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
