-51868877521630098142016-03-11T11:47:00.001-05:002016-03-11T12:31:06.235-05:00SheerHere's a random image from a while ago. Not sure how it got past me, but I stumbled upon the painting in my flat files the other day realized I never posted about it.<br />
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No real story behind it, really. Like other pieces before it, I took a some gessoed hardboard and started making marks in oil. No sketch, no real goal, just slapped down, random oil marks. Then I started wiping into those marks with a brush and thinner or a rubber blending tool. Then I'd push back with more paint, then back to wiping, etc. Once I started to see something develop, I worked into it to clarify the image until I could start to see a finish in my head. At that point, I finally began working toward the finish.<br />
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The nice thing about working this way is that it's immediate, forgiving, and very low stakes. The absolute worst case scenario is that I end up with a half-baked image that can be scraped away or a surface that now has a ton of random marks on it that I can work on top of. Neither of these scenarios particularly bothers me. Plus, because of the small size, we're not talking a lot of wasted materials, either (assuming one would consider exploration of one's medium without usable results a waste—which I actually don't).<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhtqFnPbGmAI9tN8_PqwyikAB4BYDH-j8fMPDQdXct0YLd_MBi042AF-SjRpm1JmujC5s43T8FGI7O22ssOAOb7WzUC7eSFRtZ4lHsrwtulYk1e15MDoV5WeyenG1kTWLOscj_hbKgRk-o/s1600/Sheer.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhtqFnPbGmAI9tN8_PqwyikAB4BYDH-j8fMPDQdXct0YLd_MBi042AF-SjRpm1JmujC5s43T8FGI7O22ssOAOb7WzUC7eSFRtZ4lHsrwtulYk1e15MDoV5WeyenG1kTWLOscj_hbKgRk-o/s400/Sheer.jpg" width="285" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">©Steven Belledin</td></tr>
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The finished painting is five inches wide by seven inches tall and is oil on gessoed hardboard.Steven Belledinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02798269170915291454noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3245662519209286682.post-67685839725173592902016-01-28T12:04:00.004-05:002016-01-28T12:04:57.869-05:00A Brief StopLater on today, I'll be headed to Vancouver to attend my first Magic tournament in over a year and a half. Before I go, I figured I'd quickly share the painting I did for one of the exclusive playmats available at the event.<br /><br />The assignment for the playmat was simply to make an image with some sort of ties to the Vancouver area that still felt like it belonged to the greater world of Magic: the Gathering. So I painted this:<div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">©Steven Belledin</td></tr>
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Essentially, I depicted a couple of local mountain peaks known as the Lions in the background and included Vancouver's official city bird of 2015, the chickadee, as well as Vancouver's official city bird of 2016, the peregrine falcon. Obviously I played with scale a bit, but it is meant to be a fantasy painting after all.</div>
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The finished piece is twenty inches wide by fourteen inches tall and is oil on gessoed hardboard. Those attending the Grand Prix in Vancouver will have an opportunity to check it out in person if they're interested.</div>
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Steven Belledinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02798269170915291454noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3245662519209286682.post-30426339784856382352016-01-19T11:10:00.003-05:002016-01-19T11:10:38.810-05:00Gladehart Cavalry<div class="p1">
In great contrast to <i><a href="http://stevenbelledin.blogspot.com/2016/01/goblin-dark-dwellers_5.html">Goblin Dark-Dwellers</a></i>, <i>Gladehart Cavalry</i> was a bit less straightforward, though the art description wasn't weird or complicated or anything. I simply was asked to paint three axe-wielding elf warriors mounted on the backs of antelope-like creatures called gladeharts. The blades of the axes, as well as the eyes of both the elves and gladeharts needed to glow green. The piece was to have a majestic, parade-like atmosphere and feature some elven architecture in the background. None of this should have been an issue, really. The designs for elf costume, elf architecture, the axes and even the gladeharts were provided. What could possibly go wrong?<br />
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I read and reread the description, looked over my reference, doodled a bunch of things and finally arrived at this sketch:<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjkUpdhFnuGuv6i53usfocN1UN6Xv3qLslB7Eh5hldPjY9Xc4cdFqRZhyphenhyphenGvwjsSNmE8G_BxlRYpZL53VNtX83dQh3z1gzM8Fv4k_qvSLe3DgovBZ2moGw65IgxtQ5H7KIxlvlPtBdpdMR8/s1600/161251_taguruHonor_sk.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="290" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjkUpdhFnuGuv6i53usfocN1UN6Xv3qLslB7Eh5hldPjY9Xc4cdFqRZhyphenhyphenGvwjsSNmE8G_BxlRYpZL53VNtX83dQh3z1gzM8Fv4k_qvSLe3DgovBZ2moGw65IgxtQ5H7KIxlvlPtBdpdMR8/s400/161251_taguruHonor_sk.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">©Wizards of the Coast</td></tr>
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While not my best sketch, it is hardly my worst, but immediately after handing it in there was a problem. This was the point at which I learned the image I was working on was alternate art and that Dan Scott had already depicted this crew. The fine folks at Wizards were kind enough to supply Dan's image for clarification and it became obvious to me why there was a degree of concern. Unfortunately, we'd made a lot of similar decisions and there was a concern that our images were too alike. So how did this happen? Well, there are a couple reasons and one of the biggest contributing factors was my fault.<br />
