Info about and from artists at Gen Con

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squt
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Info about and from artists at Gen Con

Post by squt » Thu Aug 17, 2006 3:20 pm

Wanted to pass along some interesting stuff I learned from the artists at Gen Con:

First of all, a lot of the artists that we thought might show didnt:


Jeff Menges
John Matson
Mark Tedin
Thomas Baxa
Willian O'connor
Brian Snoddy
Chippy
Scott Fischer

Jeremy Jarvis was there, but wasn't signing and didn't have a booth. WOTC didn't have any artist signings at all at their booth, which was sad. Overall it was a pretty big dissapointment in the lack of Gen Con's information flow and a dissapointment in the decrease in # and quality of magic artists (no guay, baxa, fischer, nielsen this year...). I pulled about 40 cards from various binders for Mark Tedin to sign, and he didn't even show up.

I learned some interesting stuff from the artists that WERE there that I thought i'd pass along:

Frost Raptor and Vexing Sphynx are one painting - Lars had it up in his booth, and it's gorgeous. Part of the Sphynx wing had to be edited out of the raptor pic. If you put the cards next to each other, you can see it - they face each other. He's a really nice guy.

Donoto Giancola had to paint two versions of Razia. In the first version, the background is a little greener, Razia is a little chunkier, and she's in a different pose. WOTC wasn't totally happy with it and told him to re-paint it - both versions were there and looked great. He was very nice and drew a snow man on my German Chrome mox for free.

There are two cards in dissension that were credited to Wayne Reynolds and another artist. Turns out he drew concept art for the two cards, then suffered a serious neck injury and couldn't do the actual paintings, so the second artist created the artwork from his sketches.

He hadn't seen the chinese AA skeletal vampire until i had him sign one, but he did know about it. He said that the WOTC art team put the clothes on the skeleton without his knowledge, but that he thought their graphic artists were really great and didn't mind that they had to edit his work.

Ed Beard is still exiled by WOTC. He said that he tried to call Jeremy Jarvis (new art director) and didn't get a call back. He showed me a concept sketch of a very buff Stinkweed imp, and said he was told by WOTC to 'wimp him up' because if he looked strong in the art, people might think he was a more powerful creature than he really is.

Matt Wilson and Ben Thompson don't have any new Magic art coming out - they both have new full time jobs and haven't had time to do freelance art.

That's all I can remember that was of interest.

Squt

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Post by Tha_Gunslinga » Thu Aug 17, 2006 4:16 pm

Menges and Tedin were there. Menges was towards the back center/right of the artist area, and Tedin was apparently in 341 or something; I never saw him either, but I was told that he was there.

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Post by Mr. Nightmare » Thu Aug 17, 2006 5:23 pm

Tedin was there, but only for one day, and I think it was during the Legacy main event. I couldn't personally go, but Tedin was the big one I sent cards down with others to get signed, and I was really bummed to hear they missed him. I get all my drains, CoBs, COP reds, Necros, mana crypt/vaults, sol rings, etc. back unsigned. I guess there's next year.

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Post by squt » Thu Aug 17, 2006 5:42 pm

I must have seen menges and just not had anything for him to sign. If Tedin was really there, he didn't make it very well known...he definitely wasn't in the artist section.

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Post by notsofasteddie » Fri Aug 18, 2006 2:45 pm

Tedin was definitely there and exactly where he said he would be at the White Silver Publishing booth. William O'Connor was also there and a fun guy to talk to with a good sense of humor. The artist I missed was Matt Wilson.

Like you, I felt that Gen Con took a step back from previous years with regard to Magic and its artists. Hopefully next year will be better.

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Re: Info about and from artists at Gen Con

Post by flatmatt » Fri Aug 18, 2006 10:42 pm

squt wrote:Frost Raptor and Vexing Sphynx are one painting - Lars had it up in his booth, and it's gorgeous. Part of the Sphynx wing had to be edited out of the raptor pic. If you put the cards next to each other, you can see it - they face each other. He's a really nice guy.
I just ended up buying a proof of the Frost Raptor, but I kinda wish I had picked up one of those combined prints while I was there. Would have been a bit expensive to frame, though.
squt wrote:Donoto Giancola had to paint two versions of Razia. In the first version, the background is a little greener, Razia is a little chunkier, and she's in a different pose. WOTC wasn't totally happy with it and told him to re-paint it - both versions were there and looked great. He was very nice and drew a snow man on my German Chrome mox for free.
I saw the two versions and thought something like that probably happened. Really, I didn't like the green version too much either.
squt wrote:There are two cards in dissension that were credited to Wayne Reynolds and another artist. Turns out he drew concept art for the two cards, then suffered a serious neck injury and couldn't do the actual paintings, so the second artist created the artwork from his sketches.
Yeah, this was on MTG.com a while ago. It actually happened on three cards, with four total pieces of art:
http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=mtgcom/arcana/1126

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Post by Gryfalia » Mon Aug 21, 2006 2:02 am

Just like 2 years ago, I ended up buying my wife 2 prints, including a Van Camp which goes well with the one I bought her 2 years ago (she's a cat fanatic).

And I bought a print of a bird that almost looks like a Gyrfalcon for my store..;-)

And now, with all the Spa stuff, I think I might be able to convince my wife to join me next year..

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Post by aleksandr » Tue Aug 22, 2006 6:58 pm

I have to agree with the statement regarding Lars Grant-West being a nice guy--I've met him twice so far and he has been amazing both times. He is always willing to do sketches and card modifications. He is a definite plus to the magic artist community.

Jeff Menges is another great guy in my opinion. I haven't met Jeff in person, but I did buy a set of Antiquities artist proofs from him on eBay. I asked if he could do a small sketch on the back of one of the proofs--when I got the set of four cards all of them had an amazing sketch on the back.

I didn't get to go to Gen Con this year and so I missed the opportunity to interface with so many different artists.

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Post by random » Wed Aug 23, 2006 9:15 am

The WorldCon is happening near here this week (Anaheim) and it looks like they have some MTG artists going. I'm hoping to get some original art from the Foglio's! Anyways, if you live around here it might be a fun Con to check out.

Ps: Anaheim has some kind of inferiority complex on a massive City wide scale. They like to call themselves LA and they try and switch the names of their prominent sports teams to be associated with LA teams. Anaheim is in fact a loooong freeway drive away from LA.

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Post by Volcanon » Thu Aug 24, 2006 6:38 am

Sigh, why dont we ever get big Con stuff in Vancouver?

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Post by silver.paladin » Thu Aug 24, 2006 11:56 pm

Volcanon wrote:Sigh, why dont we ever get big Con stuff in Vancouver?
What are you talking about? You have Robert Pickton and his pig farm. Once all the details are known - he will be one of the biggest Cons in all of BC. Maybe even bigger than Clifford Olson - who is currently possibly the biggest star Con that you have got.

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Post by Volcanon » Fri Aug 25, 2006 7:22 am

Har Har.

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Post by Mr.C » Sun Aug 27, 2006 7:56 am

Volcanon wrote:Har Har.
let him be. He lives in th frozen tundra with all the polar bears.

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Post by Volcanon » Sun Aug 27, 2006 8:36 am

Lol..
well... well... At least our minimum wage is higher than yours! Beat that.

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Post by silver.paladin » Sun Aug 27, 2006 6:41 pm

Volcanon wrote:Lol..
well... well... At least our minimum wage is higher than yours! Beat that.
We have no provincial deficit or debt, we have lower taxes. We do not worry about "The Big One" happening and falling into the new expanded ocean!

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