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
WOW! THANK YOU, HOWARD! THIS TRIPLET IS GORGEOUS!
Thank you, Valerii!
Just amazing! I love these kinds of articles, where you really see how an artist work, this is so inspiring.
Thanks, Fredrik, I am glad that it was useful!
Wow, magnificent! I’m trying to learn Blender, and the way you used it to compose the Crystal Slipper blew me away. Each of these is a jaw-dropping masterpiece.
Just and FYI: A little bit of Righteousness’ timelapse snuck into the end of Beloved Princess’.
Ha! I don’t know how I missed that. Sneaky little Righteousness. Thanks for the heads up and thank you for the kind reply!
Don’t mention it. Thank you for sharing your processes!
Fixed it!
Wow, cool, now I feel involved 🙂 I had a quick question for you: how did you use the blender render in the final piece. Did you merely reference it while painting (like we can see in the video), or did you also project it onto the canvas to get the sketch or anything like that?
I just used it as reference for the final painting. It provides good information for reflections and shadows. Things that can be difficult to make up without some good reference!
What great fun stuff Howard! I love seeing the time lapses and the entire process. Thank you!
Thank you, Brian!
Ha! Thank you, Doruk 🙂
Gorgeous paintings and the time lapses are magical, thanks for sharing!