Heya! Welcome to the first part of a series I’ll be writing in the coming weeks that’s all about how to alter cards. I’ll be starting here, with the mistakes I made that I wish I could go back and fix, and then I’ll move on to the materials you have to have if you want to start altering and finally, an in-depth step-by-step guide on how I alter cards. If you read my post about the epic wedding gift I painted for somebody and were wondering when I’d finally dig even deeper into the guts of altering, then good news! The time is upon us! So without further ado (do I hate long intros or am I just bad at them? I’ll let you decide…), let’s hop to it!
From the beginning of the process to the end… here are the grievous errors I had the dubious pleasure of learning from:
#1 – Buying the wrong paint colors
Yup, it’s totally possible. When I started out, I had a budget of “I hope I already have what I need on-hand” (I didn’t) so this mistake was pretty rough to bounce back from. Now, it’s possible that you’ve got untold riches with which to buy paint, in which case you can definitely go ham and buy Citadel’s entire line and bask in your hoard. Why are you even reading this part? For the rest of us…
In my defense, I did have the sense to pick up a good, basic red, blue and yellow (even green! That was a good call, I think). And then I became mesmerized by all the beautiful colors that I’d probably never need but justified anyways — the new effects I could play with! I’d be saved from color matching so much! — and ended up with a couple shades of grey and blue, purple, orange and forest green. I also sprung at the matte and glossy mix-in paints (though admittedly cool) and have used those for altering exactly zero times but my Warmachine models are looking pretty awesome, if I do say so myself.
And then I got like, six different brands and types of acrylic because I simply had no idea what would work and what wouldn’t. So there I was, with six brands of paint and duplicates of some colors because hey, gotta try yellow in more than just one brand, right?
What did I end up going back for? Hot pink (I still don’t know how to mix a good bright pink, nor do I bother anymore) and off-black (Citadel calls it “corvus black”). I’ve since added a few more colors to my paint-list (ten colors altogether, if you’re curious) that just make my lazy life a little easier, but I learned pretty fast that there absolutely is no shortcut to true color-matching. For a truly seamless alter, you will have to match colors, even if you have every paint color you can get your hands on. As to brand? I fell into two that I love and stick to just those now.
#2 – Using the wrong brushes
It’s so easy to look at other people’s card alters with their itty-bitty, should-be-impossible linework and think that you simply must have the absolute tiniest brush you can get your claws on. I beseech you to hold your horses for a moment, because I did the same thing. Now, you will need a good detailing brush, it’s true, but I’d like to try talking you out of either just stopping there, or getting a bunch of stuff you don’t need. My brush lineup in the beginning was a 20/0 round, a 4 round, a flat and a small variety of different specialty-brushes that I used for larger-scale painting projects and so reasoned would be useful in altering as well. These being a stippler, filbert and angled brush, particularly. I literally use only two of the brushes from my original lineup of like, eight. Altogether, I now use only three brushes from start to finish.
#3 – Underselling myself
This is an issue that I’m pretty sure 99% of all artists everywhere have been guilty of. I’ve struggled with pricing my fine art, modeling and pyrography before, but the struggle with alters was a completely different, much worse beast for me. “It’s just a 3×5 card”, I said, “so why on earth would I try to get away with charging more for this, regardless of time spent?”. Any collectors reading this are probably laughing in Buying-Alters-Made-Me-Broke right now.
I’m totally going to give this topic it’s very own post one day soon, so if that’s a point of interest to you I would definitely suggest throwing your email address at me so I can let you know when that drops.
The very-condensed story here is that at the very least, I should have charged enough so that the joy of a job well-done wasn’t my only real consolation after paying for overhead costs. If what you’re (not) charging is contributing to your burnout, you’ve got to change something — either put less effort into your work (super not-recommended) or change those prices.
Impostor syndrome will try to kick you around too; it’ll have you thinking, “I’m not even that great / experienced / whatever so what right do I have to ask for X amount?”, and at that moment I just want you to think to yourself that you are like Loki, the Trickster god, and you should revel in the fact that you’ve got us all fooled. It helps me, at least.
#4 – Underestimating overhead costs
This beast hit me in two forms; one was pretty easy for me to rectify and the other still tries to sneak in at me to this day. The first one is forgetting to add in the cost of the actual card you’ll be altering. You’ll usually only make this mistake once (if at all… Look, I just got so caught up in the excitement of being loved and wanted by somebody, okay?) before you realize that it’s just common sense to talk about the card sourcing when you first start talking to the client.
The Big Beast though… is shipping. I despise shipping. The post office’s inner workings are more mysterious to me than the unexplored parts of the ocean and I’m just forever anxious about it. I’ll tell you this: if you’re not accustomed to shipping things to people around the world or if you’re not used to insuring said things, it is more than you are expecting. Within your own country, it’s not so terrible (at least in the US) but I felt my soul leave my body the first time I had to ship an insured package to Australia. Lesson learned. When I get this whole thing mastered (and I will!), I’ll let you all know how this strange, terrible beast operates.
And then, you know, you want to make sure you can afford to get more paint and new brushes as you need them. I hear those things help when you want to keep a business running.
Lastly, and most grievously…
#5 – Not going for it sooner
The first time my boyfriend suggested I try my hand at doing card alters was literal, actual years before I finally got started. Years of potential altering that I’ll never get back. Apparently I have to make the same mistake at least twice too, because I also dragged my feet for months before finally building the website everyone said they wanted me to make. But hey, progress: months instead of years, right?
Anyways, my point is that if you want to see how you’ll do at this, if you want to build up your skill and earn commissions, you’ve just got to jump in. Do alters for yourself and friends and post them online — not for sale or anything, but just to show the world, “hey I’m here” and understand that mistakes will be learned from and progress will always follow your efforts.
And hey, I’m here to help! This is the first post in a series that will walk you through everything you need to alter a card and you are always welcome to ask questions in the comments below or better yet, you’ll find updates on all my latest content right in your mailbox — just tell me where to send it down below! You can also expect to find extra content, offers and other goodies sometimes, too!
Next up, I’m gonna tell you all about my absolute-no-frills list of stuff I think you actually have to have in order to produce a quality Magic: the Gathering card alter (you’ll be surprised at what I do / don’t include, maybe!). Thanks for coming by, and I’d love to hear if any of you know some dark sorcery for subduing the dreaded shipping beast. (or you can just laugh at me for forgetting to take the card price into account, I know it’s kind of funny).
Thanks again for dropping in! Pray, do follow your heart, chase those dreams and remember: mistakes are one of the most valuable things you can make~
