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Hey, and welcome back to the Art of Magic! In today's installment, we'll be jumping right into Green Ravnica commons! Remember, any and all comments on the forums about my articles are welcome! Other than hate comments o' course. But that doesn't mean you can't disagree, just don't flame me for it. With that, let's get down to the reviews: [EDITOR'S COMMENT: Runeblade actually sent this article yesterday, but because I was posting two other articles, I delayed his article one day.] Honorable Mentions - Green Commons
Not bad, not bad at all. It looks pretty disgusting. Which is good! I especially love the effect of the two back legs sort of melding into the ground like some evil, gross, mold. Looks great! The other cool disgusting thing is the head. I love the no-eyes look and the disgusting protruding lower jaw. The shape of the dog itself is nice, especially the humped back, and the whole no-eyes thing, they give it the feeling of a Golgari rotting.. Thing. The pores and vine-type molds upon the legs also give that kind of gross detail we want in Golgari, heh. The background is.. odd. The part the mossdog stands on is not bad, although I don't think blue is the best choice.. Oh well. The rest of the background is a couple of things that I don't like. For one, it's a city, and that's bad, because you wouldn't expect some Golgari rotting, aggressive, evil, probably-infected-with-rabies-and-numerous-other-diseases running around the streets, now would you. Secondly, it is too outliney. It doesn't have the depth or realism of the rest of the piece, so it feels out of place.
Nice, nice. The distinct pose and flying rubble give the feeling of movement and action, which is probably good for a crazed wurm on a rampage. The rubble has nice detail, I love the flying stone bits and crumbling (or breaking) stone. The wurm itself has a good shape for a wurm, looks realistic, especially with all those grooves and wrinkles on its body. The mask is well done as well, it's cool how it's blind so that it causes even more damage. The background is just a bunch of green, which I think was a smart move, due to the action-oriented way this piece is presented. It accentuates that feeling. Overall, nice!
Now that's dynamic posing for ya. I really wouldn't want a ticked off Selesnya elf to be jumping five feet above me about to slam his sword into my face. In other words, I wouldn't like to be one of the soon-to-be-dead guys in the foreground. They have nice detail, but the focal point is the elf. He's got great detail! I love his armor, very elegant, and the cape just adds to that look. The sword, although you don't see all of it, looks great anyway, and the elf's facial expression is phenomenal. The background is okay. I like the streaked sky on the top, and the silhouette of soldiers behind the elf are nice, but I feel if they had done something like Siege Wurm, it would have looked better with the dynamic posing. If they had move the silhouettes down, and put some sort of bright lighting flash behind the elf, it would have looked better, I think.
Doesn't it look like that one lizard in Star Wars: A New Hope Special Edition? Heh. Wizards, we're watching you... Anyway, the Star Wars-esque brownscale looks great, the shells (or scales, whatever) look great on him, and I love the wrinkles on his skin. The head is interesting. It's lit well, and it looks very cool. Especially that black, beady eye. The saddle upon the brownscale looks nice, and the person there is pretty much the only person in the foreground. The background, along with the other people, is faded and less important. Regardless, the Golgari man atop the 'scale looks sweet, I love the saddle too. So intricate. Like I said, the background is faded, and a bit too much for my liking, but otherwise, it's good. It has nice perspective and detail. What more do ya need? Well, lighting, but we'll get to that later, heh.
What I love about this piece is that it is so vibrant! Colors spring out at you everywhere, the pure hues shouting at you to look! And the perspective is great too. The lighting is awesome, the shadows are great, with the sun falling upon the tall buildings, and the waterfalls off in the distance, and those cool greeneries in the Selesnya buildings. The man in the foreground looks great, he has a goatee! Awesome! The wall piece and bush in the foreground give the man some good grounding, but not take away from the scale of the work. Great job on this baby! The Obligatory Transition... You know, I really liked what I talked about last time in this little space here, about the placing and stuff... I think that's cool... But since you guys haven't seen the top five yet, it's probably better to do that at the end.. That'll add some more juice to the article. Sweet, I just made up a new section! So yeah, from now on, expect the headline "Placing Issues" to finish off the article, it'll talk about what placing stuff I had, and what I moved around. Cool, eh? With that, let's move on! Top Reviews - Green Commons
Nice perspective on this piece here. You don't see very many top-down views... Regardless, you saw it here. I like the waving ropes and the suit that the skysweeper wears. It's ornate, cool, detailed, and unique. His muscles are well done, what little you see, and the hair is nice, very realistic considering he's pretty much bungee jumping, heh. I don't quite know what that is that he's jumping down at, but it looks kinda evil, and pretty cool. There's another skysweeper already there, and more on the way. The tower in the foreground looks great, good perspective on that baby. But the single greatest thing about this piece? The height. You can't even see the bottom. Those buildings are incredible, they look huge! Probably because they are huge, heh. They're also faded, giving it more of a sense of scale. They're still well-detailed though. There's mist near the bottom, and some might conclude that they are clouds, which means this is WAY high! Great job on this piece!
