Our fearless leader here at ManaNation, Trick Jarrett, recently tweeted an interesting question. (Get on board with Twitter, folks, there are so many great Magic feeds to follow. @the_stybs, @mananation, @wizards_magic, @MTGFeeds, and @TaySwift13x)

The question was, "If you could have the original art from any Magic card from history, what would it be?"

My immediate choices were the Bitterblossom art by Rebecca Guay (ridiculously sweet art by one of the most popular Magic artists ever) and the Cursed Scroll art by D. Alexander Gregory (one of the most iconic cards done by my favorite Magic artist). Gregory's Gifts Ungiven art is an honorable mention for sure.

I’m curious what your choices would be. While you’re thinking about that, I’m still looking for your ideas for big cards to alter! If you have a favorite monster or bomby spell with casting cost 4 or greater (preferably with a value under $5) that you think would make a cool alter, let me know! You can share here in a comment or email me at awillson@jupitergames.net. Commanders count!

For now I decided to work on the Mirrodin Besieged reprint of Phyrexian Rager. When Wizards released the teaser with artwork from Besieged, this is the one that really got me going. This guy saw play in Standard back in the day, and has been making the cut in some mono-black control lists already.

Note: For anyone new to this article, I’ll be using Citadel acrylic paints. These paints come in a HUGE range of great colors, and dry extremely flat on the cards. You can find them at any hobby store. I include the names of the colors that I use for each section in parentheses.

I’m going to start by painting the whole background as close as I can get to the bright teal in the bottom right. I’ll mix a tiny bit of teal (Hawk Turquoise) into light blue (Ice Blue) and paint from the top of the text box on one side all the way around to the other. Since blue acrylic colors tend to be more opaque, I won’t worry about painting anything on the card first.

Sometimes altering cards almost feels like playing Magic to me, the opponent being the original artwork. When presented with an impossible scenario (in this case the impossibility of matching the electric blue color in the corners), you put your head down, do your best, stick to the plan you know, and look for an opening to exploit. With the colors I have available, no amount of spectral alchemy will create that blue. You can’t mix a color that’s brighter and more vibrant than the pigments that go into it. I tried a few times to get close, to no avail. But in my failed attempts to match, I ripped a different out. By adding a bit of Hawk Turquoise to Skull White, and adding a sliver of Golden Yellow to that, I stumbled onto a match for the wisps of green, behind that blue color. I can take that color with my ratty brush, and drybrush some streaks of green around the bottom on either side of the now blue border. Problem solved.

Then I’ll take some dark blue (Regal Blue) right of the pot and I’ll use my ratty brush to continue the darker shadows.

Now I’m going to add in the white haze at the top. I’m going to leave a little more water on my brush than usual, to make my white almost like watercolor. Once it’s on I can play with it, brushing the watery paint so it gathers in different spots to create the illusion of light sources.

I’m going to use dark blue (Regal Blue) again to paint the bottom portion of the border, using the drybrush technique to fade into the lighter blue above.

All we have left to do is the robot arms! For the bottom right one, I’ll mix half and half royal blue (Ultramarines Blue) and purple (Warlock Purple) with a little bit of dark blue (Regal Blue) thrown in. For the rest of the legs I’ll just use straight black (Chaos Black).

Finished. I love the colors in this card now even more than before! Sign and date your work as always, and spray it with an acrylic sealing spray to keep the paint from sticking to binder pages and sleeves.

If you followed along with me, email me your pics at awillson@jupitergames.net and I’ll show your work off in the next article! Don’t forget, I’m looking for your ideas for cards to do in future articles!