Marchesa: Queen of Pain (100% Altered)

Commander / EDH* Older20

SCORE: 159 | 69 COMMENTS | 20776 VIEWS | IN 70 FOLDERS

A Passion Project —Oct. 14, 2018

Hi! I have been working on this deck for over a year now - in more ways than one:

It has come a long way from a group slug deck with cards like Ankh of Mishra and Spellshock to the beast it is today.

The budget of the deck has increased significantly as I have traded for fancier additions to my favourite deck. Demonic Tutor and Vampiric Tutor were big moments for me!

I discovered Xmage and since have played over 100 games with this deck and its various iterations. Still not bored of it! Often, when I am playing one of my other decks and stuck in a tight spot, I wish I was playing this deck and had access to all the tools it offers.

And lastly - I have been slowly altering this deck with full-art borderless painted alters. At the time of writing I have completed 70 cards in the deck, including Queen Marches herself. This update is about my experience with altering.

I am a graphic designer by trade but am no great painter. I've always doodled with pen and paper and done a little painting at university - but I'm far from great. A few years ago I decided to learn how to paint Magic cards. It was truly a humbling experience as I experienced the unique frustration of being much worse at something than I thought I should be. Nevertheless it challenged me to improve and develop my skills. It also excited me to combine two things I had great interest in.

I spent a long time rummaging through my bulk commons and uncommons; picking out cards that I thought would work well as full art alters. I bought paint, brushes, made a makeshift palette out of wet paper towel and baking paper, and I went to work. At first my work seemed hit and miss - occasionally I thought I did a great job where all the colours matched up and the lines were clean. More often than not, however, the colours would be slightly off, the paint spilled over into the text box, the paint dried too quickly or too slowly, and so on.

But I got better. I have learned that the number one quality one should practise while altering is patience. You just can't rush it. You can't get frustrated. Those two things will never produce good work. It turns out that red and yellow paints are quite transparent - so you need many more layers of those paints to blot out the black border beneath and properly match the card art. It takes patience as you wait for each thin layer to dry, and restraint to hold off simply adding more and more paint.

Another thing that has helped me improve is recognising that an entire job doesn't need to be done all at once. Its fine to leave a card unfinished, or to know that you will have to revisit the painting. You can get 90% of it done and come back weeks later - it actually often produces better results as it allows you to see the work with new eyes. You will spot mistakes that you didn't notice before, and make improvements which you wouldn't have otherwise. You will also have a much easier foundation to work from as 90% of the work is done. So although 70% of the deck is now done, every now and then I'll pull out a half dozen cards that I'm not quite happy with and give them a quick touch up.

Once I have finished altering the deck I plan on making a Deck Tech video featured all the altered cards. But for now I wanted to put down some thoughts on the altering process. I hope it has been of interest.

Cheers!