I've talked about lighting quite a bit before. Most pieces in MTG are well done technique-wise, and some have interesting perspective and composition. But those with the great lighting give the piece that extra touch of awesome. Such as this piece. But this is slightly different than the lighting I have spotlighted (heh) in the past, this is not about dynamic bright flashes, but rather darkness. This simulates the Wayfinder's importance, he's this guide in a dark and cruel world of Ravnica's alleys. The buildings, although obscure due to the darkness, are very well done, and the lighting behind the Wayfinder's head (I'm assuming it's the moon) looks great. The whole piece is tinted green, (At least the background) I believe to simulate the gaseous and stink of the undercity. The Wayfinder is definitely the focal point, and a good one he makes. His face is well lit, and his pose is pretty nice. The clothing he has on is realistically done, especially since it's sort of waving the wind of the night. What I really love is his sword arm. The arm itself looks great, the muscles are well done, making him look lithe, but strong. The sword and glove look fantastic, great job on the those, especially the shine of the blade.
Another piece were lighting is incorporated. Good job on this baby. Most of the light comes from the Selesnian seeds inside the saprolings. Which is a great effect, the walls and floor are lit perfectly. The saproling in the foreground the most looks good, very detailed, and wood-like, which is good, it's a saproling. The second one forming is especially nice, I love how the branches are winding around the seed in a very lifelike way. The stone floor is pockmarked and rubbled from the saproling's upspringing, which is a cool effect, and drawn well. The far saproling in the distance has grown the most, and is stalking towards the smoking gate, and it looks great to boot! In the end, lots of elements combine to make this piece great!
Great posing here. The lighting isn't bad, a primarily monotone color scheme on this piece. The light of the fist giving the far right of him a darker look, while the left a lighter look is pretty dynamic, good job there! The Ironwood fist looks fantastic, especially the strands of plant streaming off it at the saproling prepares to strike. It looks very dangerous, and very cool. Those "flames" coming off the back look great too! The rest of the 'ling looks great too! Pretty lifelike, and still rather wood-like, I guess. The armor being uneven is a cool touch, I like that. The background is essentially non-existant, but that's okay. It's pretty much green, although a tree seems to be just behind our saproling here. There is another fist, presumably belonging to another saproling, in the background, I think it looks out of place, though. If it had been attached to the foreground saproling, it would have looked better, I think.
Wow. This looks incredible. The bright flashes literally streaming out of the axe look awesome, and the thunderous blast of the axe breaking is great, I love that huge explosion of light around the weapon! It looks great, with the bright white at first, then darkening into yellow, orange, and finally the red explosion! Also, the pieces flying off the now-doomed axe look awesome, very realistic here. The giant / troll holding the sundered axe looks great too. He's in a very realistic pose, and he's lit well, and detailed as well! Since his muscles are what you see most, they're done very, very well. He looks buff, and he should! He's a giant! ( / troll, heh) His clothing is also done well, and his facial expression is very real, considering his axe is pretty much blowing up in his face. The background is minor, but it looks great. It's actually lit according to the rest of the picture, so it blends in, making the axe and the giant (don't forget the / troll!) the focal point. Still, the background looks good, even though it's mostly color. Wrapping Up... Well, here's that extra section I promised! Let's start with my original order:
Weird, eh? I'm not 100% sure this was my exact first order, but if I'm wrong, it's nothing big, it's in the honorable mentions section, I moved that around a bit. Like I said in my last article, when I review an art, it looks better to me because I've looked at it a lot and seen the details. Well, to start off with, when I finished reviewing the honorable mentions, (Or in the middle, don't remember) I moved Siege Wurm up to 9, and put Mossdog on the bottom. I eventually decided to switch Brownscale and Farseek, because I liked Farseek's vibrancy When I did the top reviews, I was blown away by Sundering Vitae and Scatter the Seeds. I moved those guys up and put Civic Wayfinder on the number 4 slot. Soon after, I moved Fists of Ironwood to 3, and bumped Sundering to numero 1 and Scatter to 2. I deliberated a lot about everything after that, but I eventually left it at the configuration you just read. So there you have it, the evolution of this particular article, heh. And that concludes today's green-thumb column! Watch tomorrow for the final mono-color, Blue! Bye'
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Articles of 2005 |
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Elvish Skysweeper
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Civic Wayfinder
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Scatter the Seeds
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Fists of Ironwood
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