By Edward Guise

Welcome! I approached Magic Madhouse asking if I could do something a little different with them, and they gave me the opportunity to write an article about my hobby, which is of course Magic-related, but takes a little step away from the norm. Instead of looking at the latest decks, analysing the newest spoilers or discussing drafting strategies, I’m here to focus on a slight more artistic side of Magic; that of card altering.

Altered cards can be found all over the internet and often in people’s collections, usually favourite cards, often displayed as centrepieces. Altering a card normally involves changing the face of the card in some way; ranging from a simple signature (probably the artist’s), to sketches and painting that change the artwork, to a full-scale re-painting that covers the entire card face. My altering work, however, goes a step further. Whereas signed and painted cards can be played in decks and can be tournament legal… these, not so much.

Whilst my artistic skills with a pen or paintbrush might leave much to be desired, three-dimensional altered cards only really require a good sharp craft knife and a steady hand. This is something I’ve wanted to try my hand at for years, but only recently did I pluck up enough courage to actually take knife to card. Here’s how my first attempt looked:

I hope this picture shows off the 3D effect nicely; the way the card has been built up is clearly visible, but equally, some of the flaws are obvious. The edges of the darker parts of the [mtg_card]Whitemane Lion[/mtg_card] stand out significantly and the cuts are somewhat crude. Clearly there was a lot of room for improvement, and over time I’ve had the chance to test out different techniques and effects. Here is one of my more recent pieces:

Immediately it is clear that in a relatively short time my work has come quite a way. [mtg_card]Young Wolf[/mtg_card]’s artwork is similar to that of the [mtg_card]Whitemane Lion[/mtg_card], with both animals central to the artwork and both apparently moving towards you at some speed, so they are good pieces to draw comparisons between. With [mtg_card]Young Wolf[/mtg_card] there are no longer any white edges, the cuts are cleaner and the layering effect is much improved. Even the surrounding details have received some attention, both the trees in the background and the leaves in the foreground.

So there are a few of my works, but wait, why would anyone want to cut up and alter cards in this way? It’s evident that they are hardly going to be playable, at least not as part of a normal deck. If the card face is altered or even re-painted then that card will still fit in a sleeve, but these 3D alters are many times the thickness of a single card.

Consider, however, that not all cards are there to go into decks. Most players have favourite cards, and many are interested in owning unique pieces for their collection, and favourites don’t always have to be expensive rares; often the humble common has more sentimental value to a player than the latest chase mythic. More common cards are ideal for 3D altering as multiple copies will generally be inexpensive to acquire, and with relative ease.

Another huge potential for 3D altered cards is Commander. Since a deck’s Commander normally resides in either the command zone or on the battlefield, it does not necessarily need to fit in with the rest of the deck. Wizards have given players a number of oversized legendary cards, why not have a Commander who is ten cards thick instead? They certainly stand out during a game and look impressive, and they will fit in a normal deck box too! The down-side is of course that most (if not all) Commanders are Rare cards, but most are still reasonably in-expensive. [mtg_card]Sasaya, Orochi Ascendant[/mtg_card] was the first Commander I altered.

Another card type that never belongs in a deck but which is still commonly seen on the battlefield is tokens. Token cards are ideal for altering, since most are fairly common, can see a lot of use and tend to have fantastic artwork, usually focussed heavily on the creature but still with enough surrounding detail to keep it looking interesting.

The bird token shown above hasn’t actually been sleeved, so the wing even extends out of the face of the card.

Double-faced cards can also be used in a similar way to tokens. Checklist cards are there to be used in the deck, leaving the card itself free. Naturally, I had to give this a go.

These images are both sides of the same card, a huge 13 card layers thick in total!

Returning to the more technical side of 3D altering, how is this 3D effect best achieved? The basic concept is simple; take a number of the same card, cut them up, and put the pieces back together. In practice, it’s not quite that simple. The card art has to lend itself to being altered, extra small details are especially difficult to work with. That isn’t to say that the artwork cannot be detailed of course, but the best results come from artworks with good depth. See this [mtg_card]Mass of Ghouls[/mtg_card], for example:

The artist has already done much of the work, with the layers being clearly set out in the art, but by picking out the smaller details the 3D effect can be enhanced further still by emphasising features such as the background weaponry and the foremost zombie’s mouth. The unique Future Sight border even received some attention, with the mana symbols being raised and set into the frame.

As well as stacking layers on top of one-another, many artworks have parts that appear to intertwine, and when raised into 3D these effects can really stand out. [mtg_card]Vizzerdrix[/mtg_card] is a simple yet effective example to help demonstrate this:

Here, the creature itself is a single piece, but the real effect comes from working with the branches of the trees in which he is sat. Each branch was left attached to one of the layers of the card, then by gently bending pieces they can be made to move towards or away from the viewer as necessary. As such the branch on which [mtg_card]Vizzerdrix[/mtg_card] is stood actually slopes into the card, disappearing behind the tree on the right. Of course the best results are achieved through using both stacking and bending effects to achieve the necessary layering. [mtg_card]Vizzerdrix[/mtg_card] was one of my early cards – were I to do it again then I’d now feel able to add much more depth to the card by building up the layers of the “piranha-bunny” as well as adding more shape to the intertwining branches.

