MTG: Forbidden Alchemy (2011)
Thanks, Michelangelo
Today’s post is part of a free preview of the daily post. Most daily posts will be for paid subscribers as we roll along. I hope you’ll consider joining with a paid subscription to see new posts every weekday.
This was my second Friday Night Magic release, the first being Ancient Ziggurat a couple years prior. These cards are sometimes reprints featuring new art. One should not think that putting new art on reprints is a reflection on the quality of the original art, necessarily. In this case, this card already had a lovely illustration on it
Usually, when redoing art another has previously done, my instinct is to take the ball and run in the opposite direction in some fundamental way. I focused on the card title, and tried to figure out what exactly was forbidden about this alchemy. Was this to be an experiment or a guinea-pig trial, or an actual usage?
My favorite alternate thumbnail, above, was a much easier read: we have our female alchemist with her technomagical apparatus. I'm not sure what the machinery and magic do, but she's about to plunge them or has already stuck them into her own belly. Whatever is happening, she has faith in her product. Or really needs to test it but can get no other volunteers. I often enjoy setting up a situation and asking the questions without dictating the answers. I may have an answer as to what's happening, but the more interesting illustration I think leaves a little something to wonder about..
Another idea, and the one I settled on, was sort of based on this pieta composition where, in this lab, something either loving or awful is about to happen. These magichemicals or what have you are flowing through these various tubes and are being pulled together through this thing she wears into a single bundle, which expels in a sort of umbilicus straight into a device he's wearing, and into him. I used the belt around him simply so it wouldn't look as gruesome as that. I admit that I can't decide if their connection therefore is creepy or caring. The man is unwell, maybe dead, and she seems to have a gentleness and seriousness about her regard for him. Yet he's not too horribly wounded or anything from what we can see.
Then there is that device she's holding up and about to use. That looks like it can't be fun to be on the receiving end of. What is she going to do with it? Again, questions and not answers here.
I began the painting in Acrylic, and most of the vat of chemicals at least is almost entirely Acrylic in the final. Whenever I start a piece in Acrylic, I always tell myself I'll stick with it as far as I can. And then I hit some point where I just know it'd be easier, faster, or better to use oils and that's when I'll switch. You can see above the finish on the legs and basically her arms, and the rough block-in of his torso. As you can see, his torso is painted very wet-in-wet, and basically in one pass. With a little more brushy finesse I could probably leave it and have a more painterly style. But the photo was taken right when I was going to switch to blending brushes and begin sort of lightly weaving the strokes back and forth. There are bits of spontaneity from this earlier stage that I like to leave, sometimes the blending makes for nice randomness that I also keep, and the rest is pushed and pulled to my desired polish. You'll see that I have my digital study printed out small and placed nearby.
It's a more complex piece than many of my Magic pieces. Often, Magic can be character-based, and while I enjoy those pieces it's nice to occasionally have a more narrative composition. I do still like the alternate thumbnail and would love a chance to paint an alternate version so I could use it. But in this case, I was drawn to the narrative. It could be because the other projects I was working on simultaneously were more character-based.
