Just Add Milk: Second Helpings (2)
Just Add Milk: Second Helpings (2)
Part 2 of an all encompassing look at the sequel to my favorite project...
Picking up right where we left off!…
5. Krark, the Thumbless
As a fellow goblin fanatic I was thrilled to have a chance to feature one in this Secret Lair. Krark made for a very fun redesign, with inspiration taken from the alien creatures in the movie Lilo and Stitch.
I had a lot of fun reinterpreting the crazed face from the original card art by Mathias Kollros, no doubt the expression being inspired by Krark’s struggled efforts to hold his spoon with his thumbless hands.
In an earlier version of the card, I attempted to design the A in Krark’s name to resemble one of his missing thumbs, but it was deemed a bit too hard to read, so I revised it to look more clearly like an “A”. I hope I left enough trace of the thumb for it to come through to some degree.
I explored a few options for Krark’s cereal design, mainly focused on the idea of duality to harken back to his coin flipping ability. I also offered an option that was simply strawberries and flakes as I thought it might look visually appealing on a red card, and I wanted to try out cereals that haven’t appeared in the series. I still like the one we went with the most though. An apple-cinnamon flavored cereal feels just right for a red card.
The bowl design is very loosely based on Kuldotha, the Great Furnace by Rob Alexander. Not only is this location from Krark’s home plane of Mirrodin, but it’s also a card I’ve included one of my own goblin decks, which made for a fun treat for myself.
And for the back puzzle, a maze! One of the most iconic puzzles to find on the back of a cereal box and I couldn’t go through having another chance at cereal box cards without making sure one sees print. And what better activity for Krark than finding his lost thumbs?
And finally…
6. Adrix and Nev, Twincasters
The last card of the set, and the only one to showcase multiple characters. Adrix and Nev was another challenging entry due to the very intricate design of the characters and their costumes.
In the end I’m happy with the balance I was able to strike between hitting all the details and boiling everything down to its simplest form. The pose was an especially fun idea that came from my Art Director, Jacob Covey.
The bowl takes cues from the Quandrix College design motifs, most notably from the art for Ruxa, Patient Professor by artist Ilse Gort.
For the cereal design, I wanted to hit on the doubling theme of the card, with dual colored fish pieces (even matching the card colors themselves). The fish shape option felt really fun for these characters.
For the back puzzle, I wanted to pick something that related to the studious nature of Adrix and Nev being professors at Strixhaven University. I did a little research and discovered these math puzzles that revolve around using different operations, including multiplication, which I thought made for a fitting choice for a doubling card and even gave it an extra dash of style by rendering it as a chalkboard.
7 - Final Scoops
And that covers just about everything included in Just Add Milk: Second Helpings!
I worked closely with Jacob on this one and we bounced a lot of ideas back and forth in order to arrive at these final versions of the cards.
I also received assistance from Wizards Staff Writer, Jon Podulka, who helped come up with fun and appropriate taglines for the characters as well as the story/verbiage for the puzzle instructions.
Lastly, after submitting my finals, Wizards Staff Designer, Scott Okumura, took a pass at tightening everything up, adjusting the typography, sizing and placement of various elements as well as some color tweaks ensuring these cards came out looking as bright and shiny as possible.
I really hope fans are just as excited about this new set of cereal cards. It feels like we really got to stretch the bounds even further this time and explored some fun new spaces. Again, this is a very special project to me and I’m really proud of what we achieved here.
I’ve gotten a couple opportunities to work more in this style outside of MTG, and I hope to get more chances to do so in the future. Of course I will always be up for making more cereal cards, so if you ever want some more, let the folks at Wizards know loud and clear and I’ll happily sail the milky seas again!
8 - Wrap Up
And that’s how the Just Add Milk: Second Helpings cards were made. But that’s not the only sequel, we also saw the return of the coveted puppets made by the team at Gazelle Automations!
I hear lots of fans asking for Wizards to make these puppets available for purchase, and I hope so too! Perhaps one day…but until then, support the Secret Lair today by ordering the cards for yourself at the link below. You have until March 3rd to place an order, but they are a Limited Stock so don’t delay!
Additionally if you’d like to support me directly, you can purchase a print of any of the cards (front or back) from my InPrnt shop, link below!
And finally, please make sure to follow me here on Substack for more posts like this and follow my social media accounts where I’ll be announcing my Just Add Milk: Second Helpings Artist Proofs as soon as I have them available for purchase. Thanks so much for taking the time to read! Stay crunchy ;)