-By Jesper Ejsing

When I got this magic card assignment I knew right away that I would like to try something else when doing an elf. The description was simple:” An elf ranger on the rooftops, having a great overview of the city.” I started out with some different sketches of him walking on the tops, going on to hanging from towers and sitting on the watch. I ended up submitting 5 different compositions and was sure that they would pick number 1. They didn´t, but instead let me chosse between number 2 and number 4…I kind of think the number 2 was a bit boring, but it was the one of the two that would let me focus most on the character.

So I started redrawing the pose to make the anatomy clear and just hit a wall of shitty drawings. I trashed it and went out to the closest at the studio, and picked up a leather padded armour, put it on, and asked one of the others to take a photo of me crouching on a waste bin.

The photo helped me adjust the pose and I started concentrating on the face.

I didn´t want to do just another elf-guy looking like a beautiful hollywood actor with pointy ears attached. Instead I tried a more lion-like brow and a wider animalistic facial feature. I went for a look that said “non-human” and not necessarily pretty.

The black and white version here, is how the drawing turned out before I started painting on it. When turning the painting in, I was really nervous that Wizards would turn it down and ask for a pretty elf. Luckily they didin´t…and the card has just been released.

The painting has made it into the next Spectrum.