Art of Magic the Gathering - Characters, Lands, Creatures, Spells, Artifacts to Study

There are hundreds of Magic the Gathering cards and illustrations. It occurred to me that some students and aspiring card artists might not know which artists tend to specialize in certain areas - whether it be characters, environments, or unique art. Of course, some artists can cover multiple areas/specializations, so to be clear, I'm not trying to box anyone in (which you will see in examples below)! This is meant to be an at-a-glance post for anyone wishing to research more into these specific areas of Magic the Gathering art.

In general, my advice if you want to get into mtg art is - look at illustrators already working for the client in the area you want to do work in. Wanna do lands? Look at Titus Lunter , John Avon. Characters? Livia Prima, Karla Ortiz. Creatures? Jesper Ejsing, Leesha Hannigan, Ilse Gort, etc., and study their work.

To expand on this further - this doesn't mean copy their style, but rather, study how they control their values, color harmony, how they communicate storytelling through the agency of characters and environment design, the accuracy of anatomy and and how believable poses are, how they utilize light & atmosphere to push those narratives. Studying other working artists for their foundations, techniques, and storytelling can help allow your own style to come through. Studying contemporary artists, like master studies, is also a great way to learn.

Here is a short list of some Magic the Gathering artists whose work have stuck with me over the years.  

Characters

Livia Prima

Karla Ortiz

Martina Fačková

Winona Nelson

Ekaterina Burmak

Tyler Jacobson

Howard Lyon

Yongjae Choi

Jason Rainville

Chase Stone

Seb McKinnon

Mike Daarken Lim

Donato Giancola

Creatures

Ilse Gort

Jason Rainville

Jehan Choo

Jesper Ejsing

Chase Stone

Chris Rahn 

Mike Daarken Lim

Simon Dominic

Leesha Hannigan

Viktor Titov 

Lands

Titus Lunter

John Avon

Alayna Danner

Eytan Zana

Adam Paquette

Richard Wright

Sam Burley

Dimitar Marinski 

Artifacts

Howard Lyon

Ryan Pancoast

Lindsay Look

Volkan Baga

Billy Christian

Spells / Spellcasting

Tyler Wadpole

Jason Rainville

Paul Scott Canavan

Billy Christian

Unique Art

Lately they've been commissioning artists to do art for unique sets/special briefs. So if Magic isn't at the top of your list, continue to do your own thing tbh!

Yoshitaka Amano

Thomas Zenteno

Fiona Hsieh

Rian Gonzalez

Wolf Skull Jack

Edge

There's so many more incredible artists and Magic the Gathering art but I only have time to show a few favs!

Hope this was useful!
- Jenn