Dan - For the Island card in our @mtgsecretlair Lands set, I made a VERY loose sketch to start the Island land and passed it off to Kozy as she had an idea for how it should look as the comp made her think of the quite famous (and, to our mind, a little odd) old ukiyo-e print from the early 1800’s titled “Hakone: View of the Lake (Hakone, kosui no zu)” by ukiyo-e master #Hiroshige (1797-185). Whenever we see this to print reproduced in books it jumps out as being strangely colored - with a mountainside turned into a patchwork quilt of color blocks. I always wondered if the color choices in this famous version of it (other prints exist of the same artwork that use a more naturalistic color palette for the mountainside, but they are not so common) were made by the artist himself, or by the woodblock printer who pulled the editions. Its a funky print, and was a good starting point for kozy to make this fantastical (but still very Japanese looking) Island card. I went in and tightened the image up (and added some of the narrative details including the bunny sea serpent and the island denizens reacting a massive carrot effigy to appease it) before kozy painted the final inks in #nihonga pigment on washi paper. We passed it back and forth to color the work digitally. If you are a Magic player or a kozyndan fan (or both!), consider pre-ordering a set! They are available only until January 6th. #kozyndan #magicthegathering #magicsecretlair #mtgsecretlair #island #bunnyserpent #ukiyoe #magiccardart 💫 (at Yamanashi Prefecture) https://www.instagram.com/p/Cl5WiR_OLvO/?igshid=NGJjMDIxMWI=
