Surprise! It’s another Island haha. When Maya made the alignments for these it was based on the characteristics and qualities of the land types and the signs and where they overlapped, and we really didn’t know that they’d be slow rolled out so apologies for the same land type twice in a row. I know island seems obvious for the sign whose iconography is all fish based, but trust I would have found a way to paint a fish flopping up a mountain if that was the assignment.
Island is actually a perfect fit in my mind beyond the very obvious and practical though. Maya and I talked about Pisces as the legendarily moody and mysterious sign, and the association in both mythology and various spiritualities and also Jungian psychoanalysis of the ocean depths with the subconscious/dreams/imagination. Fitting for a sign associated with introspection. Again I wanted to play with the way “illusion” is linked to the Island land type in MtG. I almost immediately thought of the folkloric islands that appear to weary and lost sailors to be dry land to rest on but turn out to be the backs of giant fish, whales and turtles which suddenly dive carrying the unwary down into the depths. Thinking you are in a stable and solid place and suddenly finding yourself submerged into something less tangible and knowable also seemed fitting for pisces.
This first time I remember encountering this was in the First Voyage of Sinbad from Arabian Nights:
“But while we were enjoying ourselves from the fatigue of the sea, the island on a sudden trembled, and shook us terribly. The trembling of the island was perceived on board the ship, and we were called upon to re-embark speedily, or we should all be lost; for what we took for an island proved to be the back of sea monster. The nimblest got into the sloop, others betook themselves to swimming; but for myself I was still upon the back of the creature, when he dived into the sea, and I had time only to catch hold of a piece of wood that we had brought out of the ship to make a fire.“
The fish are modeled after koi and their arrangement is meant to mimic the two curved lines in the symbol for Pisces, though traditionally the fish imagery tends to be more of an interlocked head to tail 69ing orientation. I was also kind of amused thinking about how two fish pulling opposite directions wouldn’t travel anywhere, resulting in a still island. Since one of the most emphasized bits of direction I was given was to make the palette as bright and neon as possible I had to try and capture some sort of moody somberness just with the juxtaposition of bright and warm colors with cool and deep ones.
I’ll be working on getting a print to order webstore up for prints of this series this month. In the meantime, I reopened my Big Cartel. In it you can buy three of my art zines, one of which is Endless Sky which contains the whole series of studies MtG asked me to draw from for the cards, as well as some really nice Riso Prints my friends at PaperPressPunch printed. I’m also going to be working on some new illustrations to add to a reprint of my long out of print Gogol Zine, which will include a new fancy cover I’m very excited about. That will ideally come out in late spring/early summer
