Crafty Cards!

Today was a pretty good day. You see, I went to a tabletop-gaming focused convention, and that was cool an' all...

But more importantly, so did the legendary Gingrjoke! (who you should be familiar with, but just in case: https://x.com/gingrjoke/ & https://x.com/gingrjoke2 - we've drawn each others' characters a few times already!)

Aaand I figured this'd be a good opportunity to make some ultra-rare, limited edition, 1 of 1 trading cards to hand over in person!

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Long rambling about the creation process since it was a fun experiment:

I was struggling with concepts/compositions at first and threw a few fun, cute-but-not-necessarily-NSFW-since-we'd-be-in-public-and-among-other-friends-etc ideas at Suichi. Stuff like "Wossy and Aer smooching Satmon and he's either screaming or giving a smug grin", "Aer and Marcy as secretaries on their break or something". Sui then, as always, came in clutch with some concepts and compositions that were absolutely perfect! You can see those drafts at the top. Liz is NEVER beating the sub allegations - and for once, she doesn't seem to mind too much! :p

I then drew my own versions in Clip Studio - even though the end results would be hand drawn, digital is still where I'm most comfortable since the image can still be edited easily to make minor tweaks. Once the digital concepts looked good, it was time to transfer them onto the teeny tiny 2.5x3.5" / 6x9cm cards (second digital version of the Satmon pic was to check if less detail would potentially look better, given the small cards). If I'd been drawing them onto normal paper, I could've just laid the paper against my tablet/monitor and outright traced them using the light from the screen, but the card was too thick for that. Then I remembered my childhood activity books that would often include a bit where you use a 'grid method' to copy a picture of a dinosaur or superhero and so on. Dividing the digital canvases up into squares and then replicating that process on the cards helped ensure that the pencil reproduction stayed somewhat accurate.

(Alas, it was still kinda difficult. I think I really messed up on the Marcy and Aer 'heart hands' one. Look how much cuter that original digital sketch was! :'( I just couldn't understand why their heads got kinda squishy and bloated in the physical version! Ah well... )

Anyway, once sketched in pencil it was a straightforward process much like working digitally. Ink, and then "turn off the pencil layer" or in this case go ham with an eraser. Thankfully this didn't cause any smudging. Then finally they were sleeved, toploaded, bagged, and ready to go!

Gingr didn't let me go home empty handed either, and I'm now adorning every flat surface and device in my home with shiny holofoil stickers of his girls! <3

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Now, onwards into June!