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If you go back through the blog, you'll find that in some of the previous instances where I've made alternate art for Magic, I've been a bit disappointed when I've furnished with an image of the original piece. It can, on some level, be very limiting. And, given the level of talent Wizards has at its disposal, it can also be quite intimidating. My preference would be to not get a copy of that original image, and this is something I'm confident I've expressed in front of one or more of Magic's Art Directors. I suspect that the Art Director I was working with in this case was deferring to my preferences (which was very kind of her, but in all honesty she needn't have listened to the my silly ideals), and the result was a certain degree of parallel creation—or rather, two people coming up with roughly the same thing simultaneously.<br />
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That that occurred in this instance is not very surprising. We have three riders on animals with horns that are best depicted frontally. Were you to change perspective even by forty-five degrees, the spacing of the horns starts to present problems in composing an image where all three riders, their mounts and their weapons remain clear and visible when reduced. It's not impossible, mind you, but it wasn't where either Dan's or my gut instincts took either of us.<br />
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Now, are the images alike? Yes. We made the same choices in the make-up of the party and even how they're dressed. Were there still differences? Plenty. Was it impossible to further differentiate the two images? Not at all. And that is all the Art Director ever asked of me. She was concerned (rightly) about the similarities of the pieces, but rather than make me go back to the drawing board (which was entirely her right had she wished it), she trusted me to push my piece in a different direction from Dan's using a palette of violets, oranges and greens. Truly I was spoiled by the level of trust.<br />
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Beyond that, we agreed that keeping some of the crowd in the piece was valuable, but altering the upper tier of onlookers (that's what those scribbles in the background of the sketch are) might not be a bad idea for clarity's sake. With that, I was approved to go to paint.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh4bnes7oGWAg3W-W8ePEzcFUf71DTgjmUEVzy3kiqbJpe9BRYoDjQD3so8kQZQ3eoxHUd31cSAZg1GZNmwSKyDbpKii4tvYqvL6NMGabSRZ_0br76NM1XxFiBDY6ybLC-cCJkNKcasZjw/s1600/161251_TaguruHonorGuard_v2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="312" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh4bnes7oGWAg3W-W8ePEzcFUf71DTgjmUEVzy3kiqbJpe9BRYoDjQD3so8kQZQ3eoxHUd31cSAZg1GZNmwSKyDbpKii4tvYqvL6NMGabSRZ_0br76NM1XxFiBDY6ybLC-cCJkNKcasZjw/s400/161251_TaguruHonorGuard_v2.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">©Wizards of the Coast</td></tr>
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The finished painting is oil on hardboard and measures fourteen inches wide by eleven inches tall.<br />
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There are aspects of this piece that I think worked out okay, and others that I feel could have been better. The biggest issue is that I continue to wonder if eliminating the top tier of elf onlookers was a bad idea or not. While I like the contrast of the cooler violet color behind the central figure, I wonder if the composition wasn't a bit stronger with that horizontal shape spanning the piece as in the sketch.<br />
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As repeat visitors can attest, I doubt myself quite fairly often when it comes to my work and I'm never entirely sure how useful such doubts really are. The painting is done and handed in, after all. On the other hand, I suppose that such feelings are a positive sign that I still care a good deal about making the best images that I can and trying my very best to never let a client down (not to mention let myself down). So I guess I've got that going for me...which is nice.<br />
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The obvious remaining question is whether or not I've changed my mind about seeing the original versions of art when called upon to do an alternate take. I think I'd still rather get a chance to create with a clean mental slate, but I recognize that it's not always practical or even practicable. In the end, I just have to trust my Art Directors to make the call.<br />
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Steven Belledinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02798269170915291454noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3245662519209286682.post-22445281274102062932016-01-12T12:02:00.000-05:002016-01-12T12:02:46.579-05:00Tyrant of ValakutFor someone who had no real drive to paint dragons, the last couple years have forced me to get into them in a fairly large way. Lots of drawings, a few paintings, tons of discussion and analysis (not to mention many a headache) was the result. But if I ever thought that my time worrying about dragons was done at the end of the Tarkir block of Magic, boy was I wrong. In terms of preliminary drawings, color studies, the number of images pulled from the internet for reference and total man hours, this piece represents quite an investment in still more dragons. Or rather one dragon. The <i>Tyrant of Valakut</i> (Intro Pack Version).<br />
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Here's the art order Wizards gave me:<br />
