Fantasy Wallpaper of the Week - Magic the Gathering

Hi Everyone!

As you know, my website Fantasy Art and Portraits presently showcases the fantasy art of computer games, so there's a lot of art out there that doesn't fit there at the moment. I can, however, introduce it to you on this blog.

Today, I'd like to recommend the Magic: The Gathering Wallpaper of the Week archive.

As you may know, the Magic: The Gathering collectible/trading card game took the world by storm many years ago with an intriguing card game that combined beautiful art with addictive gameplay and quickly exploded into international tournaments and a economy of its own in trading cards. They are still going, and after so many years, there are thousands of cards. Some of the best art is available repurposed into convenient wallpapers, free to download, every week since 2003 (so it may take a while to download all the thumbnails).

You may have already seen the art of Volkan Baga on this blog. If you have a favourite fantasy artist, try looking them up with the official card database search tool, Gatherer, then searching the wallpaper database by card name. An overview of contributing artists can be found at this wiki, although how frequently it is updated is not certain.

Sadly, the oldest links may take you to a page that offers wallpapers in three sizes, but the links are dead ends. You may try kragstad for some of the older ones, but the size is typically 1024x768, which is rather undersized for today's resolutions.











Incidentally, the official website is gorgeous and definitely worth a look. On the lower right corner of the front page, there are thumbnails of popular wallpaper downloads (some of which may not show up in the archive), and you can choose from nine languages.

Worth Viewing - Kaze, Ghost Warrior

Hi Everyone!

As you know, my website Fantasy Art and Portraits presently showcases the fantasy art of computer games, so there's a lot of art out there that doesn't fit there at the moment. I can, however, introduce it to you on this blog.

Today, I'd like to point you to a pilot film that has received remarkably little attention on YouTube, possibly because ratings and embedding were disabled and the wiki doesn't sound all that interesting. Screenings and awards all happened in 2004 and 2005. If you missed it all (I certainly did), here it is.

Why am I recommending it? Because just maybe it's overlooked. The art is great and animation smooth, the lighting moody and dreamy, the storytelling interesting and unhurried, the combat fast and stylish. Like every other movie you're recommended, regardless of what reviewers say, maybe you'll like it, maybe you won't. If you don't have time for the full 22 minutes, the highlights are in the trailer below. Sadly, there is no sign of a follow-up to the pilot.

Trailer - Part 1 - Part 2 - Part 3
(Part Three on YouTube is a bit chopped off at the end. What does Kaze say? It's spelled out in the beginning of the vid below.)

100000 hits per day - The Fantasy Art of Huei-Li Chen

Hi Everyone!

As you know, my website Fantasy Art and Portraits presently showcases the fantasy art of computer games, so there's a lot of art out there that doesn't fit there at the moment. I can, however, introduce it to you on this blog.

Today, I'd like to introduce the art of Huei-Li Chen, whose artwork has been the covers for over 200(!) Taiwanese and Chinese romance novels. A 2004 "cellphone downloading series" in China had over 100,000 downloads PER DAY. You can see a small selection of her work on DeviantART and this Chinese site.