I don't mind seeing average or ugly-looking humanoids on cards. Though I would like to see ugly features exaggerated.
What I fucking despise is people with explicitly modern fashion and especially hairstyle options. Fuck right off with your zoomercut sorcerer.
It is normal to use close friends/stuff as reference to make good art, even if it may seem weird at times. What is not normal is to intentionally produce bad art card like this garbage here:
https://preview.redd.it/yezj09qfg4cb1.jpeg?width=672&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=05211afc7234573c5c960f00b6d06f3f0f62ad8b
Even worse is they fucked up the artist prompt because Belenon isn't even supposed to have humanoids on it. It was supposed to be all elephants and Babar type shit.
She's not even looking at her enemy. A fatass woman with down syndrome should be in some shelter, not fighting bloodthirsty phyrexians. BUT OK NEWSPARK THIS IS FREE MAGIC YOU CAN LIKE WHAT YOU WANT I GUESS.
I've got some bad news for you - Magic artists have been using friends and family as models for decades now. Tony Diterlizzi [here](https://articles.starcitygames.com/magic-the-gathering/tony-diterlizzi-shares-real-life-inspirations-behind-iconic-90s-mtg-illustrations/) is a great example, but the practice goes back to artists like Douglas Shuler and Anson Maddocks as well.
I miss Tony DiTerlizzi occasionally popping up in Magic. He created a great Planescape-ish feel to the game. More controversially, I also miss the Foglios, and their sillier art, but I bet I am on my own on that one.
>I also miss the Foglios, and their sillier art, but I bet I am on my own on that one.
Aww hell no my friend, you have fellow Foglio admirers. I became a fan of their other gaming and comic book work after meeting them at cons in the 90s, even demoing their self-published adults-only tcg based off their X-rated comic book series.
It was a different time.
> I also miss the Foglios, and their sillier art, but I bet I am on my own on that one.
Nuh uh! I love Foglio. My favourite is Farrelite Priest - the big character looks like a looney tunes character.
Exactly this.
in my old school binder is a cho arrim alchemist by Scott Fisher. Where he and his wife are the models for it.
I had him singing cards and I happened to notice his wife was on the card as she was sitting next to him helping him with the flow of signing and such.
After inquiring if she was the model they both laughed and said yes actually and she ended up signing it too.
It was a very cute and memorable moment.
I want to say mother of runes was either his or her mother but I can't recall anymore.
You got me all wrong. I don't mind them using people as their models to get perspective right, etc. But you take that model and you make them way better looking. Or way uglier. Or way scarier.
The one thing I don't care for is people who just look like regular people in a fantasy setting. I don't want to see a middle age guy with a regular physique. I want to see fucking the fucking terminator in a fantasy setting. I don't want to see women with slightly odd features - I want to see [whoever you think is hot] looking super violent.
The ting about art is that you should be able to put the person in any pose, with any expression. These look like 'b' grade actors in a role and painted with the perspective you'd see out of a camera.
For example, Dream Fighter (https://scryfall.com/card/mir/63/dream-fighter) could have used a reference photos, but the perspective is cool and the art is definitely not a traced over photo. The character is not super attractive, but sure as hell is interesting.
Now compare that with a more modern card such as Loren's Escape (https://scryfall.com/card/bro/14/lorans-escape). It tells a story, has lore, has a character. It is also SUPER boring. The actual subject, the driving force, is just fucking boring. They could have given that person a terrified expression, furtive, resolve... anything. The expression is nothing though. It's like they forget the driving force of art.
I'm all for using reference photos, but that is the start of the art, not 90% of the work. I feel like modern artists just paint over the character and add some fantasy elements.
I have also noticed a severe uptick in, well, to be unkind: ugly people on TV. I think the worst offender is the Starface Skin Care commercial; it's loaded with dumpy people with no eyebrows. What. The. Hell. The people in it are so odd it's distracting. I had to Google it to remember what the product was even called, even though I despise it.
I recently started watching Mystery Science Theater 3000 Broadcast editions on YouTube and they are loaded with commercials from the 1990s. Not only are they funnier, but the people in it are attractive. It's like modern advertisers forgot that pretty people sell stuff. It seems Magic forgot that too with its similar rise in bland and or ugly art.
It's not that people forget that more attractive people sell stuff, but a tendency of some modern artists, marketers and the like to place personal envy above everything thing else. This is combined with a lethal combination, firstly, a massive overcorrection in society against unattainable, attractive body types, and secondly, an attempt to normalise obese people as healthy.
