A disgruntled player at a PTQ actually called a judge on me in a match because he claimed my sleeves were too worn.
I had a player at a *pre-release* do that to me after I won the first game in the match to determine who finished 3-1. Not even 4-0...3-1. Apparently those packs were very important to him...
But back to my question I asked before, does anyone have tips/tricks for matching colors easily? Does anyone have any tips/tricks for making lighter coats of paint showing up?
This, IMO, is the hardest thing about altering cards. I really think anyone can do the art if they spend enough time on their project. I'm not saying that they'll all come out as good as, say, Yawg's work, but I think anyone can come up with a solid alter.
However, matching the colors is the hardest part. As you get more familiar with your paint, it becomes easier, but it's really a trial and error process.
Some suggestions-
-Get a white pallet. I use a cheap $.99 plastic one. The reason for this is that it gives you a surface to mix on that is totally devoid of pigment. Even though your paint itself will cover the pallet enough so that it doesn't matter what color it is, new painters sometimes get 'confused' by the color in the background while mixing.
-Try different ways of getting there. Sure, you can go straight for the cyan, but grab some cobalt blue and medium yellow, and see what shades you can get out of it. You'll be amazed.
-Think in terms of tint to find your mix. If you want to lighten a brown, don't blindly reach for the white. Try some lighter yellow. The same goes in the other direction. You'll get interesting effects using a deep blue or green to darken up a color.
Realistically, though, it's practice. You'll get very comfortable in time, but it takes plenty of hands-on. Believe me...I'm still learning. I probably took eight hours on the Scepter I just finished, because I was changing things, mixing colors, washing the card, re-mixing and trying something else, and so on. The more you do it, though, the better you'll get.
*A little tip to keep in mind when going for it - Remember, if you can't nail the color, you can always wash the color into the card art itself to blend!
As far as getting lighter coats of paint to show up, I take a note from my house-painting experience - primer. Paint the area in a coat or two of white before going to your desired color.
Are you using acrylic paint? If you use a slightly damp brush, you can do a pretty decent job of blending fresh paint.
For example, the background white you added to the right side of the O-Ring would be nearly spot-on if you brushed on the white, and then went back over it with the damp brush, drawing a little bit of the paint back into the card itself and smoothing the rest out.
It also works wonders for 'erasing' paint where you don't want it...like if you are painting against a border and slop a bit over the line.
exactly
i still think that the site must have 'unintentionally' more likely said something that seemed to lean towards claiming them as their own and not wizards/hasbro
I'm not sure if that's exactly it, but I think it's close; more similar to the disclamer you need to place on your altered cards before selling them on the auction site to note that you aren't the original artist and the card is not altered *by* the original artist. Otherwise, I really have no idea why this would be made illegal.
here is what another artist unrelated to magic had to say:
"From what I've been told, the artists who have done the paintings that were reproduced as cards in the series did so as "work for hire". Which means the company owns the rights to the image, but may choose to give the art back to the artist.
This, incidentally, is the reason that a lot of the older cards that have been re-printed have been given new artwork. Before 1995, the artists retained the copyrights to their creations, and the standard deal licensed the use to Wizards. Once the game took off, Wizards rewrote the contract the exact other way around so that the copyright was transferred to them, while still allowing the artist fair use as a clause. As a result, it is rumored that some of the original artists refused to work with Wizards further for that reason, and after those contracts expired, Wizards was no longer able to further use the art for promotion or for further reprints. (Incidentally, this is rumored to be one of the reasons that Magic Online will never be able to completely mirror the cardboard game.)
I don't know what this necessarily has or does not have to do with the current issue, but it is worth noting. (Heck...maybe all of us alteration artists should start sourcing stuff from Revised back to work on! ;))
In my opinion, I simply can't see Wizards having a leg to stand on here...at least here in the US. If all cards being altered and offered up for sale are legally owned by the person doing the selling, it's really no different than regular third-party sales of of "normal" cards. Technically, what's the difference between a markered card and a folded card? Both have been altered, but more importantly, both are legally owned. This would set up a prescident...only PSA-graded mint cards are allowed for resale, as all others are technically "altered"?
Pretty sure I could buy the Mona Lisa, paint a mustache on her, and sell her without the DaVinci estate slapping me with a lawsuit.
So we're basically talking preventing third-party sales. And I'm pretty sure that Wizards doesn't want that...