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<span class="s1">ART DESCRIPTION:<br />INTRO PACK<br />Setting: ZENDIKAR<br />Color: Red creature</span><span class="s1">Location: top of a cliff (use pp. 43-46 in the World Guide as a starting point, but make it your own)</span><span class="s1">Action: Show us an immense dragon perched on a rocky cliff. See the dragon on p. 163, but remove the back protrusions. This dragon is thicker with several sets of tusks that protrude from its lower jaw. Its wings are unfurled, as it stands triumphantly over a medium sized dead Emrakul-lineage Eldrazi spawn (see pp. 228-230). <br />Focus: the dragon<br />Mood: Raw power. The uncontested master.</span></blockquote>
After soaking in the information from the description for a bit, I started doodling in my sketchbook in an attempt to grope my way toward a solution of some sort. Having to revise the design of the dragon a bit was an interesting challenge and I tried to remain fairly true to the spirit of the original while making the necessary changes and adding my own flavor to it. Here's where I started to figure stuff out:</div>
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Once I got to this point, I move to Photoshop for the sketch.</div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">©Wizards of the Coast</td></tr>
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The Art Director seemed to like it and gave me the go ahead. Before going to paint, however, I went ahead and did a color study.</div>
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As you can see, elements of the background began to change a bit. I found that as I filled in those large shapes with color, they began to feel uniform and a bit boring. In the end, I felt that breaking those shapes up really added a degree of interest to the piece. Still, I wasn't totally happy with it and showed it to a group of compatriots. They gave me some input and I tweaked it a bit.</div>
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A bit more broken up and a greater variety of direction in the floating mountains in the background. I was getting closer. I showed the revised version to my friends again and they had a few more thoughts. more changes were made and I settled on this:</div>
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I knew that things would likely change a bit more over the course of painting the piece, but I felt like I was in pretty good shape nevertheless. So, I transferred my drawing to the surface and went to town.</div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">©Wizards of the Coast</td></tr>
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The finished painting is oil on gessoed hardboard and measures twenty-four inches wide by eighteen inches tall.</div>
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As you can see, the piece became darker in the paint. This is largely due to my love of a heavier palette and the fact that I felt that the background was a little too washed out in the sketch. As I developed the painting, the darker background called for a darker dragon, as well. The added bonus of this was that it became easier to sell the molten crags in the dragon's skin. The downside is that piece isn't quite as luminous as it was in the sketch, and the overall lighting scheme shifted quite a bit. Such is life.</div>
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Painting this large for Magic is a tough thing. Inherently, a lot of detail is lost and the printed image fails to do the painting justice. However, as long as the piece reads okay at card size, that tends to not be too big a deal—at least for the purposes of the client, that is. For my purposes, I was just hoping to make a cool painting that had a degree of presence in person. I think I accomplished that. Still, I think it's apparent that this piece might fall outside ideal size for my Magic work. I'm beginning to feel that outside of landscapes, 18x14 is about as big as I can go without losing too much. That's not to say that I won't ever go this large ever again. In fact, it's likely I will should the right piece come along. Whatever the case, this felt like a worthy opportunity to go a bit bigger and it's an experiment that I'm rather happy with.</div>
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Steven Belledinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02798269170915291454noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3245662519209286682.post-53426730520493930802016-01-05T13:13:00.001-05:002016-01-05T13:23:41.231-05:00Goblin Dark-DwellersI use the word "straightforward" a lot when describing the process of illustrating for Magic: the Gathering. One could argue that I overuse the word, and I guess one might be right. The truth is that to a greater or lesser extent, the job becomes a bit routine. The assignment comes in, I put a sketch together, I hand the sketch in. If there are any changes necessary, I make them and resubmit the sketch. Otherwise, if I've gained approval, I spend a day or so to prepare the surface of the board or transfer the drawing (or both). Then I paint the piece, digitize and retouch it. Finally, I submit the digital file to Wizards. On average, within a week after the completion of an assignment, the process begins all over again.<br />
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Based on the history of this blog, one would be correct in saying that I often struggle with pieces. However, that's not always the case. Sometimes I'm lucky enough to get assignments that just fit into the pattern and schedule, and don't ever cause me a whole lot of grief. Such images come together easily enough for me to not feel guilty about enjoying my life at night and on weekends instead of toiling away on a piece. You know, sometimes a piece is just... straightforward. This was one of those times.
