WoW: Shazzrah (2006)
Flip-side
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In 2011, Magic introduced double-faced cards in its Innistrad set, but the World of Warcraft game included these going back a few years earlier. My illustrations for the Raid Boss, Shazzrah, were of this form. I covered the big vertical full-length illustration previously.
Since these two illustrations were assigned at one time, I was able to keep them in context with each other. I actually wasn’t sure how exactly these were going to print. In fact, I think I thought one was on a smaller regular sized playing card—this one—owing to its standard proportions. And then I thought the vertical one was like a special oversized card or something separate from this. It’s funny sometimes how in the dark even illustrators can be about the projects they are on!
So in any case, the vertical illustration I decided was going to be the action shot, this one would be more character portrait than anything.
The workflow otherwise was identical, and along my then-standard format. The pencil drawing was produced, but in this case for some reason I don’t recall, I took my thumbnail—done using Painter IX’s rake and other ink tools—and made a more formalized value study from it, using non-blended digital ink tools. From there, I did the pencil drawing and then did the formal value study using it, which is the version I sent to my Art Director. I put them side-by-side here for comparison.
I think for this piece and a few others in that period, these were painted from a pad of ready-to-use canvas-textured paper. It was my first time working on that, and after doing a few pieces on it, it wasn’t a support I ever returned to again. I think the texture was a little too prominent and too regular, less canvas-like, actually, feeling more like a mesh.
