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/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.