As always, we begin with an art description:<br />
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<span class="s1">ART DESCRIPTION:</span></div>
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<span class="s1">Setting: ZENDIKAR</span></div>
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<span class="s1">Color: Red creatureLocation: underground cavern</span></div>
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<span class="s1">Action: In this shot, we are looking up at three Dark Dweller goblins (see p. 109) crawling head first down a semi-cylindrical vertical cave shaft toward us. The goblins are sightless. The shaft is crisscrossed by a network of climbing ropes installed by unseen human adventurers. The shaft is lit from below by off-camera torches. We should get the feeling that these goblins are stalking someone.</span></div>
Focus: the goblins</blockquote>
After getting my assignment, the first step in my process is always to start doing exploratory thumbnail drawings. While many of my fellow illustrators make beautifully composed drawings contained in perfectly drawn boxes, my thumbnails are a scribbled mess and rarely start in any kind of frame. The struggle for me is always to get poses and mood down first. Only after figuring out a direction for those things do I begin to compose the piece as a whole. In this case, I quickly found that I had a great deal of difficulty with the part of the description about the "semi-cylindrical vertical cave shaft." I don't know why, but I couldn't find a compelling way to sell that part of the image while keeping a satisfying hierarchy of the goblins receding into the distance. Without a doubt, there are artists who could have easily nailed this off the bat (and Karl Kopinski subsequently did a much better job of it in his version of the art), but it was a weird obstacle that became something I got hung up on.<br />
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The thing is, one can't dwell for too long on details like that as the deadline is ever marching closer, so I set that issue aside and decided to first attempt to make a piece that I found satisfying and then see if I could make that cylindrical tunnel thing work. The short version is that I decided on a piece that I liked and never got the cave's shaft to feel particularly cylindrical. Still, I thought the sketch was strong enough to submit and hoped that the fine folks at Wizards really meant it when they wrote in the description that the focus was the goblins themselves, rather than the environment they were crawling through.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjFKp4dS-4UExb1IbTUNSek3ILI5QIAuHr5SdpliNtFB8KiGthM82yyWTGqefXKQvbsc4IZ0RBFu3dHYEEyNHFNgFvHXNGOskjzAHLbuNyA2skbmE_7XH5Sfg74wNDQHiYktwdsN7xE11c/s1600/161234_DarkDweller_sk.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="290" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjFKp4dS-4UExb1IbTUNSek3ILI5QIAuHr5SdpliNtFB8KiGthM82yyWTGqefXKQvbsc4IZ0RBFu3dHYEEyNHFNgFvHXNGOskjzAHLbuNyA2skbmE_7XH5Sfg74wNDQHiYktwdsN7xE11c/s400/161234_DarkDweller_sk.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">©Wizards of the Coast</td></tr>
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As stated in the description, the design for these guys was already set, so I was basically finding a way to make them work in a new context. While I think Wizards was probably thinking about more of a Gollum vibe, I kind of was thinking more of an "Alien" vibe. In the end, I think it came out somewhere in the middle.</div>
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Anyway, they dug the sketch as is and I got approval. But rather than go to paint right away, I did something I rarely do: a quick digital color study.</div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjMhs7KIacyOXiMBr9zJz7LeUzDUcyPg0JcoIzrgyPTOmuSzwhT3acjXT9Z9o1fmYD-KDjpVQmzHF_UQABWtjUgp6Bk5_Amldemhp9Z2uQLe8v1pJE_CwIt5euHSIMIZ3rdyblZce-M9Gk/s1600/161234_DarkDweller_color.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjMhs7KIacyOXiMBr9zJz7LeUzDUcyPg0JcoIzrgyPTOmuSzwhT3acjXT9Z9o1fmYD-KDjpVQmzHF_UQABWtjUgp6Bk5_Amldemhp9Z2uQLe8v1pJE_CwIt5euHSIMIZ3rdyblZce-M9Gk/s400/161234_DarkDweller_color.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">©Wizards of the Coast</td></tr>
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Satisfied with where I was headed, I prepared my painting surface and went to town.</div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEirydh1x5cwy0NFdImcesJbqlbuiDzxm3M68NfhCAoJti3jbj0-rQJq12Cc4vHm4rNzQCa26p0QG1AXnfxq2vPoActGy89qFVef4MwxWgETgTxkCfnFIJJM0t5uuOD-O4N5BncuOeREjIQ/s1600/161234_DarkDweller_painting.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="298" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEirydh1x5cwy0NFdImcesJbqlbuiDzxm3M68NfhCAoJti3jbj0-rQJq12Cc4vHm4rNzQCa26p0QG1AXnfxq2vPoActGy89qFVef4MwxWgETgTxkCfnFIJJM0t5uuOD-O4N5BncuOeREjIQ/s400/161234_DarkDweller_painting.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">©Wizards of the Coast</td></tr>
