MTGinktober drifts softly into Day 11, "Snow," starring Alexander The Great Hayne of frosty Canada!
This was another quite last-minute concept based on current events, this one in response to Alexander Hayne's recent, incredibly open post. I've been a fan since his astounding debut on Walking the Planes, and he always struck me as just the happiest dude, to the point where I wondered what it must be like to be so generally happy--notice in his very first words in the episode, his introduction to the world, he's delivering an effortless joke.
He always, always seemed so content and a font of positivity, that I'd always look for him in Walking the Planes or Paul Cheon video logs and stuff because he invariably just had this phenomenal capacity to brighten the mood of any video he was in. I'd even re-watch his and Jacob Wilson's famous Hidestugu's Second Rite video whenever I felt down. So I hope he's safely in a positive space, knows he's respected and admired around the world, and that he's certainly been a positive influence on me, at least.
Fun Facts: I myself love cold weather, especially when you can see your breath, so I wanted to make sure to have him similarly chilling in this illustration, which is also a reference to the impetus of this piece, his writing--his speech. So hopefully in the same way exhaling in cold weather comforts me, I hope his words comforted anyone who needed to read them.
Easter Eggs: The upper background is based on Into the North, as a nod to Mr. Hayne's native Canada, and the lower background is of course based on the famous Easter Island-style Snow-Covered Island. His shirt design is naturally Face to Face gear, which felt doubly great as the best way to support someone--heart to heart, you could say.
Please take care out there.
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MTGinktober reads too much into Day 10, "Pattern," starring Pattern Matcher!
This was a slightly tricky prompt, but I knew pretty early on that I wanted to use snippets of notable or famous patterns from Magic's history. I started thinking about which characters and sets and stuff have signature patterns to them, and was able to come up with almost all of today's subjects off the top of my head, though I was committed not to use Jace's markings, of course.
I planned this piece out as a checkerboard of patterns and sweet negative space by drawing a flowing grid of notes of what I wanted in each space, then I simply filled it in with art. At top left is the Rakdos checker pattern; to the right is the M15 set dressing, modeled after Garruk, Apex Predator's buckle; and at last right is the Expedition frame texture, based on Zendikar's hedrons.
The row beneath that is the blighted Zendikar waste texture, then the striped Izzet pattern epitomized by Izzet Staticaster, and then last is Pattern Matcher, of course, for the low-hanging fruit.
Fun Facts: The final row starts with the pattern that started this whole concept--the Theros set dressing, which I had discovered some time ago was based on the cobblestone pattern in Elspeth, Sun's Champion. And lastly is the infamous bismuth pattern from Oath of the Gatewatch.
Easter Eggs: My signature and the date are hidden on the bunny's head.
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MTGinktober winds up into Day 9, "Swing," starring Mu Yanling, Sky Dancer and her Elemental Bird token!
This had to be one of the most last-minute changes I've ever done for a character selection. This was originally going to be Nahiri dual-wielding some swinging swords, but then I felt I really should do something in support of the Hearthstone guy who got banned and robbed of his earnings, and Hong Kong at large, especially after seeing that Joshua documentary recently. So I started pulling reference for Portal: Three Kingdoms characters, leaning towards Lady Zhurong, Warrior Queen, and then ultimately landing on Mu Yanling dual wielding umbrellas.
The umbrellas and Mu Yanling's flowing sleeves felt better for communicating "swing" anyway, rather than slicing swords or something, so that was an additional benefit of going with the planeswalker. And I say this was a last minute decision because I have a sort of soft deadline as to when I have to start "final" pencils in order to leave sufficient time to ink in order to hit deadline.
Fun Facts: The majority of the time, I'm sketching the construction of the composition and pose, and then our featured character's details get slapped on top of that figure relatively quickly, like costuming a mannequin, so that's why I had gone in thinking this was Nahiri, complete with all this reference material I collected ready to go, then scrambling to get stuff for Zhurong, and then Mu Yanling even after that. I was right up to the point where I had to start decorating my base pose or miss deadline, so it was quite a close call.
Easter Eggs: The Chinese character for peace, which appears to be the same as Japanese, just reversed, is spelled out in water.
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MTGinktober faints into Day 8, "Frail," starring the Aetherborn from Die Young and a Thopter token (Svetlin Velinov version)!
This was a tricky one because there's no really solid depiction of "frail" that I could come up that involved a famous or legendary card, so I had to figure out some kind of notable debilitation spell or illustration, and landed on the tragedy of this Aetherborn living it up and then slowly dwindling away. This piece was also a little tougher than I anticipated because Aetherborn have extremely limited facial features, I discovered.
My only other concept lead was maybe depicting a dilapidated Time Spiral elf--but drawing that would kinda be a bummer--or just drawing some classically weak tokens, like Saprolings or Goblins. Eldrazi Spawn seemed like the best route here, since they are the absolute weakest, most expendable tokens in Magic, as they are literally built to die to everything, including on demand, but I just didn't feel like drawing anything gross.
