Wednesday, July 29, 2015

MTG - Ghirapur Gearcrafter process

Hi Guys!

Last post was crowding the site so I had to relocate here, sorry for the setbacks, without further adue here's the post for the ones who missed it.

The making of Ghirapur Gearcrafter;


This was my very first Magic card to come out ever, this is how I went about it.
I started to work on Magic: Origins and got the description from Art Director Jeremy Jarvis;

"ART DESCRIPTION:
SET ON KALADESH
Color: Red creature
Location: interior of a Kaladesh foundry
Action: Show a human Kaladesh artificer in a foundry where thopters are crafted. Artificers on Kaladesh are true artist, taking great care to make their works both beautiful and functional. In this shot, show the artificer with an intricate metal exo-skeleton glove. He is holding a crucible of molten metal that he pours into delicate molds of gears and thopter parts. When this card comes into play, he creates a thopter, so the parts in the picture should resemble a decontructed thopter.
Focus: the artificer
Mood: an artist at work"


I knew the piece required to look unique to the world of Kaladesh, Chandra's home plane, that we've never seen before. "He is making a thopter artifact" that made me instantly think of trinket mage, which is sort of a toy maker, I wanted to give this guy the toy maker look. The first sketch was sent back, the older guy did not work, this one had to be young and buff, also, a lot of clothes and robes don't quite work inside a foundry.   


The last one was the winner, I redid the face only, added a sleeveless jacket and worked out on the details.


I was comfortable with a frontal angle and a simple perspective, sometimes simple is better, and to portray characters a bust is enough at times, I think this is working here, my choce of colour was simple; Gold, I wanted a gold BG to contrast with the red card frame and I knew that with all the gold and orange a simple brown and white would make excellent contrast.
I would love your thoughts on this, give me some feedback!


- V