Got the look
August 20th 2011 00:45
"It has bothered me all my life that I do not paint like everyone else."
-- Henri Matisse
There’s an interesting letter in a recent issue of OPM about realistic digital graphics in video games, whose writer said it detracts from their experience. The editors gave it the letter of the month prize, because it apparently made them think: “when everybody will be able to deliver photorealism,” they asked, “where will we go for some visual variety?”
As a major proponent of holistics and interdisciplinarianism, I’d like to invite you to consider this question in the context of Magic. That’s right: it’s time for another discussion on Magic art tastes that will probably end in a fistfight.
Let’s get one thing out of the way: no style is inherently superior to another, either visually or morally. (Yes, some people really do say that one style is morally superior to others.) Digital art does not necessarily look generic or juvenile, and it’s not going to lead to the downfall of creativity. Watercolor paintings are not inherently “girly,” and can be enjoyed by any age group. You get the idea.
I like all sorts of Magic art, and I like at least some pieces from every era. If I had to choose a particular style as my general favorite, though, I’d probably have to go for the pieces and periods that lean towards the graphic-art style and/or are reminiscent of Magic’s ancestry in Dungeons and Dragons. There is an element of bias here: I happen to feel that this style best suits the fantasy subject matter.
Even if you don’t share that taste, though, there’s plenty to think about regarding the style of some recent cards, notably in Mirrodin Besieged and New Phyrexia. Look at this:
The creatures themselves may not be much alike, but the styles do have similar elements. This may be a marketing issue: perhaps this is what they think the target market likes in terms of art. This type of imitation, though, is a pitfall. If you’re a card game, can you really go toe-to-toe with video games on their terms? Is a landscape you can’t interact with going to trump one you can? Are people going to choose to imagine the dragon’s breath and the purring biomechanical machinery when they can see them for “real” someplace else?
What makes video games so popular and so influential is not just their art and their storytelling – it’s their interactivity, their ability to make you feel like you are in their world. A game like Magic, no matter how good its art and flavor elements are, will never be able to equal that. Attempting to match their art style is, to borrow a term from military and card game strategy, attacking along the entirely wrong axis. Magic won’t continue to succeed by trying to be like other things – it’ll succeed if it can be unique and different.
-- Henri Matisse
There’s an interesting letter in a recent issue of OPM about realistic digital graphics in video games, whose writer said it detracts from their experience. The editors gave it the letter of the month prize, because it apparently made them think: “when everybody will be able to deliver photorealism,” they asked, “where will we go for some visual variety?”
As a major proponent of holistics and interdisciplinarianism, I’d like to invite you to consider this question in the context of Magic. That’s right: it’s time for another discussion on Magic art tastes that will probably end in a fistfight.
Let’s get one thing out of the way: no style is inherently superior to another, either visually or morally. (Yes, some people really do say that one style is morally superior to others.) Digital art does not necessarily look generic or juvenile, and it’s not going to lead to the downfall of creativity. Watercolor paintings are not inherently “girly,” and can be enjoyed by any age group. You get the idea.
I like all sorts of Magic art, and I like at least some pieces from every era. If I had to choose a particular style as my general favorite, though, I’d probably have to go for the pieces and periods that lean towards the graphic-art style and/or are reminiscent of Magic’s ancestry in Dungeons and Dragons. There is an element of bias here: I happen to feel that this style best suits the fantasy subject matter.
Even if you don’t share that taste, though, there’s plenty to think about regarding the style of some recent cards, notably in Mirrodin Besieged and New Phyrexia. Look at this:
The creatures themselves may not be much alike, but the styles do have similar elements. This may be a marketing issue: perhaps this is what they think the target market likes in terms of art. This type of imitation, though, is a pitfall. If you’re a card game, can you really go toe-to-toe with video games on their terms? Is a landscape you can’t interact with going to trump one you can? Are people going to choose to imagine the dragon’s breath and the purring biomechanical machinery when they can see them for “real” someplace else?
What makes video games so popular and so influential is not just their art and their storytelling – it’s their interactivity, their ability to make you feel like you are in their world. A game like Magic, no matter how good its art and flavor elements are, will never be able to equal that. Attempting to match their art style is, to borrow a term from military and card game strategy, attacking along the entirely wrong axis. Magic won’t continue to succeed by trying to be like other things – it’ll succeed if it can be unique and different.
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