Isle of Swaps is a game about a trading card game and one of the best parts of a TCG is all the artists that work on the cards. A whole binder full of a set can be stuffed with loads of cool illustrations and the variety it brings. I've been collecting cards IRL for a while and I have a binder collecting together the cards from my favourite artists. I love the vibrant cartoony kind so lets start off with:
FUZZ
I'm FUZZ and I've drawn lots of the cards in this game! It's been a lot of work both making the game and doing so many illustrations. The art from FUZZ varies a bit as some of the cards were made back before Isle of Swaps was a roguelite and in the 18 months since then, I feel my art has improved! I made sure to put extra effort into the Critter cards as they're the most important, like Charjk here.
Juan Zambrano
Juan is the artist who has done the most illustrations for Isle of Swaps and even did the promo art! He really likes birds so he's done lots of the bird Critters. Bird love aside, he's done a good range and I think his art style is great for the cuter critters. You can easily notice his art style across his cards as they're a bit soft and calming.
Byron B
Byron has a striking art style which led me to getting him to do some Critters. Byron did a few illustrations then chose Dragonica, and in my mind Dragonica and Saucaurus have a rivalry going on. If you've seen the pokemon TCG, Magmortar and Electivire feature in eachothers cards a lot and I thought the same with these two. As you can see, he's created a fun pair of cards!
Taffybuns
They've picked some of the cuter critters to do and created some lovely pieces. Their first Chlorophyrll image blew me away and they followed it up with this great Randomander piece and then Igelekky. I love this Randomander pic as it's just full of Randomanders in every inch!
Milo Moore
Milo has done lots of Digimon fanart and I knew this was someone who could do the tough/cool critters. I'd split critters between cute/tough/cool and matched them to artists who fitted that style. My favourite is this Goadger. Even though Hangolin is my precious baby boy, Goadger is probably my second favourite and this illustration makes it look like a super scrappy anime character who is always up for a scuffle.
Elise Byenkya (Seiishin)
Elise had a very different style that isn't bold and cartoony but has more of a sketchbook quality to it. I fell in love with her Effluvongue illustration as she captured its jerky personality. It will creep about at night stealing fruit, not even to share, just to keep all for itself! Then this was followed up with the happy go lucky Tweesk and showman Clowminium.
Mathias Ball
And I'll wrap up this half of the artists with Mathias who has such a striking use of colour unlike anyone else. His previous illustration works were so colourful but soft at the same time. His first illustration of Zappen is filled with the bright lightning effects, the second Agualeo is a calming water scene and finally Obaraboil in the volcano for a trio of elements!
I hope you've found some of your new favourite artists here. IS there any artists whose card style resonates with you the most?
Be sure to wishlist Isle of Swaps as it's probably gonna be releasing pretty soon.
https://store.steampowered.com/app/2294160/Isle_of_Swap