Fun Facts: The flower comes from Die Young, and I thought it'd be neat to see it kinda dying along with the main figure, through the torso cavity, of all places. As a compromise towards the token concept, I included a Thopter, which is plenty frail itself, especially the quite fragile-looking Kaladesh style ones. This is that guy's second MTGinktober appearance.
Easter Eggs: The Kaladesh block expansion symbols are hidden in the shoulder guards, including the Masterpiece series's Inventions symbol.
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MTGinktober dazzles Day 7, "Enchanted," starring Slippery Bogle and Angelic Destiny!
Once I determined this piece's core idea was to pants up Jesper Ejsing's fantastic version of everyone's favorite Simic hybrid untouchable, I had a bunch of ideas for auras I wanted to sneak in. The only competing idea was maybe a group shot of Bogles (the deck)'s creatures, since there's only about three of them, but keeping it simple and focused on one souped-up figure seemed to make more sense.
It was also a treat to study the background from Angelic Destiny, and look at all the areas of high detail and relaxed brush strokes that went into the real piece, but that we had to take care to spell out since we're working strictly with lines. Also, I loved the idea of making such a graceful, lovely composition into something kinda goofy, with this considerably frumpier character taking center stage in yet a stylish pose.
Fun Facts: Invariably, we have some Algenpfan art in our MTGinktober run, and this piece seals this year's first entry into the growing category.
Easter Eggs: With all Voss-based pieces, we traditionally hide that wacky, "swooshy B" (ß) dealio, this time in the flower in the foreground overlapping Mr. Bogle's flowing cape thing. The beams atop his head are from the OG (ironically, not Hannes's version) Daybreak Coronet. And X marks the spot for this guy's Curious Obsession.
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MTGinktober sizes up Day 6, "Husky," starring Isareth the Awakener!
This has to be one of the first pieces in a while with just a single card's worth of star power, hmm.
I tried to find some kind of husky hound for this prompt, but couldn't find anything close enough to go with, but my first idea was actually to feature a portly character like Joven in the famous Brad Nelson screaming victory pose. But then, that still felt too easy, so to up the difficulty, I tried to find a husky female character, and Isareth fit the bill. I'm reminded of that old Mobius quote about how the difficulty always ramps when drawing female characters, so this felt like a good challenge given the more straightforward composition.
Fun Facts: My personal connection to Isareth is I'd always play her in my monoblack pauper decks on Arena, cuz she can really help you climb ahead in the late game once everyone's invariably topdecking and hoping to land a threat to seal the deal before the other can start generating momentum. And we've actually featured her vulture pal before as a guest star in last year's Drain, so welcome back, Vesterix (my name for him).
Easter Eggs: They're both cutthroat, so they're both chewing on some chicken.
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MTGinktober constructs Day 5, "Build," starring Dark Confidant and Emrakul, the Promised End!
This is pretty straightforward because I was expecting a meeting today, so I didn't want to commit to anything too intense that would preclude multi-tasking. So it's Bob the Builder meets MTG's Bob. The gag is that when you build a deck with Bob, you wanna do your best not to have (too m)any high-cost cards (I'm thinking Cube and other Limited formats mostly, but it's certainly also true for Constructed, of course), because Bob'll bite you in the butt if you're not careful, ie. 15ing you for flipping Emrakul.
Fun Facts: Even though Emrakul's more famous 15-cost version is the one I'm referencing in the visuals, I modeled this one after the Eldritch Moon version, which had a perfect perspective to work from (see how Emrakul's peeking out from the top of the deck, so our playtester is about to take a 75% life cut).
Easter Eggs: The life pad shows a tester continually losing with this terrible Bobrakul brew. Also, although I used the Scott M. Fischer's costume, I mimicked the Ron Spears's pose and staff. I chose to use Scott M. Fischer's less iconic version as the primary reference cuz Fisher-Price makes Bob the Builder toys. I also hid Mr. Fischer's signature fish bones in the crown. "Forget about Em" references "Forgot about Dre," by Eminem, or "Em," cuz the tester's thinking he should scrap the Emrakul part of his Bob deck. And the speech bubble plays on Bob's catchphrase, "Can we build it?"
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MTGinktober chills into Day 4, "Freeze," starring Emry, Lurker of the Loch and Blackblade Reforged!
This was a bit of a breather piece, as yesterday's was a bit heavy duty, I'm trying to keep my hand in good condition, and I need to be a non-wreck for an important meeting on Saturday, not to mention some additional work I'd like to complete. Anyway, I had two concepts for this prompt, and I chose Emry as a sword-propped popscicle since it was less intense. The other idea was Lavinia, Azorius Renegade arresting Krenko, Mob Boss with little Goblinslide mooks. That woulda been sweet, but just too intense to risk before Saturday.
