The latest entry in the Magic: The Gathering Universes Beyond imprint is pulling from some of the fantasy genre's most influential characters -- and it's doing so with some truly stunning art. Lord of the Rings: Tales of Middle-Earth features new versions of Frodo, Gandalf, Aragorn, and the rest of Middle-Earth's heroes and villains to MtG players, with over a hundred cards adapting the classic setting to the modern trading card game. Each piece comes with a beautiful new imagining of Middle-Earth's setting and story, breathing new life into the characters from a modern and diverse perspective.
During an interview with CBR at Summer Game Fest, Magic: The Gathering Senior Art Director Ovidio Cartagena sat down to discuss the origins and development of the Lord of the Rings: Tales of Middle-Earth set, the importance diversity always played in their take on Middle-Earth, finding the balance between massive scope and specific characters, and which characters caught him by surprise during the development of the set.
CBR: What was your reaction the first time you found out you'd be getting to explore the world of Middle-Earth and play with all of these Lord of the Rings characters? What's it like to have the chance to open up one of the most famous groups of characters in modern fantasy, and have all those toys to play with?
Ovidio Cartagena: It felt like the One Ring, right? A little bit of ambition, but a little bit of grief. A burden. I found out [the MTG team] wanted to do that, and that I was gonna do it if we did it. I had time to study the books. Listen, we're all fantasy fans. We've all read [Lord of the Rings]. What was interesting was the writer who was working with me, James Wyatt, has been reading these books since before I was born. The people working with me were heavy hitters. It was my first set as the Lead Art director, and I felt I needed to step up. So I bought every piece of literature by Tolkien, every map, anything I could get my hands on, even before we knew for sure we were going to do this... so I did my research. It still felt like the One Ring.
Then I started commissioning some sample art, hiring concept artists to work on this, put together some documents and my visions. At this point, I studied all the art that I could find to see how you can strike a balance between comfortable, faithful, fresh -- and of course, beautiful. And that was all before I saw any card designs, you know? Just thinking about the world purely, without thinking about the game. So at this point, we had a bit of a snag at the beginning -- just like fans, we have clashing opinions with concept artists and game designers, exciting arguments and conversations about what this could be. But for the most part, I was never told what to do. I was left to my own devices to put my vision together. It didn't start feeling like toys, I would say, until after I had maybe a hundred illustrations. Then it started feeling like, oh, let's have fun with this. Because I'd put together all the concept art for character designs, costuming, weapons, equipment, architecture, environments, the whole world, and all of Middle-Earth in one Design Bible that we gave artists to illustrate with.
I put it together and sent it to Middle-Earth Enterprises. I was nervous, I couldn't believe it -- I met with them, and I usually try to stay chill. But they said "we love it, it's beautiful, it's one of the best adaptations we've seen," I was like, oh my god, thank you very much. I was so nervous [laughing]. Oh my god, I was relieved. That gave me a lot of confidence. Every time an artist wrote me to thank me for their commission because they always wanted to paint this or that, that was great. So then it started to feeling like toys. I realized, no matter what I do, people are going to complain. But I did my best, and I'm really proud of the vision as it came together.
The art in this set is so vivid and descriptive in character, but it is also so grandiose and epic. How did you and the team balance those elements in the artwork?
So, the most important part is the humanity of the story. War is not supposed to be cool, or fun, or pleasant. Anyone who's gone through war can tell you that. And certainly, Tolkien told us that. From my initial pitch to the executives, I said, we're gonna focus on four axes: Number one, the epic. These events are large, they're important, and they have tremendous weight. Everything that happens here is history. Second, the legend. Everything here has a name. You can't take five steps around the Shire without stepping into some rock that has importance and significance, right?
There's a legendary aspect of your surroundings. Every character changes the world, for the better or the worse. The third axis was the pastoral. This is what they live for. This is what they fight for. The Hobbits want to get over war, so they can get the second breakfast. They want to get back to the life they love, and so does Aragorn. So does everyone else. The only people who relish this conflict are Sauron and their minions. And the fourth axis was storytelling. Every card has to tell the story. Every single card. There are some Magic the Gathering cards where there's no story, right? Like you just see the character or the spell. That's it.
