Magic: The Gathering’s new set is trying to capture the hope of The Lord of the Rings

Ovidio Carrtagena, at the age of 17, began his career in art by designing a bad calendar for The Lord of the Rings. Everything about the calendar was incorrect, he said: Months were wrongly labeled as well as each day of the week. Even though his peers supported him, the artwork was off. Cartagena’s warm chuckle filled an empty conference room as he recalled those early stumbles. “I’m not gonna say it was great, because it wasn’t.”

More than a few career changes and decades later, he’s now responsible for one of the largest crossovers in tabletop gaming history, and Lord of the Rings is once again at the center of that project. As senior art director at Wizards of the Coast, he was tapped to bring one of the most popular fantasy franchises to one of the world’s most popular card games: Magic: The GatheringMany other series of big shows have appeared in recent years. MagicThis level of detail is not available in the budding Universes Beyond project. Cartagena’s team is going to the extreme this time. The Lord of the Rings, Tales of Middle-Earth Magic will soon have a new product line, with hundreds of brand-new cards featuring original artwork.

Polygon recently conducted an exclusive interview in Minneapolis with Cartagena. In addition to the incredible art, which you can view below, we chatted about how art is made, approaching one of the world’s most iconic fantasy franchises, and how values of diversity informed his hopes for the upcoming set.

Lord of the Rings – a fresh look

Cartagena told Polygon his team of artists started very purposefully from scratch and weren’t inspired by any specific film, adaptation, or previous illustrations. Instead, they worked directly with the source material — Tolkien’s original texts — and used them to draft unique concept art. Cartagena, a Lord of the Rings fan, spent a year trying to learn the books in depth. He filled up a bookshelf with tomes, concordances, and maps in order to craft a world that felt true to both Tolkien’s texts and the multi-planar world of Magic. “You have to become a scholar for a while, just like you’re doing a thesis,” he said. This work began at the beginning of the year.

Every generation has its own adaptation of Tolkien’s novels, from Ralph Bakshi’s 1978 animated film to Peter Jackson’s beloved Lord of the Rings trilogy to the more recent Amazon show The Lord of the Rings – The Rings of Power. On one hand, these visualizations gave Cartagena and the team a place to start working from — other sets in Magic have little or no basic lore, so at least the team wasn’t starting from zero. The other side of the coin was that it presented an unique challenge.

“It would have been easy to say, We’re just gonna plaster Magic on top of this. And it’s easy to say, We’re just gonna evoke everything that’s been done before. We had a different approach. We’ll try to understand this world. We’ll try to understand Lord of the Rings.. As we read, many of us create our own illustrations.

“It’s easy to assume that you understand Lord of the Rings, when in actuality you are remembering other artists’ depictions. These are entirely different issues. This was an important process. And that’s part of what we were doing as we were developing the world.”

An image of Sauron in Magic: The Gathering’s LOTR set, The Lord of the Rings: Tales of Middle-earth. He appears with a dark cloaked body and his shadowy appearance contrasts with the fires ranging behind him.

“Sauron has a body and looks like a dark wizard. Right? It’s what he is. It was my request. Give me an image of Sauron so that I can visualize him.. And Tyler Jacobson just knocked it out of the park with design.”
Kieran Yanner/Wizards of the Coast

Cartagena explained that bringing a set such as this to life requires a balance act. Cartagena had to let go of his preconceived notions about The Lord of the Rings, and balance the ideas of the various artists. The team and he had to work together to make a coherent world while still staying true to multiverses. Magic.

For example, at one point in the process, an artist asked why there weren’t more floating buildings and objects in Tales of Middle-earthMany worlds are possible MagicHave floating objects and buildings. Cartagena said, “Because that’s not the way the Númenóreans built, and that’s not the way the elves built. And that’s not the way Gondorians built. We have to stay true to the core values and the core message here.”

Cartagena, the team and the logistical work that went into making the Lord of the Rings new product made it a difficult needle to thread. Polygon asked him and his team how they managed to do it, and what the process was.

“I […] had to purge a lot of the imagery from my own mind that I had seen before,” he said “Not because it’s worthless. It’s very important. Because I wanted it to be grown. I wanted Lord of the Rings to be a tree like the Shire, after the Scouring. Sam plants a small seed, and then the entire Shire begins to grow. That’s what I wanted to do.”

He told Polygon that by the time he brought the concept artists on board, only one had a very clear idea of Lord of the Rings that didn’t have the “garbling and the noise from all the other media.” The rest of the team had a lot of work to do to open “their minds to new ways of interpreting the material.” Lord of the Rings was compared to another huge cultural work in order to help the team get where it needs to be.

