Why Illustrators Should Target Brotherwise Games for Fantasy Tabletop Commissions

As IGN's rundown makes clear, Brotherwise is the official partner handling Brandon Sanderson's Cosmere in the board game space, and they just keep shipping — with another big title teased by wargamer.com as a three-hour fantasy world war with some promising twists.

Brotherwise is the studio to watch

Here's what I keep telling people who ask me about getting into TCG and board game art: follow the publishers, not just the IPs. Brotherwise built their reputation on titles like Boss Monster and Call to Adventure, and they've now positioned themselves as the home for Cosmere on the tabletop. Their existing Cosmere line is already substantial — a Stormlight Archive card-drafting game built on the Call to Adventure system, a Cosmere RPG with a Starter Set and a Stonewalkers Adventure for structured campaigns, and the Mistborn: The Deckbuilding Game where 1-4 players build decks while learning to burn metals as allomancers, working toward missions and taking out rivals or the Lord Ruler himself in an optional cooperative mode.

What that means for you, practically, is a publisher with an active slate, a recognizable fantasy property, and a clear appetite for new releases. That's a combination worth studying before you start sketching.

The art angle in plain language

IGN points to the Mistborn deckbuilder as having strong artwork alongside its solid gameplay, and that's the word you should be circling in your head when you build a portfolio aimed at this kind of work. Board game and TCG illustration isn't about painting the most detailed piece you can. It's about readability at card size, strong silhouettes, and characters that read instantly across a table covered in dice and snack crumbs.

Think about what these games actually need on the page. A deckbuilder like Mistborn calls for a roster of characters — Vin, Kelsier, and the rest — where every figure needs to be instantly recognizable, where color and costume do the heavy lifting before any text reads. When you shrink a painting down to two inches across a tabletop, subtle glazing and quiet color transitions disappear. You need pop, clear focal hierarchy, and palettes that survive bad lighting over a game table.

What's next to track on your watchlist

Two things worth circling. First, wargamer.com has teased this new three-hour Cosmere world war game with promising twists — the details are still thin, but a longer-format Cosmere title from Brotherwise is exactly the kind of project that opens fresh commission briefs and could pull in a roster of new illustrators.

Second, the Mistborn: The Deckbuilding Game is getting an expansion covering the Well of Ascension, the second Mistborn book. An expansion means new cards, new characters, and almost certainly new art drops. If you're building a portfolio for fantasy TCG or board game work, those are the briefs to reverse-engineer. Study the existing Mistborn card art for what the publisher clearly responded to, then make work that shows you can do the same — clear character reads, dynamic action beats, and costumes that broadcast the allomantic powers at a glance.

The Cosmere keeps expanding. So does the queue of artists who want in.