MTG: Elevenses | Dinner (2025)
A tasty reputation
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Food tokens in Magic are plentiful, and many themed versions exist for the different worlds. I did my first for Eldrane, which I think was based off the Art Director noting that I would sometimes do traditional still life paintings of food.
For the Lord of the Rings set, I was asked to do another, Hobbit-themed, and greatly enjoyed that one as well. So when, sometime later, we revisited Middle-Earth for The Hobbit, I was tapped again to paint more food. By this time I thought it was a little funny, actually. There was going to be a multiple-card Secret Lair (read: limited edition) drop featuring all the Hobbit meals, and I was free to do multiples. I could have done more than 2, had schedule allowed, but I only had time for 2. The excellent Raymond Bonilla—himself notable for his still lives, often of kitchens and tables with food dishes—did three, for instance.
But, it turns out that my 4 ties the record for most official Food tokens illustrated by any one Magic artist, as of this writing. The other artist, Maomomiji/もみじ真魚, is a Japanese artist known for food sketches and such as well, and were done themselves for another Secret Lair release.
It’s an interesting thing to be remembered enough by busy Art Directors to be asked for multiple takes on the theme. And, I can’t say they aren’t fun and a nice change of pace on occasion.
In this case, the meals were to be separated by food items and time of day. Elevensies eaten outdoors and Dinner inside by candlelight. In both cases, I composed these by setting out tables both in and outdoors with various plates, foods, cups and dishes, rather than by sketching. As I was not allowed to paint these, I did them digitally. While you might assume I just smudged photographs into art-looking images, I actually digitally painted these from scratch because I thought it would look better to do so, digital painting being time-saving in any case.
Both final approved images shown here were cropped significantly as the card design treatments were revised. I saw earlier versions of the design, which differed greatly from what was produced. Secret Lair cards are often great for allowing graphic design expression not normally found in Magic, and the work the designers did in iterating on concepts, though it went mostly unseen by me, was a pleasant surprise when they were shown.
As a Universes Beyond product, I am unable to show process images or preliminary studies for these illustrations.
Images are © 2026 MEE LLC. TM lic MEE to WotC LLC