Making Custom Cards

[GoldenSkates]

I've been collecting autographs for many years and am running out of players who have cards to send to. I've sent out some team logo cards to get the players that did not get NHL cards but have seen many customs on this website. Many on the customs that some of you have posted are magnificant! Much nicer than my plain looking logo cards. Can anyone give me pointers on how to do them? Does anyone have a simple template that I could practice with? Thank you in advance to anyone who can point me in the right direction.

[sbangayan86]

What program do you plan to use?

If not sure yet, I suggest Photoshop and Illustrator. I've done all of mine on those two programs, (except one, when I used a fractal generator called Apophysis).

[polarmist04]

SB makes great customs.
I should know, I received two of them by mistake from a show promoter and he got one of my cards by mistake.:)
The thing we got to remember here is we are autograph collectors, not particularly card collectors.
I've got a pretty good card collection (sets etc) as I'm sure some of you do.
Even if your customs are simple it's the autograph we're after.
Mine are a logo on the upper portion and the player's name at the bottom with stats and such on the back.
To me they look great signed with a blue ball point.
Another thing that's neat is we probably all have somewhat different style cards, ones unique to us.
Pick a style and have fun collecting!

[flames34]

I agree a bit with Polarmist but myself, if I can, I prefer to make a card of someone wearing the correct jersey. For example, I'm working on goaltender collections and several people I've written either do not have a card for the team they played for or the only card has them without their mask on- a pet peeve of mine.

My approach has been to just keep things simple. If you look up 88-89 OPC Mini set you'll what I aim to for my cards to look like. None of my cards have anything on the back, I don't have access to the appropriate materials to do anything more complicated at the moment.

Basically, find a design you like- find out the dimensions of a standard trading card, create your card and print to size.

Hope this helps.

[Blargh]

Download photoshop. There should be a trial version available. Work with the shape tool. Makes it easy to do basic cards.

I do a lot of the 1980s designs but it's easy to make something from scratch. Picture on top, sig box on bottom. Put a team logo in the sig box, set opacity to 40%. Put the player's name on the bottom of the pic. Presto, you have a card.

Actually, you could probably do all that in MS Paint.

I'll sometimes make backs for them, since they are based off 80s designs, I print the backs off on white construction paper. Gives them that old school feel.

[GoldenSkates]

Download photoshop. There should be a trial version available. Work with the shape tool. Makes it easy to do basic cards.

I do a lot of the 1980s designs but it's easy to make something from scratch. Picture on top, sig box on bottom. Put a team logo in the sig box, set opacity to 40%. Put the player's name on the bottom of the pic. Presto, you have a card.

Actually, you could probably do all that in MS Paint.

I'll sometimes make backs for them, since they are based off 80s designs, I print the backs off on white construction paper. Gives them that old school feel.

Thank you all for the tips. If I am successful with making and then geting them autographed, I may post some samples.

[Blargh]

Here's some basic ones I have done. I haven't quite graduated to the advance stuff yet

http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-qqsZDGlfs2...52C%2BDana.jpg Middle card
http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-VN3YXZd8xy...+Gaston+1s.jpg First Card
http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-PNtzTlo2aW...a,+Brian+1.jpg

the next few are actually measures 3.5x6 but the design could easily be trimmed and re-sized to 2.5x3.5
http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-9m_LHPxiFT...cord,+Al+1.jpg
http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-szrJl8CC6h...2BJake%2B2.jpg

I have a lot more on my blog

[sbangayan86]

SB makes great customs.
I should know, I received two of them by mistake from a show promoter and he got one of my cards by mistake.:)
The thing we got to remember here is we are autograph collectors, not particularly card collectors.
I've got a pretty good card collection (sets etc) as I'm sure some of you do.
Even if your customs are simple it's the autograph we're after.
Mine are a logo on the upper portion and the player's name at the bottom with stats and such on the back.
To me they look great signed with a blue ball point.
Another thing that's neat is we probably all have somewhat different style cards, ones unique to us.
Pick a style and have fun collecting!

Thanks polarmist for the kind words!

I have to say for me personally, the autograph is the finishing touch to the custom card. There are some cards I spend a lot of time in re-producing, because I love the idea of having obscure/forgotten players apart of various already-existing sets. There are definitely many designs out there that are quite basic but also look very good. Few examples:

http://i553.photobucket.com/albums/j...hGreenauto.jpg
http://i553.photobucket.com/albums/j...Helmerauto.jpg
http://i553.photobucket.com/albums/j...Daileyauto.jpg

In that the bulk of the design are some form of rectangle. I think one other tip for using photoshop for cards, is to become very good at using the Lasso tool for cropping players out of photos/scans. It was a slow process for me to begin, but after maybe 10 tries, it becomes increasingly straight-forward

[donhoolio]

I still have not attempted to do any cards yet, but I have been making 4x6 photos. Just wanted to share a few with you.

This is part of a set of draft picks I'm putting together, and no they are not just Oilers. lol.

http://i149.photobucket.com/albums/s...66/Sample1.jpg
http://i149.photobucket.com/albums/s...66/Sample2.jpg

As you can see they are pretty basic, but all together in an album they look pretty nice. Even the players I have gotten to sign them think they are pretty sharp.

I have also done a few 8.5X11 photos

http://i149.photobucket.com/albums/s...66/Hansons.jpg
http://i149.photobucket.com/albums/s...eranMillan.jpg

and lastly a couple of Oldtimers. Slight variation but same overall design.

http://i149.photobucket.com/albums/s.../OldTimers.jpg

The program I use is Photoprinter4 which you can get for free online. Like I said not hi tech but it does the job for me. Enjoy and Happy Holidays!

[flames34]

Those are great. Nicely done.