Top 10: Art of Born of the Gods

Born of the Gods is out and it's time for another Top 10! It was, again, an incredibly difficult task to narrow down such a gorgeous set and I even cheated a little on this list just to include more pieces. Honorable mention to Adam Paquette, Matthias Kollros, Noah Bradley, Greg Staples, and Slawomir Maniak

Looking at my list it seems I have a penchant for the "Nyx" cards, those with starfields in the the shadows. Will be updating the images once the hi res's come out, and I may even switch some out.

10. Ephara's Enlightenment by Wes Burt

9. Springleaf Drum by Seb McKinnon

8. Everflame Eidolon by Daarken

7. Ephara, God of the Polis by Eric Deschamps

6. Eater of Hope & Mogis, God of Slaughter by Peter Mohrbacher

5. Spirit of the Labyrinth by Jason Chan

4. Satyr Firedancer by Chris Rahn

3. Forsaken Drifters by Min Yum

2. Pain Seer & Perplexing Chimera by Tyler Jacobson

1. Arbiter of the Ideal by Johann Bodin

These are just my opinions and not the views of Wizards of the Coast, I'd love to know your own favorites or lists!

-V

Heroes' Tale: Rage Process

Here's a process gif for one of my Heroes' Tale cards: Rage. I included the three thumbnails I sent to Chris. They're extremely rough and I've since tightened my sketches before sending them off to ADs. It's just easier for everyone if the idea is clearer from the start. I do think the thumbs captured a primal energy (read:rage) that I tried not to lose in the painting by stiffening up too much. I think overall it was fairly successful and it's one of my personal favorites from the set.

Questions/Comments? hit me up

-V

Heroes' Tale Printed!

In February of 2013, my good friend Andrew Theophilopolous contacted me about a fantasy card game being created by fellow Ringling alumn Chris Merlino. Back then, it was just an idea and a dream. Chris had contracted me to do 5 promotional images for the kickstarter, which went on to raise over $64,000, after which I was illustrating cards for the game all summer. Now, almost a full year later, the game has printed and shipped, with Chris personally delivering my copy yesterday!

Needless to say, I am deeply grateful and humbled to have worked on this game, especially alongside my friends and fellow illustrators Andrew Theo, Audrey Benjaminsen, Gal Or, and Evan Monteiro. It was a good year, and I owe thanks to Chris and the Heroes' Tale team! Check out the website:

www.heroestalecards.com

Without further ado, here are the last few cards from Heroes' Tale: the Corrupted Forest!

Blight Shade

Chaos Orb

Titan Armor

Imperial Polearm

I illustrated a total of 18 cards for Heroes' Tale, and I learned a ton along the way. The difference between the first (Explorer) and last (Caltakan) card I painted is pretty staggering. Process Gifs to come!

-V

Happy New Year!

Season's Greetings, one and all. I hope your winter was restful, relaxing, and full of family and friends. Here's to the new year, time to kick some ass.

December Doodle Dump

Well, another semester has passed. Time to reflect on what was learned and move forward. But that is for another post. For now, sketchbook pages, and sleep.

Adventure is out there!

-V

Mortimer Falstaff, the Overgrown

Super excited to finally share my Paladin character for Light Gray Art Lab's "Role Models" show. Obviously had a blast with this one, you can check out some of my early sketches from this summer here

I think the D&D alter egos were supposed to be in our likeness but I kind of made Mortimer the physical opposite of me. Big, slow, burly, bearded...hey, a guy can dream. 

Make sure to check out the other entries, some truly breathtaking pieces (some straight up put me to shame...here's looking at you Adam Tan, Allison Strom, Christina Ellis, Gillian Grossman, Henry Christian-Slane, Stacey Lee, Ashley MacKenzie, Dan Matutina, Louise Bagnall, Rachel Suggs, Andrew Olson and so many more...)

buy a print HERE

Revised Heroes' Tale Art

the Explorer

the Corrupted Forest

© Merlino Entertainment

I re-illustrated two of my first cards for Heroes' Tale. It's been almost half a year since I started working with Chris, and in that time I outgrew what are now some pretty embarrassing paintings. 

There are many more cards I would have loved more time on, since I was essentially cranking them out in one day every week over the summer, but I just wanted to take another crack at the biggest offenders before they get mass-distributed with my name on them o__o 

These were both pretty quick and fun :)

Big thanks to Andrew Theo for some clutch help on the Explorer. I've included some gifs for your enjoyment as well.

Top 10: Art of Theros

I can't believe I haven't done this before, but from now on I will share my favorite pieces at the release of every new Magic: the Gathering set. I tried to limit it to one per artist, though most artists on this list had multiple pieces worthy of note. That being said, a top 10 is a very narrow affair, and you should check out the work of Peter Mohrbacher, Jaime Jones, Jason Chan, Karl Kopinski, and many others who worked on this set. Any omissions are for the sake of brevity.

These are the artists and the quality of work I aspire to, and this list serves as a marker of how far I have to go. It is also a reminder of why I love what I do, and will never stop striving to get better.

Welcome to Theros:

10. Defend the Hearth by Raymond Swanland

 

9. Phalanx Leader & Ordeal of Nylea by Dave Palumbo

8. Erebos, God of the Dead by Peter Mohrbacher

7. Abhorrent Overlord & Fleecemane Lion by Slawomir Maniak

6. Hopeful Eidolon by Min Yum

5. Voyaging Satyr & Elspeth by Tyler Jacobson

4. Prognotic Sphinx by Steve Prescott

3. Destructive Revelry by Kev Walker

2. Hythonia the Cruel & Nylea, God of the Hunt by Chris Rahn

1. Ashiok, Nightmare Weaver by Karla Ortiz

Erasing Amyloo

an illustration based on Russell Edson’s poem, “Erasing Amyloo”

(and inspired by my recent purchase of the Art of Brom)

“A father with a huge eraser erases his daughter. 

When he finishes there’s only a red smudge on the wall.

His wife says, where is Amyloo?

She’s a mistake, I erased her.

What about all her lovely things? asks his wife.

I’ll erase them too.

All her pretty clothes? 

…I’ll erase her closet, her dresser—shut up about Amyloo! Bring your head over here and I’ll erase Amyloo out of it.

The husband rubs his eraser on his wife’s forehead, 

and as she begins to forget she says, hummm, I wonder whatever happened to Amyloo? 

…Never heard of her, says her husband.

And you, she says, who are you? You’re not Amyloo, are you? I don’t remember your being Amyloo.

Are you my Amyloo, whom I don’t remember anymore? 

…Of course not, Amyloo was a girl. Do I look like a girl?

… I don’t know, I don’t know what anything looks like anymore…”

As my first fully oil illustration, I would like to further discuss my process and thoughts on this piece in a future post. Stay tuned!

-V

Selfie

This is gonna sound kind of dumb, but before doing this I had kind of forgotten what I look like. It was weird looking at myself for more than 2 minutes, yet strangely therapeutic.

-V