Battle of the Bards: Pick the Bard to Lead the Deck

<p style="text-align: right;"><em>EDHREC lightning snail mascot commission | art by <a href="https://www.emmagudrian.com/?utm_source=edhrec&amp;utm_medium=article&amp;utm_campaign=snail">Emma Gudrian</a></em></p>
<p style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://shop.spacecowmedia.com/products/lightning-snail-playmat?utm_source=edhrec&amp;utm_medium=article&amp;utm_campaign=snail"><strong>Buy the lightning snail playmat at our official merch store here!</strong></a></p>
<p>Ever wondered what EDHREC's logo depicts? Since the beginning of the website, you've been looking at an "electric snail." But now, it's time to bring that snail to life.</p>
<p>Emma Gudrian, a graphic artist, is the artist to do just that, and she's been hard at work creating a new look for EDHREC's mascot!</p>
<p>Emma's work is featured on a <a href="https://shop.spacecowmedia.com/products/lightning-snail-playmat?utm_source=edhrec&amp;utm_medium=article&amp;utm_campaign=snail">brand new playmat available now</a> via the Space Cow Media merch store.</p>
<p>We'll be asking you at the end to take part in choosing a name for the little critter, but first, we took some time to interview Emma about the process behind her "electric snail" art piece. Here's what she had to say about it!</p>
<h2>Interview With Emma Gudrian</h2>
<p><a href="https://cloudflare.edhrec.com/articles/wp-content/uploads/2026/07/Emma-Gudrian_2026_Portrait.jpg"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignnone wp-image-189148" src="https://cloudflare.edhrec.com/articles/wp-content/uploads/2026/07/Emma-Gudrian_2026_Portrait.jpg" alt="" width="461" height="461" srcset="https://cloudflare.edhrec.com/articles/wp-content/uploads/2026/07/Emma-Gudrian_2026_Portrait.jpg 1808w, https://cloudflare.edhrec.com/articles/wp-content/uploads/2026/07/Emma-Gudrian_2026_Portrait-300x300.jpg 300w, https://cloudflare.edhrec.com/articles/wp-content/uploads/2026/07/Emma-Gudrian_2026_Portrait-1024x1024.jpg 1024w, https://cloudflare.edhrec.com/articles/wp-content/uploads/2026/07/Emma-Gudrian_2026_Portrait-150x150.jpg 150w, https://cloudflare.edhrec.com/articles/wp-content/uploads/2026/07/Emma-Gudrian_2026_Portrait-768x768.jpg 768w, https://cloudflare.edhrec.com/articles/wp-content/uploads/2026/07/Emma-Gudrian_2026_Portrait-1536x1536.jpg 1536w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 461px) 100vw, 461px" /></a></p>
<h3>Tell us about your art career. How did you first get into the industry? How many years have you been creating art?</h3>
<p>I’ve always loved to draw since I was a kid, before I even knew it could be a career. I enjoyed going to art class, learning just about everything I could there, and creating fan art for my favorite manga and video games. I grew up with all these different styles and worlds that inspired me to keep drawing and learning.</p>
<p>I pursued a BFA in Graphic Design and a minor in Studio Art, my makeshift Illustration major in a way, graduating in 2018. Since then, I’ve been in the creative industry for almost eight years now! While most of this time has been spent as a graphic designer and art director at an agency, my main goal has always been to be an illustrator. So in between long hours working on brand campaigns, websites, banner ads, and commercials, I spent the remainder of my time during the day continuing to illustrate for myself, honing my skills and style.</p>
<p>Yes, sometimes it led to burnout, but I’m grateful that I kept up with it. Because as of the beginning of 2026, I decided to take the leap and become a full-time illustrator working freelance, and it’s been amazing! It’s been nice having more time to create my cozy worlds and getting commission opportunities.</p>
<p>The focus of my personal work has evolved to cozy and whimsy. The aesthetic runs far with ideas such as a faun serving you a piping hot cup of coffee in an alpine cafe, a comfortable train ride with some spectral passengers, or simply soaking up the sun in a flourishing garden within a greenhouse with your friends.</p>
<p><a href="https://cloudflare.edhrec.com/articles/wp-content/uploads/2026/07/EGudrian_Sourdough-protected-intensity-LOW-V2.jpg"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignnone wp-image-189149" src="https://cloudflare.edhrec.com/articles/wp-content/uploads/2026/07/EGudrian_Sourdough-protected-intensity-LOW-V2.jpg" alt="" width="729" height="484" srcset="https://cloudflare.edhrec.com/articles/wp-content/uploads/2026/07/EGudrian_Sourdough-protected-intensity-LOW-V2.jpg 1620w, https://cloudflare.edhrec.com/articles/wp-content/uploads/2026/07/EGudrian_Sourdough-protected-intensity-LOW-V2-300x199.jpg 300w, https://cloudflare.edhrec.com/articles/wp-content/uploads/2026/07/EGudrian_Sourdough-protected-intensity-LOW-V2-1024x680.jpg 1024w, https://cloudflare.edhrec.com/articles/wp-content/uploads/2026/07/EGudrian_Sourdough-protected-intensity-LOW-V2-768x510.jpg 768w, https://cloudflare.edhrec.com/articles/wp-content/uploads/2026/07/EGudrian_Sourdough-protected-intensity-LOW-V2-1536x1019.jpg 1536w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 729px) 100vw, 729px" /></a></p>
