The Continuing Hunt for Who

It has been quite a while since my last entry, but I'm glad to be back and share some of the awesome new pieces that I've picked up for my current art project, the Doctor Who Deck.

One sad note, one of the artist who has contributed a few times to my projects over the years recently passed away.  Mr. Christoper Rush, one of the most famous Magic: The Gathering artist, passed away in February.  Here is what I wrote on Facebook about it the day that I heard what had happened:

I was very bummed to hear today that an artist that I greatly admired and was lucky enough to have met 10 or so times passed away today. I am sure there will be many people who will write amazing and touching things about Mr. Christopher Rush, all of which I echo, but I just wanted to say a special "thank you" to him. He was one of the first artist that I met while playing Magic. Over the years, I was lucky to have gotten him to sign a few cards and I even got a few custom alters. Every time I had the chance to talk to him, he was ALWAYS happy and smiling.

One thing that bring a small smile while thinking about him right now, is that every Magic player, old and new, will forever marvel at his work - not just for the famed Black Lotus or Lightning Bolt - but because nearly every card ever made (or will be made) will have a little bit of Mr. Rush's hand on it. Christopher created the five mana symbols that are on nearly every card. So, the next time you play Magic, take a moment to look at those little pictures in the corner of the card and remember the man who created them (and so much more).

I feel honored that he was able to make a contribution to this project (Dalek as the Jack of Spades). I was also lucky enough to see him at the last Grand Prix he was at, GP Oakland.  He will be greatly missed.

Grand Prix Oakland was also the next step on my journey for this project.  I received some fantastic pieces during this GP, as well as having some really interesting interactions with some artist whom I had not met before.  One of the more unique aspects of commissioning pieces at this GP, compared to others, is that many of the artist were very receptive to completing the work after the GP and mailing me the finished art.  I think this is fantastic (as you'll see in the final works), because it gives them more time to work on the pieces and usually results in a much higher quality piece.  One of the compromises you have to make in this kind of situation is time, as in how long it may take them to get the pieces back to you!  I'm still waiting for a few commissions, but like with all great things, they take time!

Here are some of the pieces that I commissioned at the GP and have received:

Jesper Myrfors (Doctor's Watch; 10 of Clubs)
RK Post (Clara Owswald; Queen of Diamonds)
RK Post (Matt Smith (12th Doctor); King of Hearts)
Willian Murai (Donna Noble; 2 of Diamonds)
Willian Murai (Sylvester McCoy; 8 of Hearts)
Pete Venters (Patrick Troughton (3rd Doctor); 3 of Hearts)

I also commissioned Mark Tedin for two pieces.

Here are the pieces:

 

The Next Quest - Searching for Doctor Who!

I have officially started my art quest for 2016!  I am once again working on custom deck of playing cards, but this deck will be more important than ever before.  This new deck is going to a gift to my wife for our 15th anniversary!  Because this is such an important deck, I had to make sure that I picked a theme that would truly encompass all time and space, which of course means, I had to make it a Doctor Who deck!

Both my wife and I are huge Doctor Who fans and I feel getting 56 custom pieces of Who-related art would be a great way to celebrate our 15th anniversary.

In keeping with my previous custom decks, I am going to try and complete this deck once again with the help of Magic: the Gathering artist.  While I'm not going to be attending quite as many Grand Prix events this year, I am attending some on the East Coast, which I hope will let me engage with artist I don't normally run into (as I mostly do West Coast events).

I've set this deck up in the following ways: Each suit will be a specific category of Who.  Hearts will be the 13 Doctors, the Diamonds will be companions, Clubs items/places in the Who-universe and Spades the villains.  The four Jokers will be different version of the Doctor Who logo.

And now, the first batch of cards that I received from Grand Prix Seattle/Tacoma!

(Ps: Please note, these are some of the best pieces that I've ever gotten, so you may become stunned by their awesomeness).

Christopher Rush

Lake Hurwitz

Lake Hurwitz

Chuck Lukacs

Chuck Lukacs

Ken Meyer Jr.

Ken Meyer Jr.

Rob Alexander

Rob Alexander

Jesper Myfors

Pete Venters

Zack Stella

Clint Cearley

Clint Cearley

Mark Poole

RK Post

RK Post

Quest Complete! +10XP

The completion of a great quest and start of a new one

I have finally found the time to record the completion of my Magic Deck art project!  When we last left off, our “intrepid hero” had just finished traveling to Grand Prix San Jose and acquired some awesome new cards for the deck (see previous post).  After GPSJ, I knew the finish line was in sight, because only a short while afterwards was going to be one of the greatest (and now largest) Grand Prix events in history – Grand Prix Las Vegas!  Taking place over four days with over 10,000 magic players and a massive amount of artist, I knew this would be my chance to cross the finish line with this art project.  After GPSJ I was missing 16 cards to complete the set and I made it my goal (even more so than actually playing Magic!) to get those cards completed!

