CGC Cards Artist Showcase: Steve Argyle

When it comes to pop culture collectibles, the artwork displayed on a comic, card, video game or home video collectible is — to put it mildly — significant. Some collectors will center their collections around one or more artists due to a preference in art style, proving just how impactful an artist’s work is to a product’s success.

To celebrate these artists’ accomplishments and contributions to our favorite TCGs — and to celebrate the launches of CGC x JSA and CGC Signature Series for cards, services to certify signed cards by these artists — CGC Cards™ is dedicating a regular series to artists and their work on TCGs, collectible card games and other pop culture collectibles. In this article, we showcase Steve Argyle.

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About Steve Argyle

Steve Argyle is an American artist well-known for his work on Dungeons & Dragons, Magic: The Gathering and Legend of the Five Rings. Since childhood, Argyle was obsessed with creating, whether it was through an art medium or a science experiment. His passions included comics, video games and Dungeons & Dragons, which eventually paved the way for his career as an artist. Although he apparently only took one semester of professional classes in art college, Argyle remains a very successful artist to this day. To learn more about Steve Argyle, visit his website here.

Steve Argyle and Magic: The Gathering

Argyle’s first illustrations for Magic: The Gathering appeared in the series’ 2008 Shards of Alara set. His artwork appeared on three cards within the set: Sunseed Nurturer, Yoked Plowbeast and Naya Battlemage. Focusing on oil paintings and 3D modeling, Argyle’s artwork creates fantastical, beautiful and detailed pieces, which often result in fan-favorite cards. Some of his most beloved cards are listed below:

Kresh the Bloodbraided (2011)

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Kresh the Bloodbraided, according to Argyle, is a card that was inspired by some of the least likely corners of nature. This can be seen particularly on Kresh’s shield — he has a sea turtle shell wrapped around his wrist as an arm guard. Meanwhile, Kresh’s flavor text mentions that “each of his twenty-two braids is bound with bone and leather from a foe,” and Argyle delivers in the many details shown in Kresh’s individually braided hair.

Liliana of the Veil (2011)

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Behind Jace, Liliana of the Veil is one of the most recognized Planeswalkers in Magic: The Gathering. Her -6 ability allows the player to separate all permanents that a target player controls into two players, then sacrifice all permanents in one of the piles of their choosing. Steve Argyle’s interpretation of the dark mage appeared in Innistrad, which was released in 2011.

Renewed Faith (2023)

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Renewed Faith has three different artwork variants, all from different artists. The first set to include the card was 2002’s Onslaught, which featured artwork by Dave Dorman, and the second set was 2017’s Amonkhet, which featured an illustration by Wesley Burt. Steve Argyle’s artwork was featured in Masters 25, which was released a year later in 2018. Unlike Dorman and Burt’s full-art scenes, Argyle focused his artwork on a close-up of a cleric, praying within a cathedral.

According to an 2019 interview conducted by BigAR, Argyle says that creating artwork for reprints of iconic cards, such as Renewed Faith, is intimidating. However, if he had to choose the challenging objects to paint, it would be horses.

If you liked these cards featuring Steve Argyle’s artwork, be sure to check out his website for more of his illustrations and other works. Also, keep an eye out for more CGC Cards Artist Showcase columns in the future.

About CGC

Since revolutionizing comic book grading in 2000, CGC has grown to include certification services for a vast variety of pop culture collectibles. These divisions include CGC Cards, CGC Video Games and CGC Home Video. CGC Cards provides expert card grading for sports cards, TCGs and non-sports cards. CGC Video Games is dedicated to video game grading for the most popular consoles, including Nintendo, Sega, Atari, PlayStation and more. CGC Home Video provides expert VHS grading in addition to other types of videocassettes, DVD, Blu-ray and more.