Blinded by the light

After a long wait, I finally finished my first all-foil card, the From the Vaults version of Rith, the Awakener. When it comes to 3Ding, foils present a number of difficulties compared to regular cards. Two big ones are:
1) Foils are much harder to cut, so doing fine details is very difficult.
2) When you cut open a foil, you expose not only the inner white (which normally is easy to color away with a pen) but also the plain foil layer (which can't be colored away with a pen). This makes edging tricky; some spots will have shiny dots or lines because of the foil peeking out.

While working on Rith, I discovered another issue. The "memory" of foil cards (their tendency to revert back to their original shape) means that shaping & molding of parts of the card doesn't work as well as with normal cards. I tried to mold the top layer of trees to ripple and bend in multiple directions to give it more depth, but each time it would return to mostly-flat after a couple hours.

Despite the challenges, Rith turned out really well!

The More Popular Brother of Rosheen Meanderer

The episode of Avant-Card Show I was on is currently up over at their site and on MtGCast.com. This is the Brion Stoutarm that I talked about during the show. I also featured it in my most recent article; there's not much to add to what I said there so I'll just link you over to it.

He Fronts a Math Rock Band from Ohio

When I made this 3D Craw Wurm for my first article over on GatheringMagic.com, I wasn't sure what I was going to do with it afterwards. I chose the card because it was a favorite of mine when I started playing but didn't know if anyone would want it.

Imagine my surprise when someone immediately contacted me looking to trade for it. Since then, I've had two more requests for a 3D Craw Wurm. I guess I wasn't the only one who considered it a favorite.

No idea what an Asura is

Last night I was a guest on the Avant-Card Show along with Eric Klug. Debbie recently commissioned us to make cards for her cohosts; Klug made a set of Avatar of Whoa for Christian and I made this Jenara, Asura of War for Brian and a Brion Stoutarm for Andrew.

 Art elements that float in the foreground such as Jenara's emblems are a problem for 3D alterers. I haven't found a perfect solution, but in this case I decided to raise them out and shift them to the background.

On both the Jenara and the Brion I also raised the mana symbols in the text box (and tap symbol on Brion), something I rarely do.

Lady in Pink

This is still one of my favorite 3D cards, and one I wish I still had. Shaving and weaving the pieces of her robe and hair took a ton of time but the result was pretty great. Sadly I didn't get great pictures before I sold it.

I'm leaving for GenCon in half an hour - if you're there, find me in the TCG hall.

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.