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The final painting is the usual oil on hardboard and measures sixteen inches wide by twelve inches tall.</div>
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In the end, I don't have a lot to say about this piece other than that I'm satisfied with how it turned out. It wasn't particularly complicated in subject, concept, or delivery, and it was a pretty quick turnaround due in no small part to the simplicity of the color palette and the size of the shapes involved. Truthfully, if I could change anything, it would be that the walls would be covered with goblins, but the assignment was to paint only three. While it would seem like Wizards would be happy to get more for the money, that's not always the case. This is a game that I'm illustrating after all, and there's a high probability that any specific numbers mentioned in an art description are tied to a game mechanic in some way — not always, but often enough to have been an issue. So, as in this case, I often go the conservative route and deliver what they ask for. Beyond there not being swarms of goblins, however, I'm pretty content with how it came out.<br />
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So that's it. Another piece down. And here it is in its card frame:<br />
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Steven Belledinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02798269170915291454noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3245662519209286682.post-36018150241147227872015-12-15T12:13:00.000-05:002015-12-15T12:13:31.819-05:00Lantern ScoutThere's been a lot going on in the house and I've been delinquent in posting as frequently and on as a diverse a group of topics as I'd like. Instead all I've been able to muster is a smattering of closer looks at Magic pieces. But even in this I've fallen short since the piece I'm about to write about came out in September.<br />
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So, <i>Lantern Scout</i>. Yeah. Not a lot of controversy, not a hugely difficult process, and not a lot of issues along the way. In fact, it was about as straightforward as things go. As always, it began with an art order:</div>
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<blockquote class="tr_bq">
ART DESCRIPTION:<br />
Setting: ZENDIKAR<br />
Color: White creature<br />
Location: Guul Draz<br />
Action: Show us a female human scout moving through a murky geyser field in Guul Draz. She has a short sword in one hand and a glowing hedron-lantern in the other, lighting her way through the swamp. Behind her, we can make out the shapes of two other humans following her light--perhaps only indistinctly through the steam of Guul Draz.<br />
Focus: The scout with the lantern.<br />
Mood: She's a light shining in the darkness.</blockquote>
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Edited from the above are specific page numbers from the styleguide that included specific reference for the scout's clothing, as well as the landscape of Guul Draz. If I'm honest, descriptions such as this that require me to take something from one part of the styleguide and place it in an environment found in another part of the styleguide can be a bit boring. After all, there's little ownership and a bit less creativity, as well. In this case, however, I was fortunate in that all the styleguide reference was vague enough to allow a great deal of extrapolation. Even if it hadn't, the image they were looking for is the kind of thing I really enjoy painting, so off the bat I started in a good place and was looking forward to digging in.</div>
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As luck would have it, the same day I got my assignment, I had a model over for an unrelated project. At the tail end of our session, however, I took the opportunity to take a bunch of shots of her holding a lamp to try and nail down the scene for the painting that lay ahead. This was the opposite of how things typically go, mind you, since I normally do at least a thumbnail sketch before committing to shooting reference. But taking the photos felt worthwhile—especially if they prevented me from having to paint myself yet again.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgp1XT-KvVSm6WOodOq5F3JH4RiXTvxI1PzbRP_T2YmIB4o7r4DQxvxp0sd_JY4C_A13UA0KMj82WKu0DqGKRIsCnOKnktHu9LjCwOCajBN8FYAL1Azj3gtHaGEJwGO-IKyIgp_OtzACB4/s1600/DSC_0309sm.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="267" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgp1XT-KvVSm6WOodOq5F3JH4RiXTvxI1PzbRP_T2YmIB4o7r4DQxvxp0sd_JY4C_A13UA0KMj82WKu0DqGKRIsCnOKnktHu9LjCwOCajBN8FYAL1Azj3gtHaGEJwGO-IKyIgp_OtzACB4/s400/DSC_0309sm.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Model: <a href="https://www.facebook.com/modeleowynrose/?fref=ts">Éowyn Rose</a></td></tr>
