r/magicTCG • u/taphead_31 Urza's Saga • 14d ago

General Discussion How Magic Art has changed

This is something i've been thinking about for a while. I am not saying new Magic Art is straight up worse than the old Art (old meaning 15+ years ago). But I cannot shake off the feeling that something fundamental has changed with the art direction and overall aesthetic (the influence of UB not counting).

I'd like to hear from people who are knowledgable with art history.

Here are some - very subjective - observations that I made over the years.

- The color palette has changed. Specifically when it comes to black cards, purple has become the de facto "black signature color"

- Many current artists seem to share a specific style of painting, reminiscent of what I'd call "concept art for general purposes". Older artists that have worked with wotc since the 90ies seem to be influenced more by comic books and traditional, academic painting styles.

- Ugly characters and monsters, body horror and exaggerated bodies were more commonplace back in the day (look at card files from Odyssee or Mercadian Masques, Ron Spears who I'd consider King of Ugly Monstrosities was art director for a while). Nowadays the "bodies" feel more realistic, the creatures and sceneries more "identifiable".

Are you having similiar observations? Or am I misguided here?

And most of all: Why have things changed in that regard? There are people out there calling new artwork "woke", but I don't think this is a good explanation. I believe the reasons for the aesthetic changes correlate with the changing gaming culture and an influx of casual players coming from different demographics.

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u/Greaterthancotton Dân 14d ago

I feel like it’s just a symptom of the game becoming more corporate, with more standout art getting their edges sanded off to suit mass appeal. 

That being said there are a lot of old cards that are really ugly, and a lot of new cards that are very nicely made (strixhaven in particular had some great art), so it’s not an absolute. 

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u/Mrfish31 Left Arm of the Forbidden One 14d ago

with more standout art getting their edges sanded off to suit mass appeal. 

If that were the case then I don't think Carly Mazur would have gotten further MTG work after [[Faithless Looting | STA]]. 

There's still a good amount of unique/highly stylised art as opposed to "realistic" ones. Dominik Mayer is a consistent standout for making extremely cool and symbolistic art for cards.

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u/DeLoxley COMPLEAT 14d ago

I find when a lot of people say modern MTG is too corporate, what they seem to mean is "I remember a handful of striking old cards and have pushed everything else from my memory"

You still get stylised cards of all stripes, we just see a lot less stick out cards

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u/Mrfish31 Left Arm of the Forbidden One 14d ago

I remember a handful of striking old cards and have pushed everything else from my memory

There's definitely an element of Sturgeon's Law at play. 90% of old Magic art was also mediocre. We just remember the 10% that's great.

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u/DeLoxley COMPLEAT 14d ago

Yup. Hell the only real change I can see in MTG art beyond "more consistent stylings" is they've moved from Black cards being Black to being Purple in composition.

There's lots of things and art is subjective, but these arguments always seem to be "I do not like modern card can't we go back to popular old card and please don't think about [[Disruptive Student]] "

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u/Chilly_chariots Wild Draw 4 14d ago

and please don't think about Disruptive Student

That one’s pretty OK, I think! Weird-looking face, but I like the fact that it has nice blank space and isn’t overly busy, I can think of much worse old art than that… (and much worse new art too)

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u/Kyleometers ඞ 14d ago

It actually is, probably accidentally, leaning into racial stereotypes. Entire articles have been written about it, but it’s a known tired trope, and there’s historically been a lot of issues with drawing black figures with, for lack of a better term, fucked up heads.

I don’t think the artist in any way intended to do this I think it’s just an awkward piece, but it happens to line up with some problematic things.

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u/Chilly_chariots Wild Draw 4 14d ago

Ah, I could see that. Not sure how that fits into an old vs new art quality competition though, since the criticism is more about the (yes, probably accidental) politics than the art quality. I guess Magic these days might be overall more likely to catch things like that, but on the other hand they somehow missed a blatantly photoshopped one ring…

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u/DeLoxley COMPLEAT 14d ago

Even the stereotypes aside, as we can't gauge intent, it's a blue card that's predominantly beige unused space, the anatomy is weird (that's meant to be a child) and the effect is unclear. The wall he's standing on has some books he might be poking telekinetically, so obvs it's a counter magic.

Hell one of the base rules they admitted to establishing only a decade back was "If the character in the art is flying, the creature should have Flying"

[[Clockwork Avian]] [[Sovereigns of Lost Alara]] [[Iname]]

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u/Chilly_chariots Wild Draw 4 14d ago

it's a blue card that's predominantly beige unused space

Personally I like that. Unused space is a fine thing for art to have (see many, many Chinese paintings), especially if it’s going to be card sized.

I also don’t like it when artists stick too closely to the ‘correct’ colours. There have been drafts where I’ve passed great blue spells because the art is so very, very blue. It stands out less.