Starting Thursday morning, I immediately made a bee-line to the artist alley to get in the first of many lines.  I knew I was going to have some serious time on my hands waiting to grind through the lines.  Some lines took hours, and yet like any quest, when you see your goal you can endure just about anything!  One of the best parts of waiting in these queues, was chatting with other quest goers and sharing my project with them.  Quite a few folks were greatly impressed and even commented that they wanted to try something similar.  I hope my enthusiasm and encouragement gave some others the start they needed to begin their own art quest!  I wanted to give a special “shout out” to Pete Venters, who normally no longer does alters, was kind enough to do two for me.  I’m not sure if it was because of my constant whining/begging of the encouragement of some of the other artist (mostly it was the encouragement of the other artist), but I greatly appreciated his contribution to this project.
 
I do want to apologize for how long it has taken me to finally post these pictures – while I was in Las Vegas, I received a call from my wife that an offer we put on a house was accepted and that we had a whole lot of work to do in a very little amount of time.  The day I returned home from Las Vegas I started the massive job of packing and moving our place, organizing contractors for our new place, and finally moving all our loot into the new place!  It’s been almost 6 months, but our lives are finally back in enough order that I found the time today to complete the story of this quest.
And like all great quests, this one has finally come to an end!

Of course, with the ending of one great quest it means only one thing… The beginning of a new quest!  The other reason that I knew I had to this done, is this coming weekend I’m heading to Grand Prix Seattle/Tacoma and with it, my newest art project quest!  I had such a good time with the deck of cards, I’m going to continue using cards as the medium for this project, but I’m completely changing the subject matter.  While I’m hoping to engage many of the great Magic artist, I’m not going to be doing Magic-related art this time (it will certainly still have many of the fantasy-styles that they are known for, I hope!).  As soon as I get back I will share the new quest as well as the first new pieces!

8 of Spades (Ponder) and 4 of Diamonds (Solemn Simulacrum) by Daniel Scott

Queen of Diamonds (Elspeth) and 5 of Spades (Tamiyo) by Eric Deschamps

Four of Hearts (Mana Leak) and Four of Spades (Sign in Blood) by Howard Lyon

Hearts Joker (Nicol Bolas) by Izzy 

Ten of Clubs (Bazaar of Baghdad) and Ten of Diamonds (Sword to Plowshares) by Jeffrey Menges

Three of Clubs (Night's Whisper) and Two of Spades (Rakshasa) by John Severin Brassell 

Nine of Clubs (Abyss) and Five of Diamonds (Kiki-Jiki) by Pete Venters 

Six of Hearts (Vendilion Clique) by Willian Murai

Six of Clubs (True-Name Nemesis) by Zack Stella

Ten of Clubs (Pendelhaven) by Byron Wackwitz 

88 Day - The Art Quest Project - Trophies from San Jose

Amazing Additions from Grand Prix San Jose

Last weekend was Grand Prix San Jose - basically in my back yard - and it was a 4-day event!  I was very excited; I didn't need to worry about airfare as well as being able to spend 4 days hanging out with a lot of my friends playing games!  Normally Grand Prix events are only 3 days, and as much fun as I have playing games, I also really enjoy meeting and talking with all of the artist.  With 3 days, I know that many of the artist are going to be really busy and so I try and not take up too much of their time with chit-chat, particularly because it takes me a few minutes to explain the Real Magic Deck art project to them as well as show them the cards that I've already had completed.  Having that extra day gave my a great opportunity to spend some time talking with some awesome artist and engage with them on other aspects of art. 

I was lucky enough to get to talk with Ken Meyers Jr., Mark Poole, Jason Felix and Chuck Lukacs (and got to meet John Severin Brassell and Kieran Yanner).  I want to mention that I have some absolutely awesome friends.  Many of my friends are scientist, engineers, teachers, actors, and other types of wicked-smart geniuses.  My IQ goes up 20 points just by osmosis hanging around them.  But I don't really have many friends who are artist (and I'm certainly not saying artist aren't wicked-smart geniuses, as the rest of this story will soon show).  This leads to much of my "artsy" discussions via the Internet and reading books.  So here I was presented with a chance to chat with many artist whom I've been a fan of for years, I was overjoyed.  

Just a sample of some of the things I got to experience:

Learning many new painting techniques which created some beautiful abstract pictures (and that I am very much looking forward to trying). 

Talking about the science of photography and how it has changed over the last 20 years (film to digital). 

The art and styling of steampunk, gothic-punk (think "Blade Runner") and Pin-Up art, just to name a few.

How artist connect emotionally with viewers (be it positive or negative).

Many types of music discussion, including techno-swing!  

And many more topics that just made my day (and entire event to be honest).  

I was also greatly encouraged by all of the artist I meet about this project - one even commented that he enjoyed the idea so much that he might create an entire deck based on his art, and I mentioned that I would love to be his first customer!  

As a bonus, during these conversations I realize my art project for next year!  I've already started the work spreadsheet and conceptual ideas.  More details on this later - I don't want to take away anything from these fabulous pieces!  

Burrenton Forge-Tender as the 8 of Diamonds

By Chuck Lukacs

Incremental Blight as the 3 of Spades

By Chuck Lukacs 

Ancestral Recall as the Joker (Diamonds)

By Mark Poole

Birds of Paradise as the 8 of Clubs

By Mark Poole

Guardian Beast as the 4 of Clubs

By Ken Meyer Jr.

