Where it all began

After making 90 or 100 3D Middle Earth CCG cards, I came back from GenCon with a ton of Alara Reborn cards, including a plethora of tokens. The first Magic card I ever made 3D was this Bird Soldier token:

I'll show the first card I ever made some day; it was a Lure of Nature from the Middle Eart CCG, art by Quinton Hoover. Hoover's old style of art is fantastic for making 3D because of the strong outlines around every object.

Sphinx of the Godhead

A little over a year ago a group of players on the mtgsalvation forums decided to build a deck for Sheldon Menery. They settled on Isperia the Inscrutable. I made this 3D Isperia around the same time:

One of the more common questions I get asked is "What do you do if you make a mistake?" Generally it's not a problem; I rarely make mistakes but when I do I can usually use that layer in a different spot where the mistake won't be visible. That sadly wasn't the case on Isperia; I made an incorrect cut on the last layer I was cutting and didn't have any more copies of Isperia to use to correct the mistake. If it had been a commission I would have tracked down another copy of Isperia, but since it was just for fun I let it go and constructed the card as it was.

Garfield, PhD

Phelddagrif and Karona, False God were the first two Legendary creatures I used to make 3D cards. While Karona was the first EDH deck I built in paper, I had a Phelddagrif Commander deck on Magic Online for a long time before that.

My paper Phelddagrif deck has gone through many changes, and is currently one of my favorite decks. It started as an Awkward Hug deck, but now is a very aggressive beatdown deck.

The Watcher in the Water

Before I stopped cutting up Middle Earth CCG cards, the Watcher in the Water with John Howe's art was in my queue to make 3D:

I wanted to cut it up because I thought that the intertwining tentacles would look really good in 3D. I switched to cutting Magic cards during Zendikar, which had a similarly tentacled creature:

  

I'd love to build a Lorthos Commander deck with Quest for Ula's Temple, but Wrexial, the Risen Deep is probably a better Commander for that deck since he has a lot more ways to tutor up the Quest.

Goat Cannibal Goes Berserk

My Atogatog deck is probably my strongest deck at killing one person at a Commander table. It's packed full of almost every Atog and good Changeling plus the best pump spells: Berserk, Fatal Frenzy, Tainted Strike, etc.

Of course, since it's an Atog deck it's full of supoptimal cards that fit the theme, including the abyssmal Barren Glory. I'd play The Cheese Stands Alone instead, but that's just overpowered.

Less Generous Than Zedruu

Since it's July 4th, I had to put up the only R/W/U 3D card I've made:

Thematically the R/W/U Commanders are along an interesting spectrum from "Greathearted" to "Jerk who blows up your lands" (with "Crazy Berserk" in the middle).

Transmuted Masterfully

In the process of working on this card (and thus staring at it for hours) I realized that the Master Transmuter's pose is pretty much impossible to hold with the human spine.

 

Then, I happened across @Rudjedet's blog, where she said basically the same thing while striking a nice Master Transmuter-inspired pose.

I guess that etherium is pretty awesome stuff.