Top 10: Art of Avatar the Last Airbender

10. Earth Kingdom Soldier

Rafater

Sometimes (often), simpler is better. I love the clear gesture reinforced by the background’s horizon, and the feeling of enormous weight from the earth disk being launched.

9. Suki, Kyoshi Warrior

Yuhong Ding

While I’m uuuuusually not a fan of “painting characters from a stylized anime in a more realistic/naturalistic way”, I take exception to that rule here simply because the design from the show is lovingly maintained and the gorgeous light really does elevate this scene in a beautiful way. 

8. Crescent Island Temple

Luc Courtois

The sheer peace this painting brings me needs to be studied. There are a lot of gorgeous environment paintings in this Avatar set but this is one where I just want to pop a squat next to Momo and enjoy the sunset for a while.

7. Wan Shi Tong, All-Knowing

Axel Sauerwald

Axel has already definitively proven his aptitude for painting birds last time he did work for Universes Beyond, with the Lord of the Rings Eagles, but it seems he wasn’t done! Wan Shi Tong is one of the absolute coolest creatures in Avatar and the impact from this depiction I find absolutely gripping.

6. Bumi, King of Three Trials

Thomas Chamberlain-Keen

You gotta love when a mad genius…is painted by another mad genius. Thomas’s playful shapes, expressive acting, and immaculate drawing skills are on full display here. The way the hair in particular is handled is mesmerizing to me, the perfect mix of painterly description and graphic design.

5. Avatar Kyoshi

Sija Hong

What an incredible pairing of the right artist for the right job. Hong’s eye for decorative patterns, shapes, and colors maps perfectly for capturing the art of bending in the world of Avatar. Love to get more of this style (done well) in Magic, it’s a great fit! 

4. Iroh, Dragon of the West

Hokyoung Kim

This one caught me off guard at first but with time I completely understood why I love it so much. In a time where Magic illustrations are becoming increasingly more complex (you should see some of the paragraph-long art briefs), cramming multiple characters, complex backgrounds, and various effects in a 2 inch frame, my eyes can actually breathe when I look at this one. Simplicity is not easily done well. If you don’t believe me, try it for yourself. The confidence and skill necessary to say enough with less is rare indeed, and my anxiety always pushes me to fill the margins with more nonsense. Here, the bold statement perfectly encapsulates the Dragon of the West.

3. Lo and Li, Royal Advisors

Kieran Yanner

Kieran bringing his magic to bear on a set like Avatar is such an unexpected delight, truly not on my bingo card. This image in particular strikes a perfect balance between painterliness and the show's appealing shape stylization. Not to mention I find the vibrating purples in the shadows absolutely intoxicating! Just fuckin love it!

2. Fire Lord Azula

Fahmi Fouzi

Welp, I think this is the one! The single character I was anticipating the most was Azula, especially her unhinged form in the final Agni Kai with Zuko. And, well, this delivers! It looks like Fahmi was working overtime on this set, illustrating 11 cards, but this one shows a particular level of care that could only come from a true Avatar fan. The palette being a perfect blue-black-red, like the card, is of course the cherry on top.

1. Avatar Roku

Toni Infante

Toni’s talent is undoubtedly one of my favorite additions to Magic this past year. In my opinion, he carried most of the Universes Beyond sets squarely on his back, with exceptional work on Final Fantasy, Spiderman, and now Avatar. He is fast becoming one of my favorite artists full stop. His mastery of shapes, appeal, clarity, and color is astounding. On its surface it seems deceptively simple, but further investigation reveals an insane level of craft and design the likes of few in the industry can even attempt. Simply the best!

And finally, as always, some more favorites!

Top 10: the Art of Edge of Eternities

10. Mightform Harmonizer

Jessica Fong

While I will admit to having found the art direction of the green insect faction in Edge of Eternities a bit non-descript (maybe that was the point, as they are infinitely adaptable), this deft rendition won me over with abundant elegance, flair, and gesture! Importantly, it makes for a damn good looking card~!

9. Temporal Intervention

Chris Rallis

By all accounts, this painting is a bit "busy", featuring no less than six figures vying for the Endstone in an almost Norman Rockwell-ian arrangement. I daresay Rallis is probably one of the only MtG artists who could have pulled off such an image, and I'm a bit in awe of the clarity and expressiveness on display despite the small format and seemingly impossible brief. Both this image and Chris's promo image featuring Tezzeret really aid in making this set feel like its own sci fi franchise!

8. Glacier Godmaw

Bruce Brenneise

For what is essentially "the Exogorth scene in Star Wars", I'm genuinely surprised I like this piece so much, but I just keep coming back to it. Simple, iconic, sci fi but Magic, classic space adventure! A good reminder that you don't always have to reinvent the wheel.

7. Galactic Wayfinder

Quintin Gleim

 This painting works for me on so many levels — it captures at once a sense of impending adventure like I'm rewatching Treasure Planet for the tenth time, the utopic whimsy of wind-powered agriculture, the groundedness of "growin' up on the farm lookin' up at the stars and dreamin' of bein a pilot", and an appealing mix of retro spaceman with modern cinematic sensibilities. Definitely worth exploring this one up close!

6. Hardlight Containment

Dominik Mayer

 My favorite depiction of white control magic since Detention Sphere, the combination of scale, graphicness, blinding yellow, and flavor text yield a result that is more than the sum of its parts.

   

5. Syr Vondam, Sunstar Exemplar

&

The Endstone

Ryan Pancoast

 Objectively some of the most impressive paintings of the set, Ryan once again shows us how it's done, and in a way that remains authentically "Magic". Both also feel like climactic blockbuster moments if Edge of Eternities was a movie!

4. Famished Worldsire

Kev Walker

I appreciate that Edge of Eternities teased the possibility of Eldrazi and Slivers but actually bypassed them for the most part. Likewise, restraint was shown with depictions of world-ending calamity aliens. The nice thing about Famished Worldsire is that it feels like a nod to the classic Magic Leviathans of old: badass, enormous, overcosted, and eating all your lands...with homerun art from Kev Walker, as always!

3. Frontline War-Rager

Jason Rainville

This one is an emotional fav (the best kind!), I just love these little guys! The depiction of the Kavu as slightly comedic and chunky in this piece just tickles me. Huge fan of the graphic compositional circle in the background, perfectly framing the Kavu's battle cry echoing in the lava-lined entrails of whatever planet or asteroid they just bored their way through. Fantastic moment and execusion, also my vote for best foil of the set!

2. Ragost, Deft Gastronomer

Zack Stella

There's something beautiful that happens sometimes when the absurd is played completely straight, and I think that's what's going on here. For this is the power of imaginative realism on full display: it helps us believe that in the infinite vastness of space, anything is technically possible...even this. From the custom-fitted chef outfit to the gear in the jello, you can't help but be drawn in to investigate. For me, the gag would have been even stronger if this was the art on some non-descript common with witty flavor text, a sort of background character in Mos Eisley thrown in as a delightful nonsequitur.

 

1. Tezzeret, Cruel Captain

Chris Rahn

When Chris is at his best, there is no beating him, and it feels like he pulled out all the stops for this one. The subtle control of detail and value on the figure allows for the absolutely explosive contrast with the delightfully textural impasto of the golden throne. Chris is the Rembrandt of Magic art! Selling me on Magic's first forray into hard sci-fi was no easy feat, but I feel like this painting did a ton of the heavy lifting for me.

Also, Chris recently updated his website, yay!

...and many more!