MTG: The Astonishing Ant-Man | Wakandan Royal Guard (2024)
That season in which I was a comics artist
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The original art for Wakandan Royal Guard is now available for purchase in the shop
As a kid I thought I might want to be a comics artist but life pulled me more towards fantasy. So being able to work with Marvel characters a little through my association with Magic: the Gathering has been a wonderful turn of events.
In this case, as with my portrayal of The Amazing Spider-Man, my artwork featured an homage, this time to an iconic cover by artist Clayton Henry. Actually, it turns out that this was literally the painting I did following the Spider-Man painting. I painted these back-to-back. It was a nice few months, and although it was a little tough not getting to do my own portrayal of both of these, as I was gated by the homage requests, nevertheless I had some leeway to update and adjust both compositions, which I took the opportunity to do. That Ant-Man released some 9 months after Spider-Man was just one of those weird quirks of schedule.
The second painted piece I did for the set was Wakandan Royal Guard. Here I was asked to portray T’Challa behind a phalanx of his Guard, who by joining up effect a magical barrier. I indicated this by having the designs on their shield glow, glowing triangular runes passing between them.
There was definitely a desire to have this piece not be about Black Panther, which is understandable since any main hero is likely to dominate any image featuring other non-name characters. So by not lighting up the patterns on his suit, removing his mask, and pushing him back in the composition, I sought to get him in, but out of the composition in a way that balanced the needs here.
A tricky piece for sure, when you have multiple figures, but also their big shields, the magic effect, but also show some of the guards, but they’re guarding so focus on the shields, and put T’Challa in, but don’t let him be the focus either, and can there be some of Wakanda in the distance!?
Apologies, but I am unable to show process images or preliminary studies for Universes Beyond projects.
Love the Red Ants.