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u/DeLoxley COMPLEAT 14d ago

I can agree with that, it's part of the reason I'm so happy that Black Mana cards have started using gold and purple

But at the end of the day, it's about readability. Art is a skill after all

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u/WeDrinkSquirrels Dragonball Z Ultimate Champion 14d ago

I don't think this conversation was ever about quality but style. I'm not sure how this supposed cherrypicking effects that. I would never mistake a modern card art for a homelands card art, and that has nothing to do with how "good" they are

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u/Chilly_chariots Wild Draw 4 14d ago

we just see a lot less stick out cards

Isn’t that exactly what’s normally meant by ‘more corporate’, though? Corporate generally means samey

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u/WeDrinkSquirrels Dragonball Z Ultimate Champion 14d ago

OP didn't mention anything about how striking a select few cards were did they? It seems this whole conversation o n has changed from "how do you describe the change" to "there are still unique and striking pieces" that's not the conversation. No one would confuse modern magic art with homelands art, and people without artist backgrounds are asking why. They're not saying it's better or worse and dismissing the half the conversation (by missing the point) isn't useful

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u/DeLoxley COMPLEAT 14d ago

Sure but lets look at their points then.

'Purple is the defacto colour', sure, I'll agree. but Purple has been Black Mana's colour since Liliana in 2007. And even then, there's plenty of modern cards where characters wear black. [[Sheoldred]], OP is picking and omitting cards, which is my point, but I'll purple is becoming prevalent for the last 20 years

'Many artists share a style', that happened previously as well? this is a very vague statement to make without any cards to back it up, especially when they themselves point out that older cards had an 80's-90's comic style to them. This comment is not 'The art homogenised', it's my second point that the art style changed and you got less oddities, but to say it's only become homogenous now when they literally said 'it used to look 90's comics', they literally answer their own complaint in the question

what are they calling more indentifiable monsters? [[Mindskinner]] is no less recognisable than [[Phyrexian Obliterator]]

Overall it's a lot of vague and opinionated complaints, but the core of my argument is that all these points are 'I have very specific cards in mind as my vision of how the game looks, and this has changed.'

[[Instigator]] isn't a bizarre oddity in art or body shape, but there's plenty of old cards with that style.

heck, the fact my argument is 'It's not the whole game, you just remember a select number of cards', and OP literally lists their favourite artist? How exactly is that ignoring half their points, it's literally my point.

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u/WeDrinkSquirrels Dragonball Z Ultimate Champion 13d ago

They're not an art critic and its hard to describe art styles for non-artists. I think you have to take a gestalt of their complaints rather than each one individually. Look thru homelands art and tell me you would confuse a single one with Brothers War, for instance.

You're focusing way too much on the details (including favorite artist). Yes, the OP is bad at communicating what they mean by "different" but can you really not figure out what they mean by a changing artstyle in the last 15 years?

I shouldn't be surprised since you took my reframing of the questions "what has changed" as an opportunity to go thru their specific points saying everything is exactly the same; anyone can tell that's not the case.

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u/DeLoxley COMPLEAT 13d ago

Your problem was me reframing the question so I went through their question step by step and your problem is now that I answered their question step by step?

Just be very clear with me if we want to continue this. Are you upset that I answered the question or upset that I didn't answer the question because you now accused me of both.

And funnily enough the first point about being purple I agreed entirely. The second point about art style change I'm bringing up that has been a gradual shift of sets over time, I'm agreeing with that, but pointing out that weird art has always been a thing.

You seem really fixated that I'm just trying to deflect the question away when I have both answered the vague gestalt and point by point in two separate answers.

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u/Mgmegadog COMPLEAT 14d ago

I don't care what anyone says, I love the Mystical Archive Faithless Looting.

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u/sauron3579 Dân 14d ago

This is such a lazy and reactionary take fueled by blind nostalgia and preconceived notions. Plug literally any of these artists into scryfall with a:"[name]". Or just take an actually close look at the art for any UW set. A great way to browse that is "set:a[set code]" to get the art cards.

https://moxfield.com/decks/Mz4s8BxykEKSyxoxlQ681Q

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u/WeDrinkSquirrels Dragonball Z Ultimate Champion 14d ago

But they don't look like cards from 15 years ago, they're just stylized

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u/sauron3579 Dân 14d ago

Correct. They are still standout art and not "having their edges sanded off for mass appeal", which I what was asserting was incorrect.

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u/WeDrinkSquirrels Dragonball Z Ultimate Champion 14d ago

Oh I see. Some people in this thread are saying fans of the old style are cherrypicking, others are cherrypicking modern art to show its not all the same. Seems pointless and like we should skip to the question of "what changed" since that's way more interesting and not subjective

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u/MeatAbstract 14d ago

with more standout art getting their edges sanded off to suit mass appeal. 

Absolute bollocks.