Every card has to achieve at least two of the four axes: storytelling, pastoral, epic, and legendary. I kept repeating it. That reset every card. Because it wasn't just me. There were writers, there were other art directors, who commissioned art after my vision. There were game designers left and right, who could teach me more about this book. As much as I read -- I learned everything I could. I became an expert in the subject. I'm still not as great as someone who's been reading thirty years of it... what's the story? Where's the easter egg? What character is it? What part of the book is this? Someone else asked me, "how do you do something so large?" Show up, do your work nine-to-five for years. Next thing you know, you've made something big. You have to keep showing up. Next thing you know, you made something big.
What elements or characters would you say surprised you the most?
I haven't that many people speaking about it -- but there's a mini-cycle of Boromir. It's Boromir defending Merry and Pippin, and Boromir blowing the Horn of Gondor by Yigit Koroglu. It looks gloomy, the image, and Boromir still fighting with all the arrows in him, painted by John di Giovanni. That little story there, I love that. It broke my heart all over again, seeing these art designs.
When we were designing Boromir, I said, listen, this is like a Navy Seal of Gondor. It's how you have to think of it. So Tyler Jacobson sent me the designs. Go wider, go bigger. He's 6'4, second tallest in the Fellowship next to Aragorn. I was pleasantly surprised by that Boromir cycle. It looks incredible, and it feels familiar. It feels like comfort food, but I love the taste. I love the mood. I love the story.
There have been so many high-profile adaptations of this story and this world. How did you find the approach between having it feel familiar, yet unique at the same time?
Well, the first step was studying, learning. The second step was unlearning -- so I could approach the text from a more naive point of view. It happened quite a few times, that someone sent art that just looked like some other depiction that's already been seen. And that's not just for IP purposes, but for creative purposes. Most people I would say are not visualizing with a fresh mind. Most people are remembering what others have interpreted, and I didn't want to do that. I wanted to interpret myself. I was encouraging everyone in the project to do that as well. And we encourage each other you know, this was a big project that took a lot of people and everyone gave it their all... it was a lot of work.
So I guess the biggest challenge was keeping a fresh mind and having fun. I forgot to have fun once -- one time I came home from work. And my wife Rachel, she heard me complaining. "No one is painting the elves the right way!" And she was like, "Oh my god, what a hard job you have." You have to remember to have fun. Because if you don't have fun, people will notice. You don't have time. People will notice. You get frustrated, it's part of it -- but as an artist, you have to understand that frustration is part of the process. And once you understand that, you can make anything you want. I'm one of the people that believe that everyone is an artist, it's just that some people quit too early.
There's been a good deal of discussion about how this set brings more diversity to the world of Lord of the Rings. Why was it important to you, both as a creator and as a fan of this world, to see that reflected in the artwork?
Look around us. We know. There were people who died for us all, looking different, and now we're enjoying all these things together. We're all just sharing joy together. Right? That's what I wanted. And I've gotten so many positive remarks, even from the artists. One of the artists said, "I haven't had the privilege of always being depicted positively in media." But he loved this set because he was depicted.
There was a gentleman in Minnesota who reached out to me. And he said, "my grandfather has been a fan of Lord of the Rings all his life." This is an old man. He's been through the worst of it here in America. And he said for him to see himself as a king... we bonded over this. Those words -- it's so it's inspiring. I want people to feel inspired. I want everyone to feel welcome, and that's what Wizards of the Coast wants too. We want people, everyone, to come to the game. We want this to be the game where people feel safe and happy and represented. That was the motivation.
I was actually bracing for a bit of controversy. When I pitched it at work, that was no controversy, just support. That made me really happy at work. I love where I work for that reason. It was a very supportive team and very supportive leadership. They loved the vision. And we ran with it, to the point that this that took so long there were people who came in and out of the project. They didn't know the ball started rolling with our original designs for the Fellowship. That started all that. [Diversity] was baked into the set from the very beginning. From the beginning, I wanted to do that diverse representation.
The Lord of the Rings: Tales of Middle-Earth prerelease events begin Jun. 16, and the full set will be released June 23.