Anthony S. Waters

Anthony S. Waters is an artist who started illustrating Magic: The Gathering during Legends and eventually became a driving force behind the style of many sets.

History
His early artwork employed oil styles such as gouache and isn't quite as memorable as his later endeavors. Waters eventually switched to sketching in pencil and finishing with various digital media, helping to develop a distinctive and easily recognizable style that is both impressionistic and abstract. His illustrations have become synonymous with the bizarre and is often a go-to-guy for bringing the abstract to life in things such as elementals, fungi, and horrors. Outside of Magic he has worked for Hidden City Games, Microsoft, Sony Online, and Lucasfilm amongst others. He graduated with an Associates of Arts from North Seattle Community College (1988) and a Bachelors of Arts from the Evergreen State College (1990). He has also received formal training in animation, pastels, figure drawing, and painting.

Alienation, isolation, anger aimed inward and outward, love, sacrifice and loss. Those things interest me most.

Waters was last active during Alara Reborn and in 2010 was working on the game Nihilistic as well as teaching digital painting at the Laguna College of Art and Design. Through his work as a concept artist and illustrator he has become good friends with many Magic artists including Rob Alexander, John Avon, Lars Grant-West, Jeremy Jarvis, Mark Tedin, and Todd Lockwood. He currently lives in Trabuco Canyon, California and maintains a highly active online presence via DeviantART and his blog Elephantiasis.

Concept Artwork
For the first portion of his career, Waters merely did spot concepts for the style guide, but starting with Kamigawa block he began doing extensive preconcept work. Some his most notable work with the style guide includes the preconception of the Ravnica basic lands. You can also see his influence and general moodiness throughout Time Spiral. For Lorwyn he was brought in to lend his surreal and abstract vision to the elementals. By Shadowmoor, he had returned to merely doing spot concept work such as coloring.