"Finished, Not Perfect" sketch of Nicol Bolas, god pharaoh!

Good evening, Steemit. I’m making a late post, but sometimes that’s how it has to be. @guthrie goes back to school the beginning of next week, then hopefully I’ll be on the usual morning Steemit post rotation. 

@tarotbyfergus had a birthday today. Good for him. He mounted a pretty good come back after the beatings I unleashed on him during our weekly Magic: The Gathering games. The birthday energy was strong with him tonight because I only won a handful of times against his Nicoal Bolas deck […which is going to tie in to tonight’s art]. He also did a tarot and palm reading for @bonni, which I recorded and will be sending along to her tomorrow.

Tonight’s artwork was inspired by the new Magic: The Gathering expansion set, “Hour Of Devastation”. If you haven’t already read my recent blog about the new set, “Magic: The Gathering - Hour Of Devastation review!”, you should […if you give any shits at all about MTG, that is]. The badass planeswalker in “Hour Of Devastation” is a pharaoh dragon god named Nicol Bolas. Just like @tarotbyfergus, after opening all our new packs, we both pulled a Nicol Bolas card and immediately began building decks around him. That is what lead to Bolas being the inspiration for this drawing.

A while ago, I came across this viral video on Facebook. It was called “Finished, Not Perfect”, that really resonated with me. The idea that an artist needs to overcome the magnum opus complex that ever piece of art will be our greatest life’s achievement. That psychological phenomenon has kept me from decades of art simply because I wasn’t able to call it done and move on. That’s also been a huge barrier in improving as a comic book illustrator. This Bolas drawing was a conscious step in living the “Finished, Not Perfect” mantra. I’m content, and it was a stepping stone in my progress. 

I struggle with backgrounds a lot and this required some complexity. In the last two MTG expansions, we were introduced to the city of Amonkhet and that was what I needed to include behind Nicol Bolas. I spent the majority of my time drawing and redrawing Amonkhet. Lots of reference […which is amazing using split screen on the 12.9” iPad Pro]. Ultimately, I’m pretty happy with this and it was fun […when it wasn’t infuriating]. Open to comments, suggestions and constructive criticism.

Done using Apple Pencil and iPad Pro and the Procreate app by Savage Interactive. The hyperlapse video here shows the whole process from first lines to last. I post daily so for more illustration, photography, art and tutorials, please follow me @kommienezuspadt!