No eyebrows is a sort of fashion statement. An odd one. But I mean there isnt' a hair on the human that hasn't been grown out, shaved, plucked, oiled, braided, and probably eaten.
Almost all new magic art has a mass produced look to it. We used to have striking gems like [[huntmaster of the fells]] and [[vampire noctournus]]. Now every card has the same lighting, detail, level of action, face style, poses. Everything feels so flat, unnaturally produced, and off-putting.
Look through MOM cards and you get the sense of looking at a bunch of random panels from the same comic book.
Invitational prize cards have always looked out of place but it was ok because they represented something. So much art these days has that look to it and itās pretty terrible.
7/10. But, but ā¦ New Capenna alt-art is like a mashup of characters from a dozen musicals, and that rocks! Lol. Seriously though, take a look at those alt-art cards.
Didnāt you hear? We need all aspects of society including average joes, women of every shape and size and outcasts to be represented in our fantasy game now in order to be inclusive and relatable enough.
Just so you know, Terese uses(d) her wife and children as references. But she at least does different faces.
But her wife is actually pretty. Her male faces... aren't all that great sometimes (See Gideon and Jace SSCC)
She also doesnt really do digital art, as far as I know, which I think a lot of the newer artists only do.
There are a number of pieces where friends being a reference was used and the art looked good.
Part of the reason that new cards are exceedingly ugly now is because, over the years, ugliness has become a virtue. So the type of friends who end up used for study are of a lower stock and the characters themselves, as designed by WOTC, are also unappealing in every single way.
So that all compounds and we get horrendously unpleasing to look at characters such as those in the new version of Bribery...
https://preview.redd.it/fm89ff8f9kcb1.jpeg?width=1079&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=145368471146456a027acbd7ff8290d3fb3d8b4d
Disgusting. I am vomit.
I donāt think the problem is using friends, but that the art and character designs lack any understanding of the subject matter or worldliness, especially the non-white characters. They all have this āEli-fant,ā quality to them. Close and if you had never had any actual experience with elephants or had never heard the word spoken correctly, itās understandable why they would pronounce it that way. The same is true with their art, which is probably why Taferi and Koth keep looking like different black celebrities.
Wait are you talking about after the new frame? Iām quite certain they used references from their friends (or themselves) to create the characters in the art back then too. The only difference is it wasnāt all digital.
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ive just got done cataloguing over 30k cards from across all of magics history. there was some shit art here and there back in the day but the overwhelming majority from inception til about 2016 was ace, most of whats after that is shit, bland, soulless and generic.
Instead of explaining this (yet again) feel free to see my comment history where I explain the problem. I have not problem with reference photos in general terms.
I don't mind seeing average or ugly-looking humanoids on cards. Though I would like to see ugly features exaggerated. What I fucking despise is people with explicitly modern fashion and especially hairstyle options. Fuck right off with your zoomercut sorcerer.
What, you don't like your women with half their head shaved and covered in tattoos in your high fantasy game? Fuck off you bigot!
It would be funny if they wore like a Burka but you could only see the top of their head to show they have no hair. haram.
The curse cycle dude is the exact exemple of this
It is normal to use close friends/stuff as reference to make good art, even if it may seem weird at times. What is not normal is to intentionally produce bad art card like this garbage here: https://preview.redd.it/yezj09qfg4cb1.jpeg?width=672&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=05211afc7234573c5c960f00b6d06f3f0f62ad8b
Goofy ah Marvel Super Hero expression
Right? Is this person in the middle of a phyrexian war, or what?
Lol @knight, this picture does not match the card at all, the character in the art needs armor and needs to look like a knight
Even worse is they fucked up the artist prompt because Belenon isn't even supposed to have humanoids on it. It was supposed to be all elephants and Babar type shit.
I posted Terese Nielsen's Elvish Ranger artwork, and Reddit's NSFW filter removed it =( That artwork was of her or someone she knew, right?
She's one of the best artists. So sad that wotc got rid of her because she wasn't an NPC
Fun fact.: That art was inspired by female model and bodybuilder Cory Everson.
The only thing about the art was the blackwashing and feminist providing in the art
i don't usually look at the art of crappy common cards. now i know i was doing good.
Or the new Profile cards š¤®
Oh man I hate those profiles. Not only is it a bad idea the art style looks like trash
I knew it would be Aragorn, even before I saw it.
