Altering cards a question
General forum
Posted on Aug. 23, 2014, 10:46 p.m. by Lordofevolution
Hello TappedOut community mainly the ones that alter cards on a regular basis. I have a couple questions on different subjects I'm trying to start altering cards and have done one unsuccessfully so I decided to ask for help. Thanks in advance.
What do you do to begin? I have seen people erase the borders is that a good idea or no? If not what is the correct way to do it? And what is the best eraser to use?
What are the best paint brands to alter with and what brands do I avoid?
Are older style cards better to practice altering with or the modern frame?
And how much do you charge for an alter just wondering for if I get really good.
Finally if there is any advice you could give me that would be great thanks a bunch!
HorrorAvengers says... #4
Number 1 think I wish I could have done when I got started; get good paints. Acrylic is, in my experience, by far the best paint to use. But not just type. Most of the paints I used were pretty high quality, but damn yellow. It almost didn't matter how thick it got painted, the underlaying color still showed through.
If you water down your white or gray (I like a white basecoat, grey is the generally used color), you don't need to scratch off the ink. Another thing you can do instead of white basecoat is putting tape over what you wanna keep, and use acetone to strip off the ink. That saves you a layer of paint, and is slightly faster. However, I would never do this on an expensive card, as if you screw it up at all, it is immensely difficult to repair.
As for price, I've been getting roughly $20+ over original value, more for more expensive card (I did a JTMS a couple weeks ago that went for $190) or less for lands (I usually charge between 7-15$ for land).
Brands, I LOVE liquitex. Professional is what I use on my basecoats, and after a single thin layer I can get it primered enough that I can go ahead and alter. For my colors I use liquitex basic, it's cheaper and works just as well, and waters down easier (Professional tends to hold bubbles when mixing. Not a good thing.). For the love of god stay away from artist loft. I have had nothing but bad experience with it.
My experience; Practice gradiation. A lot. Master it. Then practice more. And a little bit more. I could make an alter with the most pristine, perfect, flawless detail, and the later would be worthless if the gradiation on the sky or background is bad. Where as you can get away (not as well, but decently) with mediocre detail but exceptional gradiation. Also, color Identification is super important, BUT if you screw up the color, running the alter into the original work is easy enough.
Good luck!
Epochalyptik says... #2
You can't erase cards. You need to scrape the printed layer off with an X-Acto knife. Don't try to slice the layer off; just scrape it as though you were scraping ice off a car window. Most people simply paint over the card instead.
In general, borderless alters are nice because you can keep the original art intact and avoid obscuring essential information.
I don't know anything about brands, but use only acrylic paints.
I don't think there's a "best set" for altering. The cards are pretty much uniform. I have noticed that some of the newer sets appear a bit glossier, which may be a problem. Perhaps you could crosshatch the to-be-painted surfaces with an X-Acto or sandpaper so it holds the paint a bit better.
Don't worry about what you're going to charge. Popular artists like CardKitty can get $50+ per alter for time, materials, and skill. Beginners often charge $5-10 above default value while they learn.
Avoid painting too thickly. One of the reasons people avoid some alters is because they're thick enough to be considered marked. Also, thick paint generally looks worse.
Practice on commons and uncommons. Work on building a portfoilio of art first, especially because learning runs often mean mistakes. Think about creating a full 3x3 binder page with various alters (a creature, artifact, land, etc.) to showcase your abilities.
August 23, 2014 11:52 p.m.