Altered Cards

The past few weeks have been slow for collecting.  If you are a friend of mine on facebook, check my status in about 2 weeks to see why. 

I was able to find an important card for my deck, Maze of Ith.  Maze of Ith is essential in a mono-blue deck, because of the lack of removal.  Many games I have lost, 1 v 1, because an aggressive general was able to swing through for lethal before I could combo off (my girlfriends Isamaru deck is especially good at taking down my deck in a dual).  The great thing about the Maze is that I got it for very cheap, less than $20.  The problem is that the Maze was heavily played, and heavily worn.

This left me with 2 options; I could hold onto the card until I found a better version, or I could get the card altered.  The first option would take less effort, but it would cost a significant amount of money.  Foil promo Mazes cost approximately $45.  They are nearly impossible to trade for.  Chances are I would have to let go of cash to get my hands on one.  Getting the card altered would be less expensive and the card would be unique.  The problem is, it is much more difficult to get an altered card.

There are four basic ways to get altered cards; buy, trade, commission, or alter the card yourself.  Buying an altered card is the most common way people get their altered cards.  There are plenty of specialized websites that will sell you lightly modified to heavily modified cards.  You can always try to trade for altered cards, but I do not recommend it.  The only people who are willing to trade away altered cards are the artist who altered them and people who want to gain massive value from the trade.  You can commission someone to alter the card.  I have never looked into this, but I have known people to pay the cards value or more to get a card altered.  The best person you can get to draw or modify you card is the original artist.  After all, they are the only person who can truly modify a card without offending the original card’s artist.  The most difficult option is to modify the card yourself.

I was planning on concealing who I got to modify my Maze of Ith.  The truth of is, I modified the card myself.  I already own an extensive set of acrylic paints from my history as both a miniature war-gamer and a commission miniature painter.  I have won several small competitions for painting miniatures, so I pride myself a bit on my skills.  So, I decided to tackle the modification myself.

I have done a few modifications before, which I have never shown anyone.  I have been practicing on junk commons and basic lands.  I practiced everything from making a card full art to slight color modifications.  After a few trial and error tests on some revoke existence cards, I decided what I wanted for the Maze. I decided on color shifting the card, and blacking out the background.  The color shift would make the picture make the picture pop out.  The blackout would serve to both hide the wear and tear on the card and would really let the alterations on the picture stand out.

If you are wondering how to modify cards, there are just a few suggestions that I can give.  It comes down to just being patient and layering paint.  The only thing difficult about modifying cards is the finish on the card.  The gloss forces you to put several coats of paint on to get the coverage you want.  I found that I spent more time waiting for my paint to completely dry than the time I actually spent painting.  You can avoid this by using prisma color paint pens, but I prefer to use brushes for blending colors.  You can also get around the gloss by drawing on the cards with a colored sharpie, then painting over the sharpie.

I will put up pictures of the Maze of Ith as well as pictures of the deck, as it stands thus far.

Thanks for reading!