<h3>How did EDHREC get you involved in this project?</h3>
<p>The EDHREC crew has been following my work for some time now. They found out about me back in 2025, when I had the opportunity to meet the team and network a little bit. It was cool to see many faces light up with immediate ideas for future projects that I could be a part of.</p>
<p>This particular project, however, I need to shout out my husband, Ben. The community might know him more through the Archidekt deck-building contest he helped run during 2025, and the work he does on <a href="https://archidekt.com/">Archidekt</a>. Ben saw a need for an artist on an idea being thrown around in the company Discord. No joke, he turned to me in our office and went, “Hey, wanna draw an electric snail?”</p>
<p>I dropped everything to sketch that little snail for the rest of the day. It was a fun little challenge that thankfully led to this project. That sketch that started it all is still in the vault; we’re hoping maybe to use it in the future.</p>
<p><a href="https://cloudflare.edhrec.com/articles/wp-content/uploads/2026/07/EGudrian_Skadi-Kafe_LowRes-protected.png"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignnone wp-image-189150" src="https://cloudflare.edhrec.com/articles/wp-content/uploads/2026/07/EGudrian_Skadi-Kafe_LowRes-protected.png" alt="" width="746" height="497" srcset="https://cloudflare.edhrec.com/articles/wp-content/uploads/2026/07/EGudrian_Skadi-Kafe_LowRes-protected.png 1650w, https://cloudflare.edhrec.com/articles/wp-content/uploads/2026/07/EGudrian_Skadi-Kafe_LowRes-protected-300x200.png 300w, https://cloudflare.edhrec.com/articles/wp-content/uploads/2026/07/EGudrian_Skadi-Kafe_LowRes-protected-1024x683.png 1024w, https://cloudflare.edhrec.com/articles/wp-content/uploads/2026/07/EGudrian_Skadi-Kafe_LowRes-protected-768x512.png 768w, https://cloudflare.edhrec.com/articles/wp-content/uploads/2026/07/EGudrian_Skadi-Kafe_LowRes-protected-1536x1024.png 1536w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 746px) 100vw, 746px" /></a></p>
<h3>What inspired you to go with a snail for the EDHREC mascot?</h3>
<p>The snail has been here the whole time! *<em>Insert Sam Reich/Dropout TV joke here</em>* The EDHREC logo is an electric snail, and we wanted to give this little logo the full character mascot treatment it deserves. We played around with parts of the snail a lot. Like, is the body long or stubby? Is the shell curved, or more jagged edges, to reflect the logo? Are they dark mode or light mode with their colors?</p>
<h3>Did you hide any Easter eggs in the art for this currently still-unnamed mascot?</h3>
<p>Oh absolutely! I wonder if everyone will find them all! Maybe the team will post an answer sheet of some kind in the future.</p>
<p><a href="https://cloudflare.edhrec.com/articles/wp-content/uploads/2026/07/EDHREC-Snail_Token_RGB.jpg"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignnone wp-image-189144" src="https://cloudflare.edhrec.com/articles/wp-content/uploads/2026/07/EDHREC-Snail_Token_RGB.jpg" alt="" width="392" height="547" srcset="https://cloudflare.edhrec.com/articles/wp-content/uploads/2026/07/EDHREC-Snail_Token_RGB.jpg 745w, https://cloudflare.edhrec.com/articles/wp-content/uploads/2026/07/EDHREC-Snail_Token_RGB-215x300.jpg 215w, https://cloudflare.edhrec.com/articles/wp-content/uploads/2026/07/EDHREC-Snail_Token_RGB-734x1024.jpg 734w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 392px) 100vw, 392px" /></a></p>
<h3>Did this mascot have a nickname while you were working on the piece? What was it, if so? Otherwise, what would you call the mascot if given the opportunity to name it?</h3>
<p>I kept calling them Eddie during development. It just stuck as soon as it came out of my head. I didn’t like just calling them “electric snail” all the time; they started developing a quirky personality in my head and needed a placeholder name.</p>
<h3>What techniques did you use to create this piece? How long did it take you?</h3>