The battle of Pelennor fields as depicted for a set of cards in Magic: The Gathering

“Jacobson also did the painting of the Battle of the Pelennor Fields, which is this epic composition. If you put it in a castle, it wouldn’t look out of place.”
Tyler Jacobson/ Wizards of the Coast

“The Lord of the Rings is like the Odyssey, like the War of Troy,” he said. “There are several characters and several key moments. There will always be people to add because it is so massive and important. We’re just very lucky we were born close to when the [The Lord of the Rings]But the centuries will tell us where this goes. We will know where we are going in the next few centuries. We are only a small part of this conversation.

“Approaching it from that point of view released a little pressure from us. It was especially me who felt pressure, as I thought, Oh my god, I’m responsible for many decisions here. Diversity, for example, the way Gondor appears or even how elves appear. I’m responsible because in the end, I’m gonna say, ‘This is what I want. Yeah, this is how you should do it.’

“Instead of focusing on the pressure, I focused on the love I have for the source material. The awe inspiring moments I remember [are important to]Many fans of whom I am one and those moments which taught us so much about humanity, courage and resourcefulness. In my work, I was devoted to these values. And on the opposite end, whatever the orcs are doing.”

Samwise Gamgee, legendary creature is a halfling peasant. Whenever anotehr nontoken creature enters the battlefield, players create a food token. There is an additional power listed as well involving sacrificing food.

“So this is one of my favorite pieces in the whole set. We did some amazing art. This is after the war has ended, because you see all of Sam’s kids here. A very touching moment. He is surrounded by his children. We wanted to show the horrors of the war, the epicness of the journey, but also the pastoral elements, the life that they are fighting for.”
Wizards of the Coast

This resulted in a Middle-earth depiction that is warmer, more colorful and diverse than any previous rendition. Cartagena told Polygon that the team wanted the hobbits to have a sense of “homeliness and warmth for people who know how to live life.” Cartagena wanted to see how broadly the team could expand that general feeling and communicate it through art. He and Gray Highsmith came up with a concept that embraced a wide variety of folk culture. Final art included elements of Bolivian culture, such as ponchos. It also featured garb worn by Balkan ethnic groups, which was first introduced in Ekaterina’s original concept artwork for the project.

Magic: The Gathering: Tales of Middle-Earth: Characters of Color

Tales of Middle-earthThe film enters the cultural moment when there are big discussions about the representation of fantasy characters in media. For years, fans and scholars have brought attention to interpretations of Tolkien’s texts that could make space for more canonical characters of color in The Lord of the Rings. Amazon Prime Video released the first part of this project in 2022. The Lord of Rings – The Rings of PowerWith a cast that includes actors of all colors playing dwarfs and elves. While the series expanded beyond the lily white origins of the modern film trilogy, the racist backlash from fans was a result.

Now, Cartagena’s work will continue that conversation, and he wanted diversity as a value to be front and center. Aragorn is introduced as being a Black person in the new set. He’s one of the main heroes of the Fellowship of the Ring and also a part of the cast.

Eowyn, fearless knight is a legendary creature, a human knight with haste. When she enters the battlefield, any more powerful creature the opponent controls can be exiled. She provides protection as well in an additional power.

Art from Magic: The Gathering The Lord of the Rings: Tales of Middle-earth. The image shows Galadriel, Elven queen. She is twisting her body and the many sashes of her dress twist with her as she holds her hand out.

Wizards of the Coast

Gandalf, white rider is a legendary creature, an avatar wizard, at 3/3 with vigilance. He also has additional powers, including scry.

Merry, esquire of Rohan, is a legendary creature, a halfling knight, with haste. Merry gains first strike if equipped and an additional power can allow you to draw additional cards when he’s activated.

“My main thing was, ‘If you’re gonna do representation, it’s not gonna be in the background.’ Right? This was my approach. […] People have been including themselves in Lord of the Rings for decades, so we’re joining that conversation. Lord of the Rings focuses on the. PeoplesMiddle-earth uniting to defeat evil. The message we were trying to convey was that of unity and diversity.

“The fight [at the center of Tolkien’s novels] is not just about the fight, and that’s important in Lord of the Rings,” Cartagena continued. “The fight is about that village and that peaceful life. That’s the life you want. You don’t want to live fighting.

Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings is a series that’s less concerned with the heroics of war. Instead, the stories embrace an unrelenting belief in hope — no matter how bad the circumstances get. It’s a sentiment that Cartagena hopes to capture in this set.

“War is an inevitable tragedy in The Lord of the Rings and in the defense of the life that you want people to actually have. Many of us feel and look differently and think differently about our lives and the world. In Lord of the Rings, after the end of the war there are many new communications between people. There is also a beginning of a new era. I wanted to translate that hope, and that’s why I wanted that hope to apply to everyone who’s going to play this game.”

Magic the Gathering’s ambitious new set, The Lord of the Rings – Tales of Middle-EarthThe arrival of. Magic: The Gathering Arena The physical release will take place on the 23rd of June. The pre-release will begin on 16 June at local friendly game shops worldwide. A second release date is Nov. 3, 2019.


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