When a Magic the Gathering card becomes more than just that.
Kev Walker’s Rancor is one of my personal favourite pieces of Magic The Gathering art of all time. It’s pretty iconic too, I think. In this in‑depth Rancor art analysis, I’ll break down how Kev Walker uses a nifty blend of rim lighting, background texture and clever drafting tricks to create a card illustration that has stood the test of time.
Walker-ing the Fantasy Art path
Magic cards are cool. Don’t let anybody tell you otherwise. They’re wrong and I think they might know it deep down inside.
I migrated over to collecting Magic cards when I discovered that a few of my favourite fantasy artists (Greg Staples and Dermot Power to be exact) had been painting some of the cards. This would have been around 1999, back when finding this sort of information out was considerably more difficult.
I can still remember the day I walked into a gaming shop in Melbourne and asked if they had this specific card –
A few years later, in the land of Ireland, I found myself working in a gaming shop myself.
I’d spend the days playing Magic, the LOTR movie card game and reading Knights of the Dinner Table comics. It was, to quote that esteemed publication, KEWL!
One of the best parts about working at Gamers Realm was the discovery of fantasy artists I’d not come across before. Rebecca Guay, Quentin Hoover, Angus McBride, and, the mighty Kev Walker. I think the first card of Kev’s I saw was this beauty:
Check out the moss behind the figure in this piece and compare it to the grass on the Dermot Power card above. Both Dermot and Kev are part of that great 2000AD school of artists established, I feel, by Simon Bisley and Glenn Fabry. I’ll be writing an article on that school, as it was very dominant in the late 90’s and owes a great deal to the granddaddy of it all, Frank Frazetta.
I hanker your Rancor!
I don’t recall exactly how I obtained it, but I do remember getting a lot of the cards I wanted from a lovely fellow named John Delaney. He had a vast amount of Magic cards and was only too happy to trade with me. So, I eventually got my hands on this beauty:
It’s a beautiful card, no doubt about it. I think it is more than just a cool Magic card though. It’s more than just a picture to be looked at for a second before you attach it to a Wyrm with Trample for an extra couple of hit points.
Kev Walker, the rim lighting guy
If there is one thing Kev should be remembered for, it’s his exceptional use of the rim lighting technique. He’s a master at it. Here’s a great example:
Rim lighting is when the artist chooses a light tone to accentuate the outline of an object. In this case, a bloody big dragon. The light blue lighting around the dragon’s head, back, tail and wings would be considered rim lighting. It’s a fun technique to use and can really make a figure pop.
Rancor Art Analysis
Now then, let’s have a closer look at the Rancor art:
I don’t know about you, but the elements that quickly appealed to me when I first saw this painting weren’t the hulking figure or the nifty lightning effect. It was the tree behind the Mage (I’m betting it’s a Mage) and the light shining through the branches of the indistinct trees in the background. Let’s have a look.
Kev’s skill at creating weight, depth and atmosphere is so evident here. The play of shadows across the trunks, the minimalistic lighting which really only has three degrees of tone. Note the almost orange colour in the larger sections of shadow. That is actually the underpainting coming through. It has been deliberately left exposed to create its own value to the painting.
Interestingly, the background lighting is some of the most worked up section in the whole painting. Layers of colour have been built up to create this effect of dappled light. These areas would have started with the umber underpainting (which you can still see in some spots). Dark greens and blues went over the underpainting with what looks to be a large brush. Then, Kev would have started going in with a far lighter tone as he picked places to add light to create the illusion of ghostly trees in a haze of sunlight and mist.
Kev Walker uses Acrylic paints (among other things such as coloured pencils), which are not only great for painting rim lighting, but also for his style of building up of layered forms and light.
Kev Walker the draughftsman
The life of a freelance illustrator, especially one as in-demand as Kev is, is a life of economical workflows and move on to the next job as quickly as possible (without sacrificing standards, of course). It’s a juggling act that isn’t for everybody. There simply is not enough time to dwell on a piece for weeks on end until you have it as close to perfect as you can possibly get it. You’ll go broke fairly quickly with that method.
You have to work smart. Here’s an example of Kev working smart:
This is the torso from the main figure in the Rancor piece. There’s some pretty cool and funky anatomy going on in there. Would you believe that Kev achieved these details with just three colours? Because that’s exactly how he did it. The black linework was probably produced with an actual pen. The lines are certainly fine enough for that to be the case. I know that Simon Bisley uses this technique quite a lot. He draws a picture with ink pens and brushes and then applies Acrylic colour directly over the top of that, often leaving those pen and brush areas exposed in parts to create structure. I am sure that Kev has done the same here.
Next, Kev applied the primary green colour to the torso. Using it to not only build up the anatomical shapes, but also to create shadows where they are needed. Lastly, he went in with a highlighting green/blue to make some areas pop more. This was done sparingly, probably to ensure that the figure remained visibly organic in nature.
And, seriously, that’s all he did.
But Jay, what about that browny-orange colour there!? Well, this is where Kev’s smarts comes into it. Once again, that is the underpainting coming through. Kev very deliberately didn’t paint the primary green to the edges of the black linework. By expertly leaving that underpainting colour visible in enough places and in a certain way, it for all intents and purposes looks like he went in with that colour as a highlight. If that’s not an economical workflow, I didn’t know what the heck is!
Magically Methodical
I look at a painting like Rancor and I marvel at it for a number of reasons. Firstly, it is a really cool piece that truly invokes the spirit of Magic the Gathering. There’s a story going on in this painting and it’s just ambiguous enough to give your mind the opportunity to fill in the blanks however you see fit.
I admire the way Kev balanced his freelancing obligations with not only the expression of his skills, but an impressive level of real artistry as well. Skill can be a clinical thing. But if you inject artistic flair into your skill, you can create something special. Kev Walker’s Rancor is an exercise in harnessing your abilities and using them to your advantage.
In Kevclusion
When this card first appeared back in the late 90’s, the area of the card the artwork took up measured a mere 48.5 x 39 mm (1.9 x 1.53 in). I’m starting to think that my eyesight has deteriorated at such a rapid pace directly due to staring far too closely at this card and others of Kev’s. Not that I regret doing it, but I think that a piece of quite brilliant illustration like this needs to be studied on a larger scale.
In fact, it DESERVES it.
Kev Walker is a tough guy to find. I’ve been a fan of his for nearly a quarter of a century and I don’t think I’ve ever seen him present online. He’s borderline inactive on Social Media, has no website, nor a public email address. That’s such a rare thing these days that you kinda have to admire his decision. He’s probably a lot happier than the rest of us, I’ll wager. But if you would like to see more of his work, here are a couple of handy places you can do just that!
A big database of Kev’s Magic cards
A nice gallery of some of his paintings
I could go on about Kev and his work (and I most definitely in future posts), but maybe it’s best I just leave you with this picture. Mind your jaw doesn’t hit the floor too hard…
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