I'm still working on this method for making full art cards. So far I'm really really happy with it. I'm still experimenting on cheaper cards before I do anything serious because I really want to prefect the process first. I learn a ton from each card. All the art I'm using I got from Legend of the Cryptids--that game is a treasure trove of high resolution art.

A lot of people ask my why I don't make more proxies. Well, I don't make them too often because I'm super obsessive about my cards and want everything to be perfect.

Here's an example of one of my proxies:

Looks good right? --Wrong! If you look closely at the text you can see that it's just not quite right. Check out this 1200x scan of this proxy next to a real magic card: 

(Yes I spelled original wrong I'd fix it but I'm lazy)

As you can see the text looks a little bit blurry (Laser jet looks much worse so I don't even include it in comparison). This is the problem with my proxies--I just never figured out a way to reproduce the text quality of a real magic card. Even if I had an offset printing press I would still need to get the same plates that Wizzard's uses.

The image quality of inkjets, on the other hand, is much nicer than offset lithography.  Look at the bottom part of the border under the manna symbols. Inkjet doesn't have the dots that you see in offset printing. 

Anyway, this is why I like making alternate art cards. You get amazing art and the same feel of a real card!

When Teriese Neilson posted her alternate art version of Hanna, Ship's Navigator I knew I had to have one. Oh wait... it doesn't exist!! Why don't you print this wizards!? Fortunately I can just alter my existing Hanna!

I've got a special treat for you today.

I've been working pretty hard on trying to find a way to make full art cards look even sweeter. When I came up with this method for blending the existing template into the art I wasn't sure it would work. When I printed my first test it blew my mind. Here's my first attempt:

I think there is a lot of room for improvement but as you can see in general the tech looks pretty sweet. 

Here's my second attempt: 

I love how I can play around with making the original template transparent! Stay tuned. I'm pretty excited to explore this style of full art and see what else I can come up with. I love this style because I can use the original text of the card. The truth is no commercial printers (laser jet or inkjet) can print text as well as offset lithography. Inkjet images are actually higher quality than offset lithography so here we get the best of both worlds! These are some stunning stunning cards.

I'm still trying to find the best font for full art cards with complex images for the background. Stephanie Mun Law is amazing though. I wish she would do actual card art. 

Me experimenting with full art cards with old border. 

Here's a sweet cancel I just finished.