<p>With my style, I’ve been striving to make sure it has evident painterly qualities. I love that you can tell that there was a hand that was making this, especially since I work digitally using Procreate on my iPad. I use a lot of brushes from Maxpacks, an artist who created brushes that emulate traditional mediums on a digital canvas. I love using their gouache brush set and the tech pen from their comic pack.</p>
<p>The painterly look I achieve is with a lot of loose, organic brush strokes while rendering shadow, light, etc. And I also love using hatching for those edges in the render. Gives it that handmade feel on a digital canvas and some energy to the piece.</p>
<p>For the composition itself, we kept it simple, showing the snail full front and in their little home. We wanted to make this more of an introduction to this little snail and its connection to EDHREC. As we were working on the comp, we wanted to reflect the original snail’s design in the EDHREC logo, which turned into actually having the logo reflected within the pond’s edge the snail was hanging out at. From there, it was a balancing act of what got the most detail, what had and what didn’t have linework to help push focus? How can the colors make the scene more interesting? How do we incorporate that he’s an electric snail in a cool way?</p>
<p>It was fun seeing the piece develop and change as we tried new things, changed colors around, and more as we got closer to the final look we landed on. And of course, the Easter eggs were a fun conversation. We had to stop ourselves from dropping in too many Easter eggs in this composition.</p>
<p>Overall, this piece took me a little over 32 hours start to finish.</p>
<h4><a href="https://cloudflare.edhrec.com/articles/wp-content/uploads/2026/07/EDHREC_Snail_Final_30-Sec-Speeddraw-Vid.mp4">Here's a 30-Second Time Lapse of Emma's Work</a></h4>
<h3>What is your next upcoming project, and where can we find it?</h3>
<p>I just finished a very cool project for a new client that I can’t talk about quite yet. But it will be public in August, so I’m excited for that.</p>
<p>More personally, I share what I’m creating that’s cozy and whimsical. We need more of that in the world. Specifically, I have started an ongoing project with my two witch characters, Cass and Amy. They are a cute couple that I love drawing in any cozy moment I can come up with. It’s been a fun world-building exercise that I started writing down and creating on multiple canvases. My goal is to get to a point where I could create a whole art book for them and their little world. It’s a moonshot idea.</p>
<p>You can find my work, and also projects I get to be a part of, like the one dropping in August, on my Instagram <em>@artsygud</em> or my website, <a href="http://www.emmagudrian.com"><em>www.emmagudrian.com</em></a>, where I have both my portfolio and a newsletter.</p>
<div id="attachment_189151" style="width: 750px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><a href="https://cloudflare.edhrec.com/articles/wp-content/uploads/2026/07/Emma-Gudrian-Self-Portrait-1.jpg"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-189151" class=" wp-image-189151" src="https://cloudflare.edhrec.com/articles/wp-content/uploads/2026/07/Emma-Gudrian-Self-Portrait-1.jpg" alt="" width="740" height="925" srcset="https://cloudflare.edhrec.com/articles/wp-content/uploads/2026/07/Emma-Gudrian-Self-Portrait-1.jpg 1080w, https://cloudflare.edhrec.com/articles/wp-content/uploads/2026/07/Emma-Gudrian-Self-Portrait-1-240x300.jpg 240w, https://cloudflare.edhrec.com/articles/wp-content/uploads/2026/07/Emma-Gudrian-Self-Portrait-1-819x1024.jpg 819w, https://cloudflare.edhrec.com/articles/wp-content/uploads/2026/07/Emma-Gudrian-Self-Portrait-1-768x960.jpg 768w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 740px) 100vw, 740px" /></a><p id="caption-attachment-189151" class="wp-caption-text"><span style="font-size: 8pt;"><strong>A self-portrait by Emma Gudrian</strong></span></p></div>
<h2>Conclusion</h2>
<p>A huge thanks to Emma Gudrian for allowing us to pick her brain about the art piece she has so graciously done for us!</p>
<p>And now, dear readers, we come to a slight dilemma. Our team has narrowed down the name for our awesome electric snail mascot to a few options. But now, we want you to choose one of them! This will be our mascot's name, so pick wisely! A poll is below for you to conveniently use. Please note we will only consider names from this poll, not suggestions in comments or social media. And as always, please let us know your thoughts in general down in the comments below!</p>
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Battle of the Bards: Pick the Bard to Lead the Deck

Help Name EDHREC's New Electric Snail Mascot