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Not surprisingly, I could have used the game plan that a sketch would have provided. As I explored the scene in sketch form, it became clear to me that the photos I shot with the model would end up being less helpful than I'd hoped, and so I lit the scene and struck a pose and then used my maul stick to pull the trigger on the Photo Booth App (ahhh, technology).<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjsOiBLFhPMLBrLzEFyihlJQw_hA6ltKd8p6IN6KF2xgH6jwjrl-EMayJcV4M2cXC7_vJVecEztha0flADVcDKtmmYJ8U1xqPmlnHmcDNQjFE6_34LcRFB5q9pyoLVceNjOWTFJ-_3XRSE/s1600/Photo+on+11-6-14+at+1.27+PM.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="266" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjsOiBLFhPMLBrLzEFyihlJQw_hA6ltKd8p6IN6KF2xgH6jwjrl-EMayJcV4M2cXC7_vJVecEztha0flADVcDKtmmYJ8U1xqPmlnHmcDNQjFE6_34LcRFB5q9pyoLVceNjOWTFJ-_3XRSE/s400/Photo+on+11-6-14+at+1.27+PM.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Model: Paintermonkey</td></tr>
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The end result was sort of a melding of both bits of reference along with a bunch more stuff thrown in (thank you Google Images). Anyway, this is the sketch that resulted:<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj3id3KvWxRmwRspVnGyzezIKN1ZVs-EXSOq84hpPCq0vN3ulJ4BEJAFsg8_KXPUoAgZmdLqH7X5jgp5ee4iNBzjNxvVGn7nYgifBgB-umvqnBdq863KLAsa9RrX6G9YIhpH-t6nIClXwY/s1600/160815_LanternScout.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="290" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj3id3KvWxRmwRspVnGyzezIKN1ZVs-EXSOq84hpPCq0vN3ulJ4BEJAFsg8_KXPUoAgZmdLqH7X5jgp5ee4iNBzjNxvVGn7nYgifBgB-umvqnBdq863KLAsa9RrX6G9YIhpH-t6nIClXwY/s400/160815_LanternScout.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">©Wizards of the Coast</td></tr>
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And here is the finished piece:<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEirf5CHmdMRsiKn8Mr0LDhmiiNTp8JuB_qEwEEpu1AL15dIscctBMOZUgWSTQL7pBV3fnq_e-6e9vIzTf4LjtPBIEkGTfOGMWtWQ4ud7hT6-qKQShDgAMil-vrwkYIOnr0TdhrVLbzaHVs/s1600/160815_LanternScout_final-copy.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="310" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEirf5CHmdMRsiKn8Mr0LDhmiiNTp8JuB_qEwEEpu1AL15dIscctBMOZUgWSTQL7pBV3fnq_e-6e9vIzTf4LjtPBIEkGTfOGMWtWQ4ud7hT6-qKQShDgAMil-vrwkYIOnr0TdhrVLbzaHVs/s400/160815_LanternScout_final-copy.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">©Wizards of the Coast</td></tr>
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The painting is eighteen inches wide by fourteen inches tall and is the usual oil on paper on hardboard.<br />
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While I stated above that the creation of this piece was pretty straightforward, there was one thing that did cause a bit of a hiccup. While painting the piece, I failed to step back often enough and take the piece in from afar. The result of this negligence was that the scout's proportions became slightly off. As soon as I digitized the piece and was able to reduce it at will in Photoshop, it became quite obvious. So I ended up tweaking things in Photoshop before submitting the piece. After that, I spent an additional day working on the painting to get it to match the digital file. Mind you, the necessary tweaking wasn't a big deal, but I admit that I was a little irritated with myself because I knew better. Or thought I did.<br />
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Still, aside from that small, last-minute issue, the piece was about as straightforward as I could make it and it ended up being one of my favorite pieces I painted in 2014. If nothing else, I managed to nail the mood I was going for, and I was quite pleased with the more limited palette I went with to get there.<br />
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So yeah, another one that I don't hate. What is happening to me?<br />
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Steven Belledinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02798269170915291454noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3245662519209286682.post-67384098820022556462015-11-19T12:11:00.002-05:002015-11-19T12:11:46.965-05:00Great Oak GuardianThis painting was done in 2010—October of 2010, to be more precise. In fact, it was painted concurrently with <a href="http://stevenbelledin.blogspot.com/2011/08/kiki-jiki.html" style="font-style: italic;">Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker</a> but it ended up not being published. And so it sat in a drawer both literally and figuratively.<br />
