J.R.R. Tolkien's The Hobbit and Wizards of the Coast's Magic: The Gathering aren't thematically all that different, but care still has to be taken when meshing the two together.
It's something that Magic artist Matt Stewart, who has appreciated Tolkien's works since he was a teenager, doesn't take lightly.
"I love The Hobbit. I devoured it," he says. "Then I read The Lord of the Rings and, since then, I've always been a Tolkien fan."
The artist has taken that fandom and turned it into part of his career including making official Tolkien-inspired and themed illustrations for the The Lord of the Rings collectible card game from yesteryear as well as Fantasy Flight's tabletop role-playing game. Most recently, he illustrated one of the cards for Magic's The Hobbit Universes Beyond set -- an experience that he says was different than making artwork for a normal, in-universe Magic set.
For one, Stewart, who typically works in oils, had to create his artwork for The Hobbit digitally. But that's not all. Compared to his work for Magic's The Lord of the Rings set from a few years ago, the time he had to create the piece was shorter.
Aside from that, "it's generally just sketches and approval and things like that."
You can learn more about the process as well as Stewart talking specifically about the piece of artwork he did for the set (the card An Unexpected Party) in our interview, which can be seen on YouTube.