If you have ownership of something, you should be able to do what you want with it, including painting it and then selling it. This would be like if I decided to paint my WRX lime green and then sell it, and Subaru slapped me with a cease and desist order for trying to sell a car it made in a non-factory color. Good luck with that.
I'm pretty sure that, unless copyright laws are different overseas, if Magic Alter basically said, "Hey...I'm not doing anything but selling cards...just like Star City and all those other vendors. If you want to try to stop me, I'll have you talk to my laywer, but until then, I'm going to keep doing what I'm doing.", they'd be left alone.
Not to break off of the discussion, but it's been a while since I've had time to throw something together, so I wanted to post something I just finished up.
I figure people throw Orim's Chant on Isochron Scepter quite a bit, so I decided to throw Orim herself on a Scepter:
Pardon the glare...scanner is dead in the water, so it's camera city for the time being. (Too bad...looks way better in person!)
I have noticed something about extended arts which seems to happen very often and that is how the background of the original image isn't really extended as you can see in this one. It kinda looks like the image in the middle is 'deeper' in the card than the extension, the white lines even seem to bend over an invisible boarder and I have to say that I don't like that effect on most cards. Not to say those extensions aren't awesome, I'm just wondering if I'm the only one who noticed that... But anyways, keep up the good work, all of you are awesome
This tends to happen for several reasons. Right of the bat, the paint isn't going to match the sheen of the printed card, unless you do a lacquer layer (as some people do.) Usually, though, it is due to paint technique. The most common offender is not enough of a paint layer, leaving the addition slightly translucent, and thus showing the original background (or white if the card was cleared.)
The best way to combat this is to make sure you keep layering up until you reach the correct level of opacity in your paint, and by all means, blend paint into the existing image. This gives you much smoother transitions, and will prevent this effect nearly entirely.
Hey, I am lookin to have my planeswalkers altered. I would like to have them get full arts, please post if you are interested in doing any. The two major ones are Sarkhan Vol and Jace.
I would put up the following:
-Card(s) to be altered.
-Terms (Will ship to artist/artist must source cards, who pays shipping, etc)
-Offered compensation
-Desired alterations to cards.
That said, I could be interested if everything looks feasible.
Pretty Sweet, Omni. It kind of changes the feel of the card, though. Makes it seem a bit more comical. Beautifully done either way.
I was handed a Revised Wheel Of Fortune that someone markered the border in on at about the same time that I decided to give this a whirl, so I wanted to post my start (both altering cards, and on this particular one):
Sorry for the terrible yellow light...my scanner is down at the moment.
Anyway, I erased the borders and went in with acrylics. This is the rough fleshing in, and I intend to do some more blending and dig into the detail from here. I'll throw pics/scans up when complete.
I had a player at a *pre-release* do that to me after I won the first game in the match to determine who finished 3-1. Not even 4-0...3-1. Apparently those packs were very important to him...
--->DJ
This, IMO, is the hardest thing about altering cards. I really think anyone can do the art if they spend enough time on their project. I'm not saying that they'll all come out as good as, say, Yawg's work, but I think anyone can come up with a solid alter.
However, matching the colors is the hardest part. As you get more familiar with your paint, it becomes easier, but it's really a trial and error process.
Some suggestions-
-Get a white pallet. I use a cheap $.99 plastic one. The reason for this is that it gives you a surface to mix on that is totally devoid of pigment. Even though your paint itself will cover the pallet enough so that it doesn't matter what color it is, new painters sometimes get 'confused' by the color in the background while mixing.
-Try different ways of getting there. Sure, you can go straight for the cyan, but grab some cobalt blue and medium yellow, and see what shades you can get out of it. You'll be amazed.
-Think in terms of tint to find your mix. If you want to lighten a brown, don't blindly reach for the white. Try some lighter yellow. The same goes in the other direction. You'll get interesting effects using a deep blue or green to darken up a color.
Realistically, though, it's practice. You'll get very comfortable in time, but it takes plenty of hands-on. Believe me...I'm still learning. I probably took eight hours on the Scepter I just finished, because I was changing things, mixing colors, washing the card, re-mixing and trying something else, and so on. The more you do it, though, the better you'll get.
*A little tip to keep in mind when going for it - Remember, if you can't nail the color, you can always wash the color into the card art itself to blend!
As far as getting lighter coats of paint to show up, I take a note from my house-painting experience - primer. Paint the area in a coat or two of white before going to your desired color.
