Style Guides

Most commercial artists, both for Magic: The Gathering and other works, follow a style guide when creating artwork. This has not always been the case for Wizards who, for the first few years of Magic: The Gatherings existence, omitted style guides from the process. This led to some confusing interpretations of cards and some of Magic's more iconically strange artworks. Wizards.com has several articles on the history of its art and the impact having a style guide (or not having one) had on the Multiverse.

The articles are very interesting and can be found here:
The Magic Style Guide Part 1: http://www.wizards.com/Magic/Magazine/Article.aspx?x=mtgcom/daily/mc3
The Magic Style Guide Part 1.5: http://www.wizards.com/magic/magazine/Article.aspx?x=mtgcom/daily/mc4
The Magic Style Guide Part 2: https://www.wizards.com/magic/magazine/Article.aspx?x=mtgcom/daily/mc5

Magic: The Gathering started using a Style Guide in it's "Tempest" set, the first set of cards in the "Tempest" block. Tempest is the 12th card set of Magic: The Gathering, released in October 1997. This means that Wizards went 12 sets and 4 years without using a Style Guide - which produced some issues for it's artists and players.

The following art is from the "Ice Age" block, the 11th set released in 1995. Upon hearing the name "Ice Age" appropriate imagery comes to mind, which had worked for previous card sets. However, Ice Age had a race of people known as the "Balduvians" who resided in the universe and, without a style guide, artistic license was taken with their appearance. The following is artwork that appeared on cards from different artists depicting the Balduvians.

Although there are some similarities, the variance is still wild in some artwork. This is when a Style Guide would have created a much more unified look.

Mirroden Notes

The Following is a set of written guides for the art style of the "Mirroden" Block.

From looking at the rules, suddenly what is obvious is thrown out the window and new ideas need to be created to compliment the world created. I will challenge myself to create artwork adhering to these rules.