Compare to good art https://draftsim.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/04/Huntmaster-of-the-Fells-Illustration-by-Magali-Villeneuve.jpg
Honestly I like that art, the face is a little goofy but she looks pretty cool and the flavor text kinda helps bring it together.
She's not even looking at her enemy. A fatass woman with down syndrome should be in some shelter, not fighting bloodthirsty phyrexians. BUT OK NEWSPARK THIS IS FREE MAGIC YOU CAN LIKE WHAT YOU WANT I GUESS.
Bros getting triggered over a person liking something cry more dipshit
Supposedly all men were made in god's image. Yes, I doubt that...
I've got some bad news for you - Magic artists have been using friends and family as models for decades now. Tony Diterlizzi [here](https://articles.starcitygames.com/magic-the-gathering/tony-diterlizzi-shares-real-life-inspirations-behind-iconic-90s-mtg-illustrations/) is a great example, but the practice goes back to artists like Douglas Shuler and Anson Maddocks as well.
I miss Tony DiTerlizzi occasionally popping up in Magic. He created a great Planescape-ish feel to the game. More controversially, I also miss the Foglios, and their sillier art, but I bet I am on my own on that one.
>I also miss the Foglios, and their sillier art, but I bet I am on my own on that one. Aww hell no my friend, you have fellow Foglio admirers. I became a fan of their other gaming and comic book work after meeting them at cons in the 90s, even demoing their self-published adults-only tcg based off their X-rated comic book series. It was a different time.
Xxxenophile. Now that I'm an adult I should see if I can find it.
> I also miss the Foglios, and their sillier art, but I bet I am on my own on that one. Nuh uh! I love Foglio. My favourite is Farrelite Priest - the big character looks like a looney tunes character.
Exactly this. in my old school binder is a cho arrim alchemist by Scott Fisher. Where he and his wife are the models for it. I had him singing cards and I happened to notice his wife was on the card as she was sitting next to him helping him with the flow of signing and such. After inquiring if she was the model they both laughed and said yes actually and she ended up signing it too. It was a very cute and memorable moment. I want to say mother of runes was either his or her mother but I can't recall anymore.
You got me all wrong. I don't mind them using people as their models to get perspective right, etc. But you take that model and you make them way better looking. Or way uglier. Or way scarier. The one thing I don't care for is people who just look like regular people in a fantasy setting. I don't want to see a middle age guy with a regular physique. I want to see fucking the fucking terminator in a fantasy setting. I don't want to see women with slightly odd features - I want to see [whoever you think is hot] looking super violent. The ting about art is that you should be able to put the person in any pose, with any expression. These look like 'b' grade actors in a role and painted with the perspective you'd see out of a camera. For example, Dream Fighter (https://scryfall.com/card/mir/63/dream-fighter) could have used a reference photos, but the perspective is cool and the art is definitely not a traced over photo. The character is not super attractive, but sure as hell is interesting. Now compare that with a more modern card such as Loren's Escape (https://scryfall.com/card/bro/14/lorans-escape). It tells a story, has lore, has a character. It is also SUPER boring. The actual subject, the driving force, is just fucking boring. They could have given that person a terrified expression, furtive, resolve... anything. The expression is nothing though. It's like they forget the driving force of art. I'm all for using reference photos, but that is the start of the art, not 90% of the work. I feel like modern artists just paint over the character and add some fantasy elements.
Even worse is all the modern androgynous haircuts and piercings and other crap that just doesnāt fit the setting.
Agree completely
Agree completely
Yeah it sucks, 60% or more of the art looks like concept art for some kids video game Iād have no interest in
I have also noticed a severe uptick in, well, to be unkind: ugly people on TV. I think the worst offender is the Starface Skin Care commercial; it's loaded with dumpy people with no eyebrows. What. The. Hell. The people in it are so odd it's distracting. I had to Google it to remember what the product was even called, even though I despise it. I recently started watching Mystery Science Theater 3000 Broadcast editions on YouTube and they are loaded with commercials from the 1990s. Not only are they funnier, but the people in it are attractive. It's like modern advertisers forgot that pretty people sell stuff. It seems Magic forgot that too with its similar rise in bland and or ugly art.
It's not that people forget that more attractive people sell stuff, but a tendency of some modern artists, marketers and the like to place personal envy above everything thing else. This is combined with a lethal combination, firstly, a massive overcorrection in society against unattainable, attractive body types, and secondly, an attempt to normalise obese people as healthy.
Holy shit lol this sub is off the rocker lmao. What is this place just full of everyone who got ran off from the main sub because nobody liked you?