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Originally, I believe it was meant to be alternate art for something in the Magic 2012 core set. Due to a clerical error that attached the wrong proportions to the art description, however, it ended up being a horizontal piece instead of a vertical one as intended. Given that the art director was busy helping usher into existence somewhere around 150 other pieces of art at the time, the error went unnoticed until the finished painting was handed in. Unfortunately, being the wrong proportion rendered the painting unusable and so it was put into the Magic art slush pile—a pile that at one point I jokingly suggested Wizards of the Coast finally print as the next "Un" set and call the whole thing "Unpublished."<br />
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This is not that common an occurrence. However, it's not exactly rare, either. Over the years, many pieces of art have ended up in Magic's slush pile. Way back when everything was done traditionally and one sent their art into Wizards, I remember even getting to sift through the art being stored in their flat files for future use (yes, they kept the art until it was published even if it took years, but I think this has ceased to be their practice and is largely moot due to the fact that most people—even those of us who work traditionally—send in digital files). This isn't even the first time some of my work has been set aside. <i><a href="http://stevenbelledin.blogspot.com/2011/07/revisiting-reprints-rampant-growth.html">Rampant Growth</a></i> and <i><a href="http://stevenbelledin.blogspot.com/2013/07/revisiting-reprints-tome-scour.html">Tome Scour</a></i> were both painted quite a long time before they finally saw print, and I still have one more piece that has yet to see publication.<br />
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Whatever the case may be, this little tree guy was done a few years back and Wizards finally found a place to put him in the Commander 2015 set. His name (apparently) is <i>Great Oak Guardian</i>, and I'd be lying if I said I wasn't happy to have him out there.<br />
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Normally, I'd have the original art order ready to go and give you all the usual bullet points of the process, but I don't have a lot to give you five years after the fact. The best I can do is tell you that I have a vague recollection of the piece needing to be a treant-type creature slinging a boulder. So I drew this:<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgPgfuOe_MUAkYW2DxXDNJsXvxkNqKq6hGzb8Vn5rocnS-phw7L-kdWGKBbmUmtMuNDT6p2cSyPI3e8csCVEhQSdXYrBtN5vF4__ptuqDyu2zNr2wg7y-m0LlI74IbwUyQqhqYhiOdj28o/s1600/Oak+Guy+sk.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgPgfuOe_MUAkYW2DxXDNJsXvxkNqKq6hGzb8Vn5rocnS-phw7L-kdWGKBbmUmtMuNDT6p2cSyPI3e8csCVEhQSdXYrBtN5vF4__ptuqDyu2zNr2wg7y-m0LlI74IbwUyQqhqYhiOdj28o/s400/Oak+Guy+sk.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">©Wizards of the Coast</td></tr>
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I don't remember getting any feedback beyond approval, and so I took it to paint.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhleISqpUMCqx9XP8po19xm00XrPJN8Ni0DptJgsL5MhJPRJpagQff3tnWqRD4sJn6m3U5sUhpIMYUWuF3hACZYpz0C6NK1wDJ6psOdqXg0KfbvHRAdNSqV9fzu36RgjOTubBXsrkd5msE/s1600/Oak+Guy+Paint.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhleISqpUMCqx9XP8po19xm00XrPJN8Ni0DptJgsL5MhJPRJpagQff3tnWqRD4sJn6m3U5sUhpIMYUWuF3hACZYpz0C6NK1wDJ6psOdqXg0KfbvHRAdNSqV9fzu36RgjOTubBXsrkd5msE/s400/Oak+Guy+Paint.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">©Wizards of the Coast</td></tr>
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The finished piece is oil on paper on hardboard and measures twelve inches wide by nine inches tall.<br />
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Right off the bat I will confess to regretting not painting this thing larger. I really wish I'd done it at least fourteen by eleven. But I didn't. So I just have to get over that. That being said, I really do like the piece. I remember feeling pretty good about the whole assignment in general as both with this piece and with <i>Kiki-Jiki,</i> I'd accomplished what I'd set out to do. In general, I feel like I got a lot of things right. I like the light, the color and the gesture. To boot, the fact that I don't cringe over something I did five years ago feels like a win.<br />
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So yeah. I like something I did. Weird, right?<br />
