Transmissions: Matt Dixon Paints Rusty Robots Wandering a Quiet World That No Humans Ever Reached

Matt Dixon is a UK-based freelance illustrator and concept artist who has worked in the video games industry since 1988, with credits including Hearthstone, World of Warcraft, Electronic Arts, and Blizzard Entertainment.

Dixon is best known professionally for his colorful, over-the-top card art — his style has become closely associated with Hearthstone, where his cheerful, dynamic characters (like Fungalmancer and Annoy-o-Tron) are instantly recognizable each expansion. He describes his creative process as intuitive rather than analytical: he starts with a blank Photoshop canvas, listens to genre-appropriate music, and paints in a burst of enthusiasm, aiming for maximum color, fun, and energy. Earlier in his career, he also built a reputation for retro-styled pin-up and fantasy art, part Simon Bisley and part Frank Frazetta, published in books like “Thigh Voltage” and “The Fantasy Artist’s Figure Drawing Bible.”

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His most personal ongoing project is “Transmissions,” a series of digital paintings depicting lonely, rusted robot characters inhabiting a quiet, human-less natural world — perched in trees, beside the sea, startled by a stray balloon. He deliberately avoids explaining the robots or their world, treating each new painting as a chance to discover something rather than to answer a question, and inviting viewers to build their own narratives around the ambiguous scenes.