Mana Symbols in Vector

[Korath]

This doesn't look quite right, but I'll have a hard time improving on it until we have a larger source image.

PGU.png (2.79 KiB) Viewed 8729 times

[Korath]

The hybrid symbols in our collections (both attached to FP of this thread and Dathorin's dropbox) use two different solid-color paths for the background circle. This causes a single-pixel-wide semi-transparent seam at the join in most rasterizers, no matter the rendering size. I've attached versions of both the 2-color and monocolor hybrid symbols that just use a <circle/> with a hard-edged gradient. Here's Inkscape's rasterizations of the WU symbol at 30px over a red background, which makes the seam particularly visible; old version on the left.

Hybrid WU comparison.png (1.25 KiB) Viewed 8607 times

Also, the background colors on the Phyrexian symbols aren't the same as the normal mana symbols. Tamiyo, Compleated Sage is the first card to make it really obvious by putting the two types of symbols right next to each other, but they've always been darker and more saturated - you can compare them on the same card in the reminder text.

C15 Act of Aggression.png (15.1 KiB) Viewed 8607 times

I'm currently using W=#eee7a0 U=#91b0c3 B=#8b7870 R=#c87550 G=#81a583. I'm not really happy with them; it's hard to extract them from the scans, since the symbols are printed almost at the same scale as the halftoning.

Phyrexian colors.png (10.5 KiB) Viewed 8607 times

Still no good scans of Tamiyo, Compleated Sage yet, so no update on {G/U/P}. I can't make out the proper size of the Phyrexian symbols, or whether (as it seems) they're a different, thicker version than on the single-colored symbols. It clearly does use same darker colors as the other Phyrexian mana symbols, though, not the normal green/blue as in the version I posted above.

[Korath]

It's clearest in the watermarks (example), unless you take the poison token card as canonical.

[proud]

Korath, I appreciate the work here.

I had a discussion with some people in a smaller circle, and came to the conclusion that people are using the wrong source for the Phyrexian mana symbol.

For example, Act of Aggression has three different symbols that are all different: the mana in the top right corner and in the rules text, the watermark, and the set symbol.



Where I think people are pulling it from is from this page: https://magic.wizards.com/en/articles/a ... 2011-05-03

Featuring this image:


Here’s a closer look with scan, and Wizard’s hastily put-together Phyrexian symbol from their site


My observation is this is the watermark they used. The strokes are not thick enough, nor straight enough on the mana symbol.

Here’s another close-up, but from a Scryfall scan of Spellskite:


The vertical line is very straight, and thicker.

What we need is a straighter, thicker stroke for the mana symbol.

[Korath]

I agree, and I'd been uneasily eyeballing the bottom two images in my post above for the past few days. The printed symbols in the scans look like they'd be a closer match to the symbols on phyrexian hybrid too.

I can probably isolate the vertical slash from the circle in the svg we have, and if successful can see if rescaling the two independently results in something looking like the scans. I do want to emphasize, though, that I am no manner of artist, and if it becomes necessary to redo the symbol from scratch - especially if we have no good source clearer than these scans - I'm not the person to do it.

Any thoughts on the colors? The symbols in the main mana cost of the NPH Act of Aggression scan seem a shade lighter than the one in the reminder text, though still darker than the normal R. I couldn't see any difference in the C15 version that I was using as a reference.

----

I think this is about the best I'll be able to do. Color chosen solely to match that one scan.

click for animation

[proud]

Any thoughts on the colors? The symbols in the main mana cost of the NPH Act of Aggression scan seem a shade lighter than the one in the reminder text, though still darker than the normal R. I couldn't see any difference in the C15 version that I was using as a reference.

I think you’re right. The Phyrexian symbols do seem to use a darker tone in the mana symbol. That’s something I‘ll have to adjust in the future on MTG.Design.

[Mnemonic]

Hi,

the vector symbols here are fantastic work. I'm glad to contribute some missing ones:

Black Mana Symbols from ABU.

There are two distinct versions, which can't be just due to printing variation. Both of them exist in Alpha, but only version 2 was used for cards added or changed in Beta (Swamp and Demonic Hordes).

The fine details are mainly conjecture, as they are largely obliterated by the dot pattern of the background shading.

[cmd]

Hello all,

I needed some symbols that don't actually exist. I was looking for tribrid and 5-color (pentabrid?) symbols for a little organizational project I was working on, and couldn't find any that looked like what I wanted nor in vector, so I put together some. Figured I'd share them here in case anyone else wanted them. I'll probably go back and do tetrabrid symbols at some point too, but just didn't need them yet.

Cheers

tribrid and pentabrid symbol preview

Edit to add:

ADHD strikes again, and I went ahead and threw together some 4-color (tetrabrid) symbols. Couldn't decide if I liked them "straight on" or rotated so they looked a little more similar to the tribrid ones I did. They're not perfect, but they'll do for now. In particular, I don't love the sizing I used in terms of how the red symbol lines up in the rotated ones where it appears first or third.

tetrabrid (and rotated) symbol preview