MTG: Tarrian’s Journal (2022)
Sharing work across two images
Please enjoy today’s public post. I hope you’ll consider joining with a paid subscription to see new posts every weekday.
The advent of the flip card in Magic brought with it the idea of continuity between two images, something rarely considered in this genre of illustrations. Thankfully these are assigned at once to a single artist, so there is no post-hoc decision making or mind reading of another artist necessary.
In this case, I knew that the bloodstained journal which would be on a stand over a bloody sacrificial altar would also be portrayed on the flip side, which would feature a zoomed-out image of the larger Tomb where this was located. So, both images were composed at once, so I could kind of envision this close-up image within the same environment, lighting and color scheme.
I considered sculpting a little mini version of the altar but just did a couple of doodles instead, one of which was at the angle that would be in the other piece. The serpentine floor pattern was also worked out ahead of time so that it would be consistent in both images.
I seem to be amassing a sub-collection of art that features books. It’s an interesting pigeonhole I’ve managed to land in. Whatever the case, the book was to also feature a world-specific rose brooch, broken, laying on the book.
The text on my submission study mentions glowworms in the ceiling above. The world had designs for ceilings with glyphs that would glow magically, and this was a part of the Tomb’s designs which went unshown in the end. But purple is also the color coded for black mana, which this card uses, so it’s usually a good idea to indicate some purple in illustrations of that type.
So while I mentioned not building a maquette here, the angle was simply extrapolated from the front and ¾ perspective sketches posted above. I don’t know if that’s impressive or not, but I thought I’d mention it—from my vantage it’s just a skill an illustrator needs, to be able to tumble an object mentally and draw it without reference when needed.
Tarrian’s Journal appears as a flip-card with The Tomb of Aclazotz in the Lost Caverns of Ixalan expansion of Magic: the Gathering