Behind the Scenes: ABRADE (Magic the Gathering) 3/3 (Patreon)

This was my first approach to the scene. We already have graphical elements light the red shapes in the upper right and lower left corner. The pure red claws of the eagle would have looked quite interesting as well but the overall feeling here was to literal. Too much in your face! :)Especially for those Innistrad ones with a lot of dark fantasy and potential gory and bloody themes (which we cannot really show on MTG cards) it is really helpful to stylise the whole scene. 

So the viewer's mind gets fuelled with imagination and fills in the not specificallly explained parts of the artwork. That way the artwork interacts with the viewer on a much deeper subconscious level. Much more interesting in my opinion.

If you see the monster in the horror movie, it is less scary. So obscure it and shroud it in mystery. And it gets more interesting. That is exactly what i wanted for those cards

Also: I personally like seeing interesting new approaches much more than the next perfectly rendered realistic fantasy illustration. So everything that breaks out of that feels much better to do and see for me.

And on top of all that: For me that more stylised approach is also often much faster to execute. If you don't need to grind hours of hours on small details it is more interesting even from an economic point of view.Let me know if those insights are interesting for you and I would love to hear your thoughts on this in the comments!