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<br />Steven Belledinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02798269170915291454noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3245662519209286682.post-86804693735333881412015-10-05T14:20:00.003-04:002015-10-05T14:20:29.709-04:00Kor BladewhirlOver my tenure of working for Magic: The Gathering, I've gotten to work on a fair number of settings. I've been surprised, frankly, to get a chance to revisit a couple of these exotic locales. Thanks to the new "Battle for Zendikar" expansion set, I got to revisit (big surprise) Zendikar. Anyway, I present you with this little post about the first of two pieces I did for for the set. This one is called <i>Kor Bladewhirl</i>.<br />
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First, the art description:</div>
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ART DESCRIPTION:<br />
Setting: ZENDIKAR<br />
Color: White creature<br />
Location: A kor-style settlement<br />
Action: A female kor soldier stands on a bridge in a kor settlement in a defensive posture. She's wielding one or more bladed weapons on ropes or chains, whirling them around menacingly.</blockquote>
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Pretty simple and straightforward, really. So I put my sketch together and it came out thusly:</div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhU2dTGiJnF3xvNxcMkG_naIELNzGo9PzY5B2EbMFCWjqQ-FrMaZKH9gd931r-Ez7fW2fBD7GwngRYJ0-ki23Cn7KwklACAXXacXnTsO_0laf9oF3aeXg_U-Uap2mlG7BF20ZrIq3JUKsA/s1600/160625_Kor_Blademaster.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="290" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhU2dTGiJnF3xvNxcMkG_naIELNzGo9PzY5B2EbMFCWjqQ-FrMaZKH9gd931r-Ez7fW2fBD7GwngRYJ0-ki23Cn7KwklACAXXacXnTsO_0laf9oF3aeXg_U-Uap2mlG7BF20ZrIq3JUKsA/s400/160625_Kor_Blademaster.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">©Wizards of the Coast</td></tr>
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I'd be lying if I said I wasn't a little excited by this sketch. I liked pretty much everything about it and I was really looking forward to getting to the painty bits. The fine folks at Wizards seemed to like it too, since it was approved as is. With that, I took it to paint.</div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgnpGRGppcRVPe1hkza5Tdxnyr6JorH2rRTr3yu0sbi2qGo7Pk9l3M6_ARu0XyfTqlob7OHmbCGIokUt60I6kLoRqwjdGT0-9JwvYvCcp3X_lLJVPIG5Nf-C2kN9dd1Hhw7weRzXRDZrQ0/s1600/160625_Kor_Blademaster_final.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="298" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgnpGRGppcRVPe1hkza5Tdxnyr6JorH2rRTr3yu0sbi2qGo7Pk9l3M6_ARu0XyfTqlob7OHmbCGIokUt60I6kLoRqwjdGT0-9JwvYvCcp3X_lLJVPIG5Nf-C2kN9dd1Hhw7weRzXRDZrQ0/s400/160625_Kor_Blademaster_final.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">©Wizards of the Coast</td></tr>
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The finished piece is oil on paper on hardboard and measures sixteen inches wide by twelve inches tall.</div>
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This piece was painted concurrently with <a href="http://stevenbelledin.blogspot.com/2015/07/faerie-miscreant.html" style="font-style: italic;">Faerie Miscreant</a> in September of 2014. I can also tell you that I was marathoning <i>Star Trek: The Next Generation</i> at the time I painted this. These aren't important facts and in no way add insight into any of my decisions, but it's a reality of what I was up to at the time.</div>
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Looking at this piece and back at the sketch, I have a nagging curiosity of what the painting might have turned out like had I stuck more closely to the value-range indicated in the sketch. Would it have been more impactful? Would it have felt too stark? Is there a happy medium between that version and the one I ended up with? Obviously there's no way of knowing without actually repainting the piece, and were I to do it all again, I think I'd give the lighter background a go.</div>
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That being said, I'm not unhappy with the result and I don't consider it a tragic failure of a painting. Every once in a while, though, a piece comes along that leads me to wonder a bit about the direction I took within the process. In doing this I probably second guess myself too much, but I find the time spent reconsidering my work quite valuable in terms of the lessons I take into future projects. A lot of folks have commented that I sound as though I hate everything I do. This isn't true, actually. I'm quite proud of my work as a whole. It's just that I know what my work looks and feels like when I'm firing on all cylinders and I worry when it's not. These pieces represent me after all, and I dislike the feeling that I could have done better.</div>
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Anyway, here's how the piece looks in card-form:</div>
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Steven Belledinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02798269170915291454noreply@blogger.com0