Storytime with Drew Tucker

Christmas Cards and Contraband Illustrations

**N:** The point of this is to give a global set of information about Drew to the audience — fast-forwarding your relationship with him. He's been around the games a long time. I'm going to ask questions for maybe 15–20 minutes and Drew will talk about whatever he wants. Hopefully after some period of time, people will ask their own questions, because I understand it can be intimidating at events to go talk to the artist. So — when did you first get the idea that you could do art as a profession?

Drew quickly followed the thread: on the back of those Playboy pages were illustrations by Marshall Arisman — stunning, visceral work that lodged itself in his nine-year-old brain. "I didn't find out until much later who it was," he said. "Then many years later I went to SVA in New York because he's the lead instructor of the illustration master class. I went and studied under him because of it."

He also described a childhood home full of encouragement and contradiction — deeply religious Southern Baptist parents who fostered his love of drawing while quietly hiding the fine art books. "My mom called us in for dinner and I just stayed the whole time drawing feet. I think I've just always drawn. I've always made things."

D&D in Hiding

**N:** So you go through formal art education — nothing to do with fantasy art. Obviously Magic didn't exist yet when you started, but Dungeons and Dragons did.

Drew nodded: he played D&D, but in complete secrecy — at his friend Dave Ruterski's house on Wednesdays, under a cover story his parents never questioned. The Satanic Panic was in full swing and his Southern Baptist family would have been beside themselves. "I did so many things in secret," he said, laughing.

The faith-versus-art tension ran deep. He once assembled a series of seven crucifixion paintings — "pulpy, sankitsy, lots of line work, I think I'd just watched Pink Floyd: The Wall" — and brought them to the art director at the Southern Baptist Convention. The art director flipped through the portfolio slowly, shuddered, closed it, pushed it back across the desk and said: "I never want to see you here again. We don't want you. We don't want your type."

Once he started working in fantasy illustration, his parents made a kind of peace with it — "I hate your paintings, I don't ever want to see what you do, but we're so happy for you." Encouraging and completely baffled, simultaneously. "It's a confusing thing."

Your Voice on the Canvas

**N:** Do you feel like what we know you for is actually your voice on the canvas?

**D:** Oh gosh. Yeah. 100%.

**N:** So when we see Power Leak, or early Magic cards — that captures you at that time?

Drew described those early Magic assignments as the perfect storm: a 23-year-old in Washington in 1993, working out his anger on canvas, handed abstract card names by Jesper Myfors over the phone because email wasn't quite working yet. "Pick five," Jesper would say, reading off a list of names. Just words. Then you go with it. What the heck is a Necrite? What's Holy Light? How do you pull that out?

Sorcery and the Freedom of No Lore

**N:** Your voice is in the early stuff, but your modern Sorcery cards all still look like Drew — they're different though.

Drew explained that the freedom of Sorcery echoes early Magic in one key way: the game was built to not have rigid written lore. "It's almost like those books where you've got to pick your own ending." In the beginning of Magic there was no reference material — you just invented everything. Sorcery has the same quality, which gives him room to approach abstract concepts the way he always has.

The clearest example: Common Sense. Drew walked through his solution — a figure kneeling before a cart, the axle missing its tenon, a large wooden fork fitting the hole perfectly. "Sadly there's a text box in the way," he said. The card came up in the audience Q&A too.

**Watte:** When I saw the art I was like, "Yeah, man. That's common sense."

Four Easels, One Emotional Through-Line

**N:** When you get a commission of 10 pieces, I thought you'd do them one at a time. But that's not what you do.

In Drew's studio, there are currently four paintings rotating on different easels. He looks for emotional commonality between them — not doing something angry next to something soft, or something rough beside something gentle. "Because it's hard to flip back and forth. It makes you a little nuttier than I want to be." Sometimes it's palette; often it's emotion.

He also described why stepping away from a painting is essential. "When you paint you just get in there and you miss everything else. If you don't step away, that can kill the painting." Working on multiple canvases simultaneously forces the necessary distance, even if it came from deadline pressure rather than artistic principle.

When Is It Done?

**N:** How do you know when a painting is done?

That said, Drew acknowledged there are paintings that feel truly finished. "Dandan's one of them. Vertigo is another. Most of the things I've done for Sorcery are that way, too." The difference is experience: thirty years of practice earns you the ability to call it — even if you still see spots you'd touch.

The Social Hermit of Paddy's Bar

One of the more delightful exchanges of the evening was Neil gently dismantling Drew's self-description as a hermit — pointing out that he's married, answers questions at length, and frequents a bar called Paddy's down the hill from his house in Maine.

**N:** So how are you a hermit if you're married? How do you explain the 20-minute answers to a question?

Drew also described his procrastination techniques: building furniture, hiking, kayaking. "I always have to be making something. It's not about fear — it's about physical movement." In the slow months between commissions, he built a website. He seems constitutionally incapable of stillness.

Zane Grey, Arthurian Legends, and Tom Waits

Watte asked Drew if he listens to music while painting. Tom Waits was the immediate and emphatic answer. "I freaking adore Tom Waits." He also loves absolute silence — the sound of trees rustling. "Sometimes I love listening to absolutely nothing."

On reading: Drew currently has a Zane Grey novel in the studio, passed down through his family. He reads about Arthurian legends, religions, cultures — "not always fiction." When he taught illustration, he was staggered by how many students didn't read. "Or knew how to use a ruler. That was frightening."

Check out Drew's work and reach out for APs, originals, commissions, and alters:

Drew has been interviewed previously by the following: