*Edit 28. Dec. 2024 + Rant* 

I edited the title because for the time being I wanted to clarify that I need to distance myself from WotC for a variety of reasons, some of them are explained in the original Post. I have given the collaboration some more chances and after nearly 3 years it still suffers from the same (even worse) problems.

It feels like leaving the sinking ship - which in retrospective I have done a lot over the past 15 years, and it was always the right decision.

So if you are a collector, here are the good news; there are 2 new cards coming!

The bad news; these are the last ones.

There are a lot things that company suffers from and besides cognitive dissonance, it is failure to communicate. 

Here is a delicate example; this year it took almost 3 month to get an invoice paid for unnecessary reasons.

You see a company too big to fail, yet they have lost touch with their community and are victim of their own weight. Why else do they have to pay people to help THEIR vendors and artists to get invoices paid?

Cognitive dissonance: Your CEO promotes the use of AI, but a squad of Art Directors force artists to stay away from it? Looks like a family dispute and I don't want to be part of that.

Also; You don't want Ai but treat artists like they are robots?

It is always top to bottom, you are asked for what you are good at and need to repeat that until hell freezes over. 

Never will you be asked what you want to do. And I hate to be asked for Landscape paintings and starships by the way. I want to experiment and do figurative art and portraits, (and mentioned that as well) not possible in such a rigid and impersonal commission environment. 

I just hope a lot more artists would have the guts to leave this sinking ship to send an important signal, but alas many are used (and forced) to take breadcrumbs in order to stay afloat.

One of my artistic dreams was to work with Wizards of the Coast and I can now tick that off from my bucket list. It was prestige once but not anymore, like a diploma degree - once useful but nobody asks for it.

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I did not post or talk about that much since its official release, but here it is, my first 3 cards I did for Magic the Gathering!

It's an interesting story how this came to happen - and a sobering story to learn why it most likely will stay with these three five cards.

It was around April 2022 when I got an email from the Art Director at Wizards, they found my work on Artstation and asked if I was up for a commission. First thought: OMG! Second thought: Just when I decided to even let the last client of mine know that I don't work for hire anymore, sigh...

Now WotC is not a company everyone gets his feet into and it would be snobbish or blissfully ignorant to turn that offer down. Instead, as I always do, I give others a chance to see if they can get me to create far better work than I would produce on my own. And I heard many inspiring stories about artists having reached their full potential because they worked for MtG. 

That is what I aimed for.

Unfortunately, after delivery of the finals, I had the feeling the opposite was true, in my opinion the final work turned out rather blunt. Maybe it was what they needed and my aspiration was just too high.

Now I also know that the company itself had more pressure on this, since it was done for an extended universe by BBC. From what I have heard, Wizards AD's are usually rather relaxed with briefings, changes and also publishing and comp copies. In this case I did not even get artist cards or proofs - no artists for extended universes does. I don't have a problem with that.

So in my opinion it was an unfortunate first gig to start this off, which brought unnecessary stress into a collaborative work environment.

Now you would argue these paintings are just fine, and maybe you are right because of the small size they are printed.

One big issue for me were the cards I had to deal with (pun intended;) 

When I did freelance work, I was used to get the Briefing first, accept, work, deliver, get paid.
This way I was able to decline if I knew for sure that the brief is not 110% up my alley (which I would have done in this case).
The problem is; as an artist for companies like WotC you have your NDA's & contracts first, then you get your deadlines and then you get your briefing. 

That is where I had my Henry Cavill moment; When I got the briefing I already knew this would end up mediocre. But how do you escalate this to your superior, especially when you are a new artist? You don't. You have deadlines. You just do the best you can do, deliver on time, get paid and leave. Like Henry Cavill did after Season 3 of the Witcher Netflix series. 

So in some way it is not so much disappointment of the final outcome but more about the collaborative environment. The general ways corporate structures work and how they force creative juices to flow for hire. 

And since I did not work for WotC after these 3 cards, which is over a year by now, I'm very sure they see it the same way. We parted for good. 

I just wanted to inform some of you who follow my work and feel so inclined to get some insights (as far as this is possible with all the NDAs). In my book it was the last nail on the coffin of freelancing work that I needed to let go for good. I'm really sorry if you hoped for new or more MtG Cards, but that will most likely not be the case, at least in the near future.

Wizards of the Coast was on my Bucket-List and not everyone gets the opportunity to work for them, so that is that. I'm thankful for the opportunity - there I said it! As far as future MtG work goes, I can't say for sure that I turn a new card down or not. There needs to be some changes in order to work for them again, like being able to read the briefing first.

So if you want to stay up-to-date, follow me on Patreon or Artstation.