Kird Ape as the 2 of Diamonds

By Ken Meyer Jr.

Ob Nixilis as the 6 of Spades

By Jason Felix

All is Dust as the 7 of Hearts

By Jason Felix

Valakut as the 6 of Diamonds

By Kieran Yanner

Summoning Trap as the 9 of Hearts

By Kieran Yanner

I have two more cards forthcoming from John Severin Brassell.  I was unable to connect with him until late afternoon on Sunday, so I knew it would be a situation that would require that they would be mailed, which I was fine with - I was just pleased that I got the chance to meet him.  As soon as the cards arrive I will be sure to post them here!  

89 Days - The Best "Worst" Grand Prix Ever

The Best "Worst" Grand Prix Ever

I recently returned from Grand Prix San Jose after 4 awesome days!  Two things happened at this Grand Prix that are polar opposites of each other, but together made for one of the most enjoyable Grand Prix's that I have ever attended.

Firstly, this was the worst that I have ever done at a Grand Prix.  The format was Team Limited; which is different from the normal Limited events that I normally play.  In a normal limited format, each player gets their own pool of cards and they play individually.  In Team Limited, you and two (awesometastic) friends join up to form a team and make decks/play with a combined pool of cards.  I joined with two friends who I was lucky enough to meet playing Magic a couple of years ago.  We practiced making decks, watched videos, reviewed cards, and basically felt we were ready to go!

One of the aspects that I enjoy so much about playing Limited-type games, is you receive a small (aka, "Limited") pool of random cards and that is all you get to build a deck with - and that's true for all of the player.  You don't need to spend a ton of money or have crazy-old cards to play.  In my opinion, it is the most balanced ways to play magic.  Now the thing about randomness is there will always be a curve, on average all of the card pools will be the same, but sometimes a group will open their pack of cards and get amazing cards that are all in sync and work perfectly together.  Other times you will get the cards that we opened.

During the main event of limited Grand Prix events, you are required to register your pool of cards, which basically means you have to write down all of the cards that you open so that there won't be any sort of cheating.  Once you open your cards and write all of the cards down, you pass those cards to someone else who actually gets to use those cards.  We were sitting at our table, opening our cards and writing down all of the cards that we had and were getting ready to pass them along.  While sitting there, we chatted with the other team across from us and they were joking around how bad the cards they opened were.  How all of the cards were weak and had no synergy.  We smiled and laughed along, because we all knew that when it comes to pass cards along, we normally pass 3-4 times.

The judges announced that each team pass the cards across the table.  We passed the pool we opened to the team and they passed us their cards.  We smiled, waiting for the judges to give the next pass order (such as "Pass right" or "Pass left").  The order came: "Okay everyone, that is your pool, begin deck construction".  The other team looked at us and we all saw the apologetic looks in their eyes.  They quietly began making their decks and would now-and-then sneak a peek back at us to see if we had started crying.

Our pool was just a total mess.  We were given time to make the decks and about halfway through we just started laughing.  At that point we knew decided we weren't going to worry about going 9-0, we were more worried about winning a single game!  My deck was so bad that it had an Old Maid, a 4 of diamonds, two "Wild, Draw 4" Uno cards, a business card from artist, my hotel room key, and a coupon from Subway for a free drink - lets just say not the best collection of things for a game of magic.

We made the best decks that we could and off we went!  And we were completely stomped.  A lot.  After three rounds, we somehow had a 0-2-1 result - and we were happy that we even had a draw!  It would have been loss, but we got lucky that time was called and somehow we held on just long enough to get the draw (I do want to apologize to the other team for that, we know it didn't help you guys out to get a draw, but for us that was a major accomplishment!)  After realizing that our only real chance of winning any of the future rounds was to have the other teams either all have brain embolisms or be hit by meteorites, we decided to drop out of the main event and instead go fight a lovely lunch!

After defeating a cheesesteak sandwich, we strolled back to the convention center and decided to do some team events.  I knew that we were prepared and certainly had the skills to play some team magic, but our results certainly had not shown that very well.  Staying upbeat, I got us queued up for a team draft, and to make a long(er) story, short - we kicked some butt!  We worked together and really supported each other and we ended with smiles and handfuls of prizes.

Secondly, other than the main event of the Grand Prix, I was playing some of the best magic that I have ever played.  My final results were 18-5-3 (not including main event), giving me a win percentage of 73%!  I won nearly 3.5 boxes, which was awesome!  I also got to play some of the top pros, and was even lucky enough to beat one.  I was also lucky to have played so many nice people over the 4 days (a couple "special" folk but nothing too bad).  Another bonus was having the fourth day - normally GPs are only three days - allowed me to meet and chat with quite a few of the artist (more on that in a later post).

Lots of magic, lots of good friends, one massive butt-kicking and handfuls of loot.  I guess I could have just posted that one sentence instead of all this craziness, but what fun would have that been!

Until next GP, have fun and enjoy the game!