Sep 14 2015
There's more to it than drawing
I was going to take this post to go in to details about the art on the Magic Science card, but that particular thought was diverted so this could come to the front of things. It's a thing. Let's just roll with it.
Art isn't just drawing up things on a whim.
Contrary to popular belief, the art for NEXUS--and by extension, Seven Courts--involved a lot of research.
This isn't to say that all art involves research; some pieces just flow from brain to hand to page without any prompting. But for the art in NEXUS, there's a good deal of thought that's gone in to each piece.
Yes, every piece. Even the poker-style Ace through 10's.
Colour, size, placement and position, item type. We did a lot of work before the art was drawn up.
For myself, since the Dualities were the set I was tasked with, I had a lot of interesting research that came along for each card.
Life Death involved research on the hand position and lotus, as well as the lotus colouring.
Magic Science included pharmaceutical information about hawthorne and rowan.
War Peace consisted of historical contexts, as well as modern ones, and there was plenty of reading involved.
Research is integral to the process. Trust me.
We--the dev team--wanted to add some easter eggs. The art was one way to do so. Going forward, the easter eggs will continue so that those who want to look will have a chance to do so. And yeah, we're going to add a fair amount of those in the art.
So if anyone wants to take guesses on the current ones, by all means! Let us know in the comments section. Discussion makes the art to come that much richer, I think.
--- Tygenco
