Dance of the Dead

14 years ago, about now, the Ice Age expansion of Magic: the Gathering released. The game was still newish and going gangbusters, and it was my first appearance in the series. Seems in some ways like yesterday, in others like a lifetime ago, as I celebrate 15 years as an illustrator this month. Wow. Believe me, it is very strange to meet some 13-14 year olds who like my work, who weren't alive when I started out.

Of the art done for the set, without a doubt the most popular image was Dance of the Dead, a small 7x8" Acrylic painting. Even though the card has never been reprinted in any base sets, it remains a popular image among the old-skool or collector players. It has seen reprint in gold bordered limited edition championship decks, and was reprinted last fall as a digital card for the online version of Magic. Apart from that, nothing.

Then, as now, artists received 50 white-backed artist proof cards. Those disappeared a long time ago--some I used in portfolios, many I sold. However a year later, when Ice Age was printed internationally, a then-ambitious Wizards of the Coast decided that they should give us 50 of each card in each foreign language it was printed in. So I received a large box featuring 9 different cards x 50 each x I think 4 languages at the time (Portuguese, Italian, Spanish, French). Though I think it printed in German, I don't recall if I got any German cards. I say Wizards was ambitious because they never sent us foreign-language white backs again. And I'm perfectly fine with that! So I had a LOT of artist proofs, way more than I believed I could ever get rid of.

I dumped a lot of them--at least half, probably closer to 3/4. I continued using the remainder as I did the English versions. And now I am down to the last four. As I've been doing when I hit the last couple of any white back, I decided to do a drawing on the back and toss it up on eBay. Here, then, are the last 4 Ice Age whitebacks, 2 in French, 2 in Spanish. I've drawn the little reaper head COUNTLESS times on playmats and other places for fans over the years. Usually a fairly quick thing, but I swear there is nothing I have drawn so much. But I was particularly pleased with this rendition, drawn as one image across the backs of the 4 cards, puzzle-like, which fans often ask me to do on their own cards:

I rarely draw the hands when I sketch this guy for folks because hand bones aren't the most fun to draw, and frankly I've forgotten the names and exact positions of the wrist bones, which I once knew by heart and could draw from memory. But how useful is knowing the shape of the Pisiform bone, anyway, unless you're a medical illustrator? I've always liked the word Triquetrum, though. I've always wondered how the walking dead keep their bones connected without pins or ligaments. So for this guy, I had him lose his jawbone along the way.

I put this on eBay and it is now gone. You can get something similar for $40 + the price of 4 cards through the Artist Proof section of my website, except that the art will be a surprise.