The toughest part of this illustration was that Emry's only depiction is a bit unclear on costuming or if she even has legs, so I just kinda averaged out the other Eldraine merfolk. They seem to have a natural clothing, and (mostly) have legs rather than tails, but no two merfolk look exactly alike, so it's all just a guess. I did make the executive decision to giver her toe claws to match her illustration's finger claws, though.
Fun Facts: I had originally considered including background elements, like Emry's comboriffic cohort of Standard X-cost artifact creatures, Chamber Sentry and Stonecoil Serpent, as discarded heads at the base of the sword. I then thought just a frosty design in the background, but it didn't look good at pencils, so I scrapped any background beyond snowfall. Maybe I shoulda just did a drop shadow.
Easter Eggs: The little MTG Goldfish goldfish makes his second MTGinktober appearance. Love that design.
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MTGinktober makes Day 3 fall for it with "Bait," starring Savvy Hunter and Garruk, Cursed Huntsman!
I had two competing ideas here: a hunting situation or some kind of merfolk piece, where the aquatic creature, likely Emry, gets one up on a fisherman. But ultimately, I went with a battle of wits between hunters. I had been hoping to draw some Eldraine stuff, and fortunately everything fell into place with this piece, including casting.
The idea here is that Garruk is an idiot and fell for his own trap, whereas Savvy Hunter escapes, and with the bait, to boot. I like the niceness of food being relevant to Savvy Hunter herself, not to mention the duo's set.
Fun Facts: Indeed, this is a rare, completely in-universe illustration, as every main figure is from Eldraine. Although, ironically, the background comes from Garruk Relentless. The foreground, however, is based on the Lars Grant-West's Eldraine Forest.
Easter Eggs: The little figure is of course the gingerbread man from the Eldraine trailer, but the stranger little figure further to the right is some classic bait from Gurmag Angler. Also, the first sign is a play on the stupidity of Garruk and his name. I call him guh-ROOK since that's how the spelling directs it. If they wanted it to rhyme with Eric, they shoulda spelled it so, plus "Garook" sounds way more primal and guttural.
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Thoughtlessly stumbling into MTGinktober Day Two is "Mindless," starring Dreadhorde Arcanist and Eternal Kefnet.
This one is a bit of a layered gag. I wanted to depict mindless gameplay, so burn was the first thing that comes to mind, of course, but I also feel a nice little twist is treating countermagic the same--it can absolutely feel rote just slamming counters turn after turn.
So then the next step in my thinking was figuring out who would be playing each style. A traditional red and blue planeswalker pair was a little too on-the-nose, and I was interested in featuring mindless zombies, so I looked up some blue and red ones, and ended up with what we ended up with. I was a little iffy on using a non-legendary for our red creature, but there was no red War of the Spark counterpart to pair with Kefnet, and Dreadhorde Arcanist is a pretty notable current card, so it all checked out.
Fun Facts: I was originally thinking of doing a straightforward zombie piece for Gisa or something, but that just felt a little too easy.
Easter Eggs: The little guy suffering through this nonsense is the poor djinn from Mind Rot (DTK version), perhaps my favorite Mind Rot.
Also, every Inktober, I inevitably cannibalize old sketchbooks, and this year's looking like it'll clear out this old one pretty well. Before drawing today's piece, the above page of warm-ups related to a canceled project is what filled its place. These were concepts for our toothbrush-wielding hero.
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It's the most wonderful time of the year--#MTGinktober, party people! Let's do this! Sounding true to Day 1, it's "Ring," starring Sisay (mine is a mix of her current two cards' looks) and a plethora of things that bling!
I gathered as many Magic rings as possible and had well enough for the full, ten-finger treatment, but given they'd get kinda sardined, I settled on the following: Ring of Three Wishes, Aladdin's Ring (Stuart Griffin version), Ring of Gix, Ring of Ma'rûf, and Ring of Thune; and on the other hand: Aladdin's Ring (Dan Frazier version), Sisay's Ring (Donato version), Sisay's Ring (David Martin version), and finally Ring of Evos Isle.
But wait, there's more. The background is based on Sisay, Weatherlight Captain's but instead of a lovely rain, we have Mage-Ring Network. Not to mention I used Sisay's older depiction, especially her Vanguard card for those arm ring things. Ok is that it? No. See Easter Eggs for even more.
Fun Facts: Twitter is having an issue with posting images, so I'm actually debuting today's piece here. Also, when I saw this prompt, my main goal was not to draw Sol Ring, since that is way too easy a reference. Also, this might be the first female mid-drift I've drawn! Tasigur was the on-ramp.
Easter Eggs: The booty Sisay's next to is none other than a chest from Treasure Cove. I don't know the Weatherlight crew too well, but I thought it'd be cool if a sky captain had treasure on her ship.
All right, feels great to be back in the saddle. Hope I can complete all 31 days. And to tide you over until tomorrow, feel free to check out last year's recap thread on Reddit here.
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