Custom Card Making FAQ (Programs, Cards, Sizing, Fonts, Card Templates, Artwork and Other Nonsense.)


Many people have indulged their creativity and created custom miniatures, characters and stats. Some people take it one step further and create a custom card to go with their character. Is it hard to make a card? No, its just like making a character/stats except now you’re adding a visual component. Let’s look at what you’ll need to know and some useful items to help you get started.


What Program?

Many people use Adobe Photoshop (That’s what the V-Set group uses,) some have used GIMP (GNU Image Manipulation Program) but personally I use a combination of PowerPoint and MS Paint. My suggestions is use whatever program you have access to and are the most comfortable with.


Card Sizing/Paper Stock.

Trading Cards/WOTC Cards are approximately 2.5 inches x 3.5 inches. That’s too small to comfortably work with, so I size my cards up to 4.5 x 6.5 inches. If you want to print the cards out, use 14pt or 16pt heavy card stock. You can shrink the cards down to 2.5 x 3.5 or whatever size you want (and what size you eyes can handle.)


Fonts.

The original WOTC Star Wars Miniatures cards used a variety of Fonts and Font sizes.

WOTC Cards

Card Front:

- AgencyFB-Italic
- AgencyFB-Regular
- Aquarius-Bold
- Aquarius-Extrabold
- Helvetica-Condensed-Bold
- Zapf Dingbats

Card Back:

- Aquarius-Extrabold
- Helvetica-Condensed-Bold

That’s a Lot of Different fonts, never mind what font size they used. What do I recommend? Use what font works/looks best for you. What do I use? AgencyFB because it seems to be the most used in the WOTC’s cards. For simplicities sake, I use AgencyFB for everything and just vary the font size for different headings and text.


AgencyFB Font

Character’s Name size 20-22 depending on amount of text.
Character Cost size 24
Stat numbers size 20.
Special Abilities and Force Powers headings size 16.
Individual Special Abilities, Force Powers and Commander Effects Headings size 14.
Individual Special Abilities, Force Powers and Commander Effects text size 12.
Flavor Text, Italicized size 12.







A Word about Text Boxes

There have been innumerable discussions about how many abilities/force powers can fit into a text box. While making custom stats you can create as many as you want (it’s Your custom character after all) when creating a custom card there’s only a finite amount of space you can work with. There are several tricks you can use to fit more text into the box, but ultimately you can only fit so much into that box; make the text too small and it becomes illegible. When this occurs, something has to go and you need to make tough decisions on what can stay (and keep the essence of your character and what you want it to accomplish) and what has to go.

Flavor Texts are optional in that if you have room, they’re fun and give the character some context.



New WOTC Card Templates


WOTC had two different card templates they used; the original cards that were roughly colored the Faction color both front and back, and the updated WOTC template that was mostly white with black and blur trim; the Faction colors were modestly splashed around. The predominantly white areas were possibly made for ease of reading. Below are the ten original factions


Rebel







Imperial







Republic







Separatist







Old Republic







Sith







Mandalorian







New Republic







Yuuzhan Vong







Fringe







Old WOTC Card Templates



Rebels







Imperials







Republic







Separatists







Old Republic







Sith







Mandalorians







New Republic







Yuuzhan Vong







Fringe







Custom Sub Faction Card Templates

Several years ago, when I was toying with the idea of sub factions, I decided, more as an individual mental exercise than anything, to create cards for the various sub factions. Mostly for the use of home gamers, it’s something I thought I’d toss out there. The emblems have been taken off of Wook. Colors are extrapolations for the most part.


Black Sun



Chiss



Commerce Guild
https://farm1.staticflickr.com/943/27390397617_3b8abef785_b.jpg"/>


First Order
https://farm1.staticflickr.com/980/27390397727_bc3f694dc7_b.jpg"/>


Infinite Empire


Jedi Order



NPC



Trade Federaion



Zann Consortium





Card Artwork


The original WOTC card artwork was a grey-scale colored character on the Faction card.






Some people prefer the traditional greyscale card art, some want an “action background” or partial body shots.







I prefer the full body, clean artwork that WOTC used. While some prefer the grey scale coloring, I prefer color artwork. Use whatever you prefer in your cards.

The most difficult part of card art is actually finding the perfect art for your card. Surfing the web will occasionally give you some gems, but sometimes you have to be creative. Like creating a custom miniature, you may have to try your hand at swapping body parts around to create something that is uniquely right for your card.















Colorizing a black & white picture is the most challenging for me since I’m by no means an artist. Try different things, be patient and you may enjoy this hobby as much as I do.


Closing Thoughts


Like creating custom characters using only stats, costing is the most difficult. Use your best judgement no matter what costing method you use. To display your cards, you’ll need an online photo sharing site that allows third party hosting. I used to use photobucket, but since they’re no longer free, I’ve moved on to Flickr; they’re not the only ones out there. Surf the net, try out several places and use whats best and easiest for you, and above all else, have fun.


Cheers,


surf

Great starter.

I have yet to make even a single card. I'm not a graphic artist by any stretch of the imagination.

I've used Gimp before on another project, but those were relatively simple tasks involving maps, but required 'layers' and higher level of control with resizing and resolution to work with the software they were intended for. (MapExplorer and Vassal)

Gimp is a powerful program, akin to Photoshop (but probably not as good) but FREE! (vs hundreds of dollars)

Microsoft Publisher could probably work decently using templates like we see above as the 'background' you place the rest over.

Just mentioning to hopefully garner some conversation, tips and tricks from others that are skilled with any particular program. Especially as to head/leg/body swapping etc.

Thanks for the compliments. I intend to put in the "Old" WOTC templates soon. Anybody notice anything that needs to be fixed?

I hope people will feel free to suggest and/or add things to the thread. If you have questions and I'm around, I'd be happy to answer what I can. Also, I've made some "Faction" custom cards if anybody is interested (Black Sun, Zann Consortium, Infinte Empire, etc.)

Update

I've added the Old WOTC card Templates since I know some prefer those.

Cheers,

surf

Thanks so much, this has been incredibly useful for me in making replacement cards/proxies (especially the specific fonts! that really ties the whole thing together).