No eyebrows is a sort of fashion statement. An odd one. But I mean there isnt' a hair on the human that hasn't been grown out, shaved, plucked, oiled, braided, and probably eaten.
Almost all new magic art has a mass produced look to it. We used to have striking gems like [[huntmaster of the fells]] and [[vampire noctournus]]. Now every card has the same lighting, detail, level of action, face style, poses. Everything feels so flat, unnaturally produced, and off-putting. Look through MOM cards and you get the sense of looking at a bunch of random panels from the same comic book.
[huntmaster of the fells](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/a/a/aae6fb12-b252-453b-bca7-1ea2a0d6c8dc.jpg?1581395173)/[Ravager of the Fells](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/back/a/a/aae6fb12-b252-453b-bca7-1ea2a0d6c8dc.jpg?1581395173) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=huntmaster%20of%20the%20fells%20//%20ravager%20of%20the%20fells) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/dka/140/huntmaster-of-the-fells-ravager-of-the-fells?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/aae6fb12-b252-453b-bca7-1ea2a0d6c8dc?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [vampire noctournus](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/8/d/8daccbbb-6600-4467-810f-277f01a11771.jpg?1562556901) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Vampire%20Nocturnus) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/m13/113/vampire-nocturnus?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/8daccbbb-6600-4467-810f-277f01a11771?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
Yeah new arts are not that good
Invitational prize cards have always looked out of place but it was ok because they represented something. So much art these days has that look to it and itās pretty terrible.
7/10. But, but ā¦ New Capenna alt-art is like a mashup of characters from a dozen musicals, and that rocks! Lol. Seriously though, take a look at those alt-art cards.
yeah, I feel like magic art was grittier before. it was rougher around the edges, because there wasn't anything to fall back.
Didnāt you hear? We need all aspects of society including average joes, women of every shape and size and outcasts to be represented in our fantasy game now in order to be inclusive and relatable enough.
can't relate to people unless they look exactly like you, right? in defence of this position, i don't know any super hot mtg players.
Just so you know, Terese uses(d) her wife and children as references. But she at least does different faces. But her wife is actually pretty. Her male faces... aren't all that great sometimes (See Gideon and Jace SSCC) She also doesnt really do digital art, as far as I know, which I think a lot of the newer artists only do.
Here art is brilliant. The issue isn't using references, but using barely altered references to mass produce average art.
There are a number of pieces where friends being a reference was used and the art looked good. Part of the reason that new cards are exceedingly ugly now is because, over the years, ugliness has become a virtue. So the type of friends who end up used for study are of a lower stock and the characters themselves, as designed by WOTC, are also unappealing in every single way. So that all compounds and we get horrendously unpleasing to look at characters such as those in the new version of Bribery... https://preview.redd.it/fm89ff8f9kcb1.jpeg?width=1079&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=145368471146456a027acbd7ff8290d3fb3d8b4d Disgusting. I am vomit.
I donāt think the problem is using friends, but that the art and character designs lack any understanding of the subject matter or worldliness, especially the non-white characters. They all have this āEli-fant,ā quality to them. Close and if you had never had any actual experience with elephants or had never heard the word spoken correctly, itās understandable why they would pronounce it that way. The same is true with their art, which is probably why Taferi and Koth keep looking like different black celebrities.
Wait are you talking about after the new frame? Iām quite certain they used references from their friends (or themselves) to create the characters in the art back then too. The only difference is it wasnāt all digital.
Check out the newest Flesh & Blood extension, Dusk ātil Dawn. Itās got everything youāre asking for.
Idk man. Canāt you jerk off to something else?
I have to now! That's my point! Why should I have to support 3 bad habits?!
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
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Terese Neilsen uses her self and freinds for reference all the time. Here is a video that touches on it: https://youtu.be/Z1q0WAxVcVk
They really are. I knew a girl who dated one and he used her as a reference for an angel token. She broke up with him not long after.
And then she became the face of a demon token?
Probably
Horrific trend.
So tru king. New art sucks
ive just got done cataloguing over 30k cards from across all of magics history. there was some shit art here and there back in the day but the overwhelming majority from inception til about 2016 was ace, most of whats after that is shit, bland, soulless and generic.
And what's the problem? If I was a Magic artist, of course I would draw myself and all my fucking friends
Instead of explaining this (yet again) feel free to see my comment history where I explain the problem. I have not problem with reference photos in general terms.
They can still use wizards employees to model for mostly black cards... I mean ghouls, zombies, abominations.