[mtg_card]Porcelain Legionnaire[/mtg_card] is one of my best cards to date:

This card required both detailed layering and careful bending of parts, in addition to the delicate cuts that had to be made! I’m especially happy with this piece since it was one of the first that I really wanted to try to make in 3D, but having just started I thought it would be beyond my ability for some time. It was just half a year on when I gave [mtg_card]Porcelain Legionnaire[/mtg_card] a go and it turned out exactly the way I’d hoped it would, if not better.

Making a card look fantastic isn’t just down to small details and careful cuts. Whenever a Magic card is cut (I say this as if people do it all the time…), the cut leaves a bright white line at its edge which tends to draw the viewer’s attention away from the 3D effect. I pointed this issue out on [mtg_card]Whitemane Lion[/mtg_card], but notice that none of the other cards suffer from the same problem. There is a simple solution to get rid of this unwanted artefact, called “edging”. Edging requires taking some form of pen and going around the edge of every single piece that has been cut out. I started by using a fine black marker, but artist-style brush pens seem to be more ideal. Black tends to be the standard edging colour, but sometimes darkening the edge of a brightly coloured piece can look worse than it being white in the first place. Therefore it is best to have a range of colours available, even if it’s just a range of greys.

When edging, care must be taken not to allow the ink to bleed into the artwork of the card. This is why markers can often be bad; on brightly coloured artworks the ink tends to bleed and ruin the original colour, which is especially problematic when edging really small details. This is why I’ve found an artist brush pen to be more suited to the task.

In a similar fashion, raising a piece of artwork also causes problems as the back-most layer still contains the original image. This is another thing which can really distract the eye from the 3D effect, especially when viewing the card from an angle. Hopefully in most of the cards I’ve shown so far this issue hasn’t been obvious, and that’s because I use another simple trick to re-colour the background: Paint!

Here is another shot of [mtg_card]Sasaya, Orochi Ascendant[/mtg_card] from part-way through the altering process. The painted sections are clear, with the intention of making it look like the sky continues behind the trees. It may seem as though this bright-coloured paint would still stand out, but the best thing about this little trick is that the paint colour does not have to match the art exactly. Nor does the painting have to be particulalry neat (In fact I’ve discovered that a blended or rough edge actually helps mask the unwanted background even better than a clean edge). Once the trees are placed over the top they too shadow the area behind them, making the difference in sky colour between the artwork and the pain look almost natural. Crucially, the eye is no longer drawn to the “double image” of the background and when focussed on the 3D effect the paintwork is barely even noticible.

Another way aroud the problem of background art is to use a different piece for the background all together. This [mtg_card]Raging Goblin[/mtg_card] was given a nice backdrop using some [mtg_card]Mountain[/mtg_card]s.

Since I’m altering these cards anyway then sometimes it is nice to add a little customisation, just to make them stand out even further. For these two cards, I added a little bit of foiling into the art:

Cards like these have parts that naturally lend themselves to being foiled. You may have noticed earlier that Sasaya also contained some foiling, but here the foil effect is more of a detail placed within the card rather than being added on top. Foiling isn’t always appropriate, since the foil layer is more difficult to cut cleanly and harder to edge nicely, but set into the artwork in this way it just gives the card that little bit extra.

Since these 3D cards are made up of so many layers, the artwork isn’t the only thing that can act as “design space”. What about the text box? Cutting all that cardboard away leaves a good amount of space for something else to be added. Here’s a [mtg_card]Nivix Cyclops[/mtg_card] life-counter.

So I’ve given some detail of my altering work, how I go about creating some of the effects and provided a number of examples of my work. Fancy trying this at home? A knife and glue are the only essentials, although a cutting surface is probably desirable too (tip: thin cardboard works fine). Pens and paints of various colours are optional, but recommended.

A first attempt may not turn out the way it was imagined, just like my [mtg_card]Whitemane Lion[/mtg_card], but don’t be disheartened; every single cut, line or brush stroke is a step towards improvement. To show off your work, try to take the best photographs possible. Most cameras lack the depth-of-field necessary to capture how good these cards look in person, but it is still worth getting the best shots you can.

On top of this, be sure to show them off. The front pages of my trade binder are now stocked with 3D cards, which usually impress anyone looking through for trades, and they certainly stand out at the gaming table!

If there is any further interest in my altering work then feel free to leave comments and ask further questions; I’m always happy to talk more about my work. I’d also love to hear from other UK-based alterers, especially anyone doing 3D work like myself. I feel as though there could be a rather significant community but with no real way to communicate, as yet.

Finally, I would just like to thank Magic Madhouse for giving me the opportunity to appear as a guest writer.

Thanks for reading!

Edward Guise / @EdGuise88