|
Home Decks Combos Articles Visual Spoilers Features Art Links Search BLOG Forum |
|
|
|
|
Hey, all you Magic Fanatics out there, and welcome back to
The Art of Magic! On today's installment we'll dive straight into red commons.
I've gotten some ideas for more content on the forums, so watch for
announcements later in this column! Great landscaping here. The lighting on the sky and the city looks realistic and fantastic, and the fire looks great. It looks real, and on such a large scale, it looks devastating. The lone tower rising up in the piece is the pinnacle of the buildings, and it does its job well, although the lighting in some of the lower buildings closer to the fire is very nice. Overall, a good landscaping and composition.
There is a singularly awesome thing about this piece. It's a goblin. I mean, come on, who doesn't like MTG goblins? They be awesome! Especially this guy. His pose and clothing are so comical! I mean, he's wearing overalls and tights! Is that not awesome? And he's got those awesome goblin muscles. Fear him! I wouldn't wanna be hit by that awesomely drawn can o' fire. Going into a bit more technical area, the background is well done. The walls look detailed, with scratches and wears, and the lighting is a little bit accentuated, but I think it adds to the piece.
Pretty realistic, and the lighting is nice. The "sparks"
look great, although I think his cloth would have looked better had it been
reacting to the sparks more. Regardless, it's still well done.
Good piece. It looks much more real than most of the other pieces in Ravnica, or in MTG for that matter, although Odyssey Block had a more real look to it as well. Although somehow, the minotaur looks a tad chubby, maybe it's just the way he's drawn or something. In any case, he still looks muscular. But he doesn't look that much like he's in motion. It's almost like he posed for the shot... The background is okay, I don't think it fits with the rest of the piece, being a cave and all. An enlarged version might help sort out all the discrepancies I have with this work.
The perspective on this piece is great, much like Nightguard Patrol from yesterday's article. The pose on the barbarian himself is nice, and although the axe is important, he is the focal point of the piece. His armor and muscles look great, although his hair-style makes him look a bit too much like a dwarf, methinks, with the beard and all. Quite possibly the coolest part of the piece is the lighting axe. It looks very dangerous, and the lighting spewing out of the rift in the ground is nice, and the rift itself looks fantastic. Very movement-oriented piece here. The background isn't really important, and I can't tell exactly what it is, but it doesn't look bad. The lighting is another good thing about this piece, it really brings out the feeling of movement that we already get. Overall, great work! Moving along... Well, we've got some good pieces up there in that honorable mentions section. Here's an interesting little tidbit: I don't know if you've already guessed this, not thought about it, or not cared, but I often switch around the placing while I write the article. Whenever I review an art card, I tend to like it more when I analyze it, which makes sense, I hope. Then I have to switch around the placing. It's especially hard in the honorable mentions, because sometimes there I can't pick and choose cards, I have to take what I can get, due to the small card pool. Thus, it becomes hard to rank them. In the top five, it's a little less hard, although I usually switch around 5 and 4 a couple of times... 1 and 2 and sometimes 3 always stay the same, just because they're that good, heh. With that, on to the top five! Top Reviews - Red Commons
Viashino = Awesome. Awesome name, awesome look, very, very cool. The viashino himself looks great, with lots of lizardy detail. The spines upon his back, tail, and legs look especially cool, and are very well done. Gives it that rough surface look. On the other end of the scale (Pun intended, hehe), the stretched smooth skin over the rest of the viashino's body looks very realistic, and the cloth he's wearing looks real as well! This baby gets style points. That facial expression looks positively awesome, very lizardlike, yet unique, and uberly cool. The entire pose of the fangtail is eye-grabbing, well done on that composition. The background is faint, but nice. I think it would have looked better had it been a bit a little less abstract, just a tad more detail in those buildings on the horizon line. The glaring yellow gives it that burning energy feel, which is great..
Incredible. The sense of scale on this piece is great! It takes a rather realistic approach, which is good for this piece. The explosions and embers in the sky are fantastic. Their trails of smoke help the feeling of their movement, and the two explosions are just phenomenal. The composition and perspective on the buildings accentuates the sense of scale and it looks great! The people running fit the scene, and are well done themselves. The detail on the buildings is well done, especially the small scenes of wreckage you can see near the explosions. The way the buildings fade off into the distance of the clouds is awesome, it gives the "City of Guilds" feeling. Great piece here.
"There is a singularly awesome thing about this piece. It's a goblin. I mean, come on, who doesn't like MTG goblins? They be awesome! Especially this guy." Read that again. That applies to this review as well. But this time in s slightly different way. Rather than having those comical overalls and tights, this goblin's got some really sweet armor, and a totally awesome torch. The perspective and lighting is great to boot! The detail on this goblin's armor is insane, and the detail on his muscles, and the special attention to lighting really helps bring out the goblin. The straps and waving cloth help the sense of movement. The perspective also gives that sense of movement, and urgency, which is good for a screaming goblin, heh. The torch is especially well done. I love that lighting. The center of the torch is very bright, and the way the flame behaves in trails and clumps is realistic, and very well done! To top it all off, this piece has a great background! The volcanoes and fiery ground also give the feeling of urgency and battle, like it should, and it looks very cool. Overall, great work!
Wow. With a name like "Coalhauler Swine" you really wouldn't expect very cool art. But this is very cool art. The lighting is quite possibly the best I have ever seen on a Magic Card. Ever. The swine looks a bit stylized, but I like that. It looks pretty real though, with the fur casting shadows and the shadows on it creating visual texture. The fire looks great, and the light it casts upon the swine and the rest of the room is absolutely perfect, great job on that. The burning coal looks like... burning coal. Which is good. It's supposed to. The rest of the room has lots and lots of hidden details, such as the passage off to the left, which is lighted perfectly, and the pipes in the foreground, the detail on the stone, the door on the right of the fire, etc... Great piece here, Wizards, good job!
Exceptional. This piece is great, the lighting is awesome. In red cards, for some reason, lighting seems to play an important role... Of course, good lighting will help almost any piece be great. For example, look at the top picks from the last two articles, Roofstalker Wight and Wojek Siren. I chose them because not only were they well drawn, but the lighting was awesome! Let's start with the minotaur himself. He's in a great pose, although I don't know if I would have liked it better had his shield been lower... Hm... Oh well. Anyway, his armor looks fantastic. The cracks and tears in his clothing and armor help give him the feeling of battle-worn and, well, a minotaur! And hey, minotaurs rule. His muscles and hair are also very detailed, which is great for this kind of a close-up. I absolutely love the burning eyes. They rock! The detail on the face is also good, and those horns look bad for those who become gored upon them... Owch... Moving on the background, it's awesome. The light intensifies until the very center, which brings out the minotaur since he is dark and contrasts with that. The rest of the lighting in the background is phenomenal, and the soldiers behind the commando look abstract, but good, which brings out the Ordruun even more! Overall, incredible piece! And that's the end of today's article. Watch for tomorrow's
entry, and the green commons! As always, I welcome your comments in the forums
(linked below). You can discuss this article in the MDV forums here. Most Popular
Articles of 2005 |
|
5.
Viashino Fangtail 
4.
Rain of Embers 
3.
War-Torch Goblin 
2.
Coalhauler Swine 
1.
Ordruun Commando