5th Card - Torch Fiend

I think that I am finally a bit proud of a card. It doesn't look perfect, but it does look good. The most important thing that this car taught me was about having a base coat or a base color. The paint lays down much better on a previous layer of paint than it does on the card. At first I did the whole outline in brown, to try to match the wood, but then I saw how dark it got around the edges so I changed to black. I like doing my shading by laying down the darkest color first, but when it comes to a base coat, you really want to match what you want to finally put there as best as possible. The flames on the top were difficult to get really bright since I had to put them on top of black paint. I should have just done black bottom, dark brown sides, and yellow/light brown top. Either way I'm fairly happy. One thing I think would be very useful is a Sta-Wet pallet, so my paint doesn't dry out so incredibly fast. I'm definitely going to look into getting one, or making something like it.

Cube Changes

Over the past few weeks a friend and I opened up some packs of M12 and Scars doing some Winchester drafts. At the end of each we drafted the rares, with the winner going first. Some of the premier cards I was able to put in are Venser, the Sojourner; Jace, Memory Adept; Skithiryx, the Blight Dragon; Platinum Emperion; Frost Titan; Sphinx of Uthuun; Goblin Guide (from GP Nashville); and Flameblast Dragon. I also made all my replacements with the chief concern being to lower the curve of the cube and reduce oppressive mana costs. I think it's more fun to not get mana screwed. I also made the colors a bit more "in-pie". I reduced the number of creatures by a bit because it was very creature heavy, especially blue. I reduced perfect colorless mana fixing. I kept the signets, and any fixing that punished you for using it or allowed a one time fix, but took out the permanent fixing. I gave green more mana dorks, blue more instants, red more burn, black more value, and white....well, white easily has the most powerful creatures, so I'm not worried about its power level.

One thing that should change in a year, after Return to Ravnica block has cycled through, I should have less artifacts and more multicolor spells. I currently only have 11 multicolor spells, one for each color, and an extra Venser that I count as white, seeing as it has lots of weenies and they benefit far more than blue from his unblockability. I'm also very interested in what comes out in From the Vault:Realms, because I'm woefully short on lands.

Either way, this cube needs to be played with much more before I can actually tune it. I'll be in Columbus next year, which seems like a much better place for Magic than Indianapolis, my current location. Can't wait to show off my alters once I get more.

The cube can be found on tappedout.net. If that doesn't work, a list can also be found on Google Docs.

4th Card - Tower Geist

First of all, this is a pretty bad picture. Either way, I really wanted something easy to do after working on the Vanguard and this seemed like a good choice. It was easy to set a solid black around everything, but the hard part was blending in colors with a hazy, misty evening. I was just glad that I didn't have to worry about much detail, but this one showed me that you can always add more detail and more care. Even so, I took the easy way out, and it shows.

3rd Card - Elite Vanguard

This card was really tough. When I was about halfway done I was really happy with it because the colors were matching fairly well and it wasn't too tough. I especially loved that the color was significantly different. The other two cards I did were fairly dark, but this one was much more colorful. Nevertheless, once I was more or less done with the top I wanted to continue with the bottom. That's when I ran into lots of troubles. After I had it all colored I realized that it was going to be impossible to draw the snow with any degree of skill. I'm certainly not an artist, and this card showed me that. I can extend detail a little, but I cannot create new art entirely. Now I know that I should leave the text box and just extend solid colors when I can. Either way, it's not a total loss. This will just be one of those cards I look back on as the folly of a beginner.

Second Card - Oblivion Ring

This card turned out much better. It helped me learn a bit more about mixing. I'm still struggling to hit the exact same colors that are already on the card, but I'll get there as I tackle harder ones. I also learned that when blending I should put the lighter colors over darker colors. It will take me a while to learn how my paints behave when they mix. Trying to make purple led to a pretty dark result, but I just rolled with it. This is also my first freehand/over-text attempt. I want to be able to share my cube with anyone, so I want to make sure all relevant rules text, name, mana cost, P/T, etc are readable, but I REALLY like some of the small over-text examples that I see. I also tried a finishing technique. I went to the hardware store and got a can of Valspar clear gloss sealer. Although I must give credit to Dave Lovelace and his article at gatheringmagic.com. He recommends Krylon Crystal Clear Gloss Acrylic Spray, which I couldn't find, but just by the product description it sounds like a more fitting product. Either way, I'm happy with the results of the sealer I bought. It really brings out the colors and the shading and the brushstrokes I used, which definitely pushes me to pay more attention to detail. It also blends the reflectivity of the card, which was something that bothered me. I didn't like the non-reflective paint over the somewhat shiny card surface. It also just plain protects the card, which I'm happy about. Hope you like it! I've got about 20 more cards to go before I have to start in on my one-ofs, so I hope to learn enough at that point not to mess up too bad!