The upcoming set for Magic: the Gathering is called Throne of Eldraine. It has been a really wonderful set to work on. Cynthia Sheppard was the art director on the set. In the 13 years that I have been fortunate to work on Magic, it has been my favorite set to work on. I thought I’d share some more of the pieces I have done for it here (I posted about a previous piece here) The set draws upon classic fairy tales and storybook themes. Many of them will seem familiar!

Crystal Slipper

Here are my sketches for the piece. I did a variety of settings and angles to see what was going to work best for the scene. The one I liked the most as fortunately the one that was picked! Upper left corner.

Once the sketch was approved I built the scene in Blender and did some test renders to see if I could get a good image to work from.

 

 

Here is the final digital comp

And finally the oil painting, 12″x16″ oil on linen on panel and the time-lapse of the painting!

Beloved Princess

Next up is Beloved Princess. It is a fun painting, full of hidden dangers. The Princess, caught up in a daze caused by her following of the glowing moths has wandered into extreme danger, even standing on top of the head of an unamused beast.

Here are my sketches. I did three with the camera pulling back and various degrees of danger surrounding her. It was decided that the closer in view would work best at card size. Good choice!

Once the sketch was approved I did a large drawing on Duralar to get ready for the oil painting.

Here is the final painting, 18″ x 24″ oil on linen and the time-lapse below it.

 

Righteousness

This was one of my favorite paintings I have done for Magic!

Here are a couple of the photos from the reference shoot for the painting. My son was a great knight!

With that I was able to do the final drawing for the oil painting.

As well as a digital color comp:

And the final painting. 18″x24″ oil on linen. The painting and the drawing are up for auction right now on Facebook! Painting auction and the drawing auction.

And finally the time-lapse for this painting:

I hope you enjoyed the images and time-lapses! If you have questions, ask in the comments and I’ll do my best to answer.

Howard