Community

This thread is for discussion of this week's Savor the Flavor, which goes live Wednesday on magicthegathering.com.

TheRedScare wrote:

I'm going to take a wild guess...The Maelstrom is filled with delicious candy. And Nicol Bolas won't share it with anyone, 'cuz he's mean like that.

You know, that actually explains a lot....



Anywho, it's nice seeing big pictures of big creatures not constrained to tiny cards.

Also, I can't wait for when Jund puts the smackdown on Esper.

And you can also get scale from the little checkmark silhouettes of birds in the sky above it—a technique so classic that we sometimes call them "scale birds" here in the office.

Interestingly, in the specific case of Cliffrunner Behemoth those fail for me. The trouble is, the fog used to create the dramatic sense of depth makes it seem as though the birds are not so much (relatively) tiny as simply far away.

I hadn't seen the human on the card itself, so I mentally had the Behemoth as only about 12ft at the shoulder (which in any case would better reflect its stats).

Thornling's a pretty big creature. You get the perspective he's ankles-deep in forest canopy. That's huge, even though he's a 4/4 and thus smaller than a Woolly Thoctar at first blush, say. But the thing is, Thornling disconnects us flavorfully in its art from the other 'Lings, in that it doesn't show a creature and the 'Ling approximating it (including hint of tail and wings in Morph, and molten "hair" in Torch). But I guess I can't expect a funny-looking elf and the toe of the giant creature "copying" it going off the image frame.

The "tiny eyes" thing doesn't work as well for me as the other tricks of perspective. The "small head" thing, a la Darksteel Colossus, works better, although it tends to make your big fatties look not that smart (also a problem that Nicol Bolas' new art suffers from).

The problem that I have is that often sea-based creatures, due to having fewer items to compare perspective against, seem much larger than they should be. Inkwell Leviathan, for example, or Tidal Kraken. Those guys look a lot bigger than land-based creatures of the same size.

Sundering Titan is an example where size cues could've been used more effectively, but were not. It's hard to tell how big it's supposed to be. (Apparently Mirrodin Block had a lot of art swaps late in the game.)

Apocalypse Hydra beats Progenitus in my opinion as well - just based on the sheer immediacy and level of detail shown. To me, it's too easy to just show a giant head receding into the clouds. Fitting it into the frame with the other creatures it will be in play with is the real challenge.

Qilong wrote:

Thornling's a pretty big creature. You get the perspective he's ankles-deep in forest canopy. That's huge, even though he's a 4/4 and thus smaller than a Woolly Thoctar at first blush, say. But the thing is, Thornling disconnects us flavorfully in its art from the other 'Lings, in that it doesn't show a creature and the 'Ling approximating it (including hint of tail and wings in Morph, and molten "hair" in Torch). But I guess I can't expect a funny-looking elf and the toe of the giant creature "copying" it going off the image frame.

I interpreted that as - Green doesn't "shapeshift" like other colors (or at least this card doesn't). Thornling's about changing size, not appearance.