--->DJ
For example, the background white you added to the right side of the O-Ring would be nearly spot-on if you brushed on the white, and then went back over it with the damp brush, drawing a little bit of the paint back into the card itself and smoothing the rest out.
It also works wonders for 'erasing' paint where you don't want it...like if you are painting against a border and slop a bit over the line.
--->DJ
Moving on. Better find a Planeswalker, apparently... =p
--->DJ
I'm not sure if that's exactly it, but I think it's close; more similar to the disclamer you need to place on your altered cards before selling them on the auction site to note that you aren't the original artist and the card is not altered *by* the original artist. Otherwise, I really have no idea why this would be made illegal.
This, incidentally, is the reason that a lot of the older cards that have been re-printed have been given new artwork. Before 1995, the artists retained the copyrights to their creations, and the standard deal licensed the use to Wizards. Once the game took off, Wizards rewrote the contract the exact other way around so that the copyright was transferred to them, while still allowing the artist fair use as a clause. As a result, it is rumored that some of the original artists refused to work with Wizards further for that reason, and after those contracts expired, Wizards was no longer able to further use the art for promotion or for further reprints. (Incidentally, this is rumored to be one of the reasons that Magic Online will never be able to completely mirror the cardboard game.)
I don't know what this necessarily has or does not have to do with the current issue, but it is worth noting. (Heck...maybe all of us alteration artists should start sourcing stuff from Revised back to work on! ;))
--->DJ
Pretty sure I could buy the Mona Lisa, paint a mustache on her, and sell her without the DaVinci estate slapping me with a lawsuit.
So we're basically talking preventing third-party sales. And I'm pretty sure that Wizards doesn't want that...
If you have ownership of something, you should be able to do what you want with it, including painting it and then selling it. This would be like if I decided to paint my WRX lime green and then sell it, and Subaru slapped me with a cease and desist order for trying to sell a car it made in a non-factory color. Good luck with that.
I'm pretty sure that, unless copyright laws are different overseas, if Magic Alter basically said, "Hey...I'm not doing anything but selling cards...just like Star City and all those other vendors. If you want to try to stop me, I'll have you talk to my laywer, but until then, I'm going to keep doing what I'm doing.", they'd be left alone.
--->DJ
I figure people throw Orim's Chant on Isochron Scepter quite a bit, so I decided to throw Orim herself on a Scepter:
Pardon the glare...scanner is dead in the water, so it's camera city for the time being. (Too bad...looks way better in person!)
--->DJ
This tends to happen for several reasons. Right of the bat, the paint isn't going to match the sheen of the printed card, unless you do a lacquer layer (as some people do.) Usually, though, it is due to paint technique. The most common offender is not enough of a paint layer, leaving the addition slightly translucent, and thus showing the original background (or white if the card was cleared.)
The best way to combat this is to make sure you keep layering up until you reach the correct level of opacity in your paint, and by all means, blend paint into the existing image. This gives you much smoother transitions, and will prevent this effect nearly entirely.
--->DJ
--->DJ
I would put up the following:
-Card(s) to be altered.
-Terms (Will ship to artist/artist must source cards, who pays shipping, etc)
-Offered compensation
-Desired alterations to cards.
That said, I could be interested if everything looks feasible.
--->DJ
--->DJ
--->By the way...the Wasteland is in the mail, so stay tuned.
Here's the finished Strip Mine that I've been working on over the past week (and documenting the work in my thread in the main forum):
--->DJ
I think I'm good with it at this point as a first effort. Putting it to bed.
Here's the finished Disk; completed shadows and "shading" on the arm:
I think I may go at a Strip Mine next.
--->DJ
My scanner is doing some weird things too; pixellating and blurring things a bit. I can't figure out what the deal is.
In any case, here's a Disk I decided to do a color-matching study with:
And more progress (and better color from the scanner, although a bit pixellated) on the Wheel:
I was handed a Revised Wheel Of Fortune that someone markered the border in on at about the same time that I decided to give this a whirl, so I wanted to post my start (both altering cards, and on this particular one):
Sorry for the terrible yellow light...my scanner is down at the moment.
Anyway, I erased the borders and went in with acrylics. This is the rough fleshing in, and I intend to do some more blending and dig into the detail from here. I'll throw pics/scans up when complete.
Questions/comments/critiques/criticisms?
Thanks!
--->DJ