I’m excited to be presenting this week’s tutorial. It may be a little intimidating at first, but I promise, it’s not nowhere near as hard as it might seem. We’re going to do a full art alter. And it’s going to be awesome. Full-art alters can be daunting and time consuming, even for me, but the reward is worth it. There are two paradoxical things to remember when doing full art on a card:

1. Put SOMETHING there. Just covering up the textbox with a solid color or a couple colors, is not enough. It will look like you just colored over the textbox. You don’t need to go further with the design than the artist did, just take elements from the original art and introduce them into the rest of the card. This is easiest with lands, but can be done with just about any card.
2. Less is more. Like I said, don’t try to take it farther than the original artist did. The more new things you introduce, the more chances you’re giving yourself to mess something up. Just extend some simple elements to bring the design together as a whole.

Legality is always a concern when doing a full-art alter. I’ve discussed it some here in articles and comments, and extensively with people at events. Sometimes even DCI judges don’t have all their facts straight when it comes to Wizards’ standards on altered cards (but don’t tell them I said that). As always, the final word belongs to the head judge, but Wizards’ standards are laid out here. We’ll be following these guidelines.

Now, even though you’re looking at photos of your Halloween on Facebook, asking yourself “Why did that seem funny to me?” and finally getting around to wiping the fun-sized Snickers smudges off your face, I hope you still have a little Halloween spirit left in you. We’ll be working on that spooky prankster Gatekeeper of Malakir.

We’ll be using black and green mainly. I’m using two shades of green, a bright, almost lime green (Citadel Camo Green) and a darker olive green (Catachan Green). Since I know the Camo Green is pretty translucent I’ll use a light neutral beige (Bleached Bone) to paint under it. For black I’ll be using Chaos Black, and finally for some details I’ll use a rust brown/burnt sienna (Vermin Brown) and red (Blood Red).

Sometimes the hardest part of any artwork is where to start. I’ve spent hours with an idea in mind, all my materials and tools at the ready, trying to figure out where to start. It’s better to start in the wrong place than not start at all. The best approach is always light first, dark overtop. Here I also have to decide what is actually in the bottom of the card. Judging from the general flavor of black in Magic, and the tangle of vines comprising the gate to Malakir, I’m willing to bet your collection that he’s standing in a swamp. So we’ll be painting him in ‘water’.  I’ll start by painting the vague shape that will be the green glowing haze of Malakir reflecting in the water, first with beige and then with green.

You will need to paint a few coats so that the text is mostly obscured by the paint. I’ll talk about why I shaped the Gatekeeper’s leg how I did later. Once the underpainting is dry we can paint the light green/Camo Green over it. Be sure to paint some of your green back into the original picture, especially where it connects to the part where we’re painting (e.g. around the arms).

When the light green is dried, we can just go in and paint what’s left with black (including the Gatekeeper’s legs). We’re not worried about detail, just getting the colors into the areas we want them. Like we did with the green, we’re going to paint some black into the original picture over the dark vines.

Now we can start adding some detail with a smaller brush, starting with some black vines growing down around the Gatekeeper.

With the smaller brush we’ll use the dark olive color (Catachan Green) and outline the black vines (working some green lines up into the corners), then make some new vines behind the figure.

With the top half of the card basically done, we can focus on putting SOMETHING where the text box was. I’ll take my trusty old, ratty brush, get some black paint on the end of the bristles, and add some believable texture to the interface between green and black in the foreground where our pool is.

It’s all detail work from here. First, I’m going to give our man here some hands. These don’t have to be the best hands, or even hands with individual fingers. Just black hand shapes. Since we’re using our small brush with black, let’s throw some vines over the title bar, too.

Now we’re just going to add some details to the Gatekeeper’s pants. I looked closely at the vampire’s waist and decided that he’s wearing some type of kilt-pants, and not leather breeches, or Skidz (if you were born in the 80’s you know).

I’m just going to add a few lines of rust brown (Vermin Brown) to mimic the lines that are already in the original picture.

Almost done. If you want to keep your Gatekeepers nice and friendly, just take a ratty brush and paint his shadow in front of him with black, and some reflections of vines in the dark olive (Catachan Green). Those who want to get their hands a little dirtier, follow me. We’ll be getting back into the Halloween spirit, and toeing the line with the “aggressive” clause in Wizards’ standards. WARNING: The rest of this article is at least PG-13.

So, we’re going to take the guess work out of what exactly the toll is at the Gate to Malakir, and show what an extra black mana can buy. We’ll make our red (Blood Red) a little darker by mixing in a little olive green (Catachan Green). Then, taking your ratty brush, spread as much blood in the pool around the Gatekeeper’s legs as you think you can get away with. Let’s cover his hands, too, while we’re at it.

To finish we’ll use the ratty brush once again and make a shadow in the mess the Gatekeeper’s made.

And I don’t even like horror movies! All that’s left is to sign, date the card, and seal it with a clear acrylic spray to keep it from sticking to things.