Finding card art on DeviantArt

HOW TO FIND CARD ART ON DEVIANTART

Go to deviantart.com/digitalart/paintings/popular-all-time and use the search box on the left of the screen (not the one at the top, that'll search the whole site).

1. WARNING: You're going to see a lot of godawful fetish art. I'm sorry in advance. Hopefully you've been on the internet long enough that it won't faze you. You're also going to see a lot of godawful OCs and fanart. Again, sorry in advance.

2. As you scroll down, the average quality of work you see is going to go down. There will still be the odd high-quality art, but they'll become fewer and farther between. Still, it can be worth scrolling down quite a ways.

3. You're gonna have to get kind of creative about what to search for. Think about a very broad feeling you want your art to evoke, a color palette, or a simple noun or verb that describes the scene. A lot of Magic lingo isn't gonna translate very well. For example, if you're trying to find art for a counterspell, try searching for things like "magic shield", "evaporate", or something similar.

4. Feel free to click the different genre subsections on the left of the search results page to narrow your choices further. This can be a great way to give your cards a more cohesive flavor. For example, if you're making a new Innistrad set, you might try the "Macabre & Horror" subsection.

6. Find some good art? Check out the artist's gallery page! Click on the artist's name, then click the gallery tab at the top of their profile page. More often than not, they'll have a substantial amount of artwork you can look through for even more cards. Make sure to click "All" under "Featured" on the left of their gallery to see everything they've got. Sometimes you set out to find art for a particular card, and sometimes you find art first and say "hey, that'd be perfect for this other card".

7. Start keeping a list of artists you know make good work! And please credit the artists on your cards. Not only does it acknowledge the work they did, but it makes it easier for other card makers to find good artists.

8. The "Featured in Collections" section (click "View More" at the bottom of that section) on the right of a single artwork's page is another great resource. These collections contain both generic user favorites lists, as well as custom collections that users can make. The collections people make tend to have a much higher average quality of work, as well as a coherent theme.

9. The "More from DeviantArt" (click "Browse More Like This" at the bottom of that section) just below the "Featured in Collections" section is yet another great resource. This list is generated algorithmically by DeviantArt itself, not by users. The quality here can vary a lot, but the average quality is probably higher than the basic browse function. On the other hand, these images don't really share any keywords, they're just generally around the same quality.