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The Art of Heroes of Exandria

HitcH, Art Director

Hey everyone, HitcH here. For those who don’t know me, I’m the Art Director at UVS Games who has the awesome job of finding and commissioning cool art to put on cards. In this article I wanted to give you all some insight into how the set was constructed from an art perspective.

Resources

UniVersus is a game that has worked with many IPs in its lifetime, and each time we sign with a new licensor, we begin with an art audit. We go through what our partner has available for us to use, and then see what works for how we want to approach the set. After we have a good idea of what we can use, we start the process of finding artists who we think would be a good fit for the set, be it for base cards for the main set, or the more collectible alt-art cards.

Critical Role is one of the more unique partners we’ve worked with as they really embrace their community and fan artists—going so far as to not only dedicate a segment in each livestream to showcasing these artists, but also putting on art shows and compiling pieces to release in the Chronicles of Exandria artbook series. They also have several ongoing comic series with Dark Horse.


Rarities

We know players want the best art on the cards they are most excited about, so whenever possible we try to use original pieces on character cards, Ultra Rares, and Secret Rares (and their corresponding alt-art cards). The remaining Common, Uncommon, and Rare cards are a great place for us to inject some of the more narrative story moments and bring more immersion to the world we’re visiting. For those moments in this set, we looked at using existing Critical Role media.


Selection

The Vox Machina and Mighty Nein Origins comic books published by Dark Horse were a great place to start with this narrative art selection. Having worked with comic book and manga art in previous sets, we knew this medium translated well into our game as it does a great job of translating narrative moments. 

After going through and grabbing pieces that worked well, I sat down with Tim, the sets lead game designer, and we picked which pieces fit best with the mechanics on each card. In places where we didn’t have a good fit from the comic books, we looked to the Critical Role community for fan art pieces that might work. I really wanted to embrace and celebrate their community the same way they do, especially with this set being part of Critical Role's 10 Year Anniversary. (Big thanks to the Critical Role licensing team for helping me get in touch with all of those artists!).

That gets us about 60% complete with the set. Along with the CH/UR/SR (+ Alt) commissions, we get up to around 95%, and then we have boss cards and chromes finishing off the set.


Commissions

Having previously released the Critical Role Challenger Series decks in 2024, I had valuable feedback from the community and knew the more graphic style of the alt-arts was a huge hit. This style also lent itself well in sitting alongside the comic book artwork that made up a large portion of the set, so I called our friends at Bad Moon Studios who were very excited to come back and work with us again on this IP. They worked on the base card versions of the CH/UR/SR cards.

We also had some C/UC/R card slots that needed very specific art to be shown that needed custom art. For these, I worked with a great Brazilian comic book duo (Lucas Assis + Guilherme Sabino) who were able to get close to the Origins style, to help make the set feel more cohesive.

After working with Voyager Illustrations on the April Fools Day FCG promo, and the Briarwoods PvE artwork, I knew I wanted him back to create the Character Alt-Arts for the set—bringing his more detailed, ‘cover art’ style in to compliment the style of the base set.

Our Secret Rare alts feature a new artist I’ve been waiting to work with, Jhonatan Lechar. His strong compositions, dynamic poses, and use of lighting give a nod back to the more painterly style you typically expect to see within the fantasy genre.

Lastly, Emmanuel Dias was asked to work on our new PvE boss cards, as his art uses heavy blocking techniques and lighting to evoke that sinister, oppressive feeling you’d expect from your fiercest foes.



Conclusion

All that to say that this is one of the most ambitious art undertakings ever. We worked with over 30 artists to bring the world of Exandria to UniVersus, celebrating not only the characters we love, but the community that helped build it to where it is today, in its 10th Anniversary year.

I’ve gone on a few streams and talked about how proud I am of the set, and I also want to call out everyone else in the creative team who had a hand in bringing this set to life, from the awesome packaging and accessories, to the smallest card frame details, the fantastic foiling and texturing, and of course, our fantastic production team, without whom no one would be holding the cards in their hands.

And now, like Critical Role’s third campaign, the credits must roll. Below are all of the artists who worked on the set—I encourage you to check out their work, and reach out to them if you ever need any work done yourself. All cards have the artist’s name in the card footer, so please drop by their socials if there’s a particular card you like and let them know how much you enjoy it.


Credits

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