I have a bit of a contrarian streak. When I decided to dive into making use of all the Magic the Gathering (MTG) artist proofs I had recieved, I didn’t know what I would do. It was analysis paralysis or choice overload if you will. I started wandering around to other MTG artists sites to see what they were doing. There was a lot of Magic centric work. Plenty of comic book stuff. A significant amount of portraits. There is absolutely nothing wrong with any of these ideas. I’m sure they sell well. But, as I said, I’m a bit of a contrarian. I don’t like doing the same thing as everyone else. Sometimes this works out in my favor. Other times it just makes my life more difficult purely for the sake of being different, and gains me very little. C'est la vie.
So, what did I settle on? Football. Nothing says Magic the Gathering more than….football? Hear me out. There is a method to the madness. Not a lot of method. But there is some in there.
While I’m trying to figure out a subject matter. I also had no idea how I was going to make them. The backs of those cards are not a material that is very friendly to any medium. It’s shiny and slick. Do I just use pens? What about color? Markers? Paint? Will they hold up? Which is how I stumbled on the idea of football.
There were a lot of questions. A lot of unknown. So I wanted to limit the amount of questions I had to answer. By settling on football, I eliminated having to come up with a new cool idea for an image every time. I wouldn’t have to figure out what something looks like in order to draw or paint it. I have an internet full of reference images to choose from. I further narrowed it down to one position of football players to focus on. Running backs. It seemed the position that had the most variation on “poses”. Big power backs, smaller fast guys, agile dudes, etc.. Each guy runs a bit different, and you can convey their style of running by choosing the right reference. And I could use each card to experiment with a different technique or material.
Of course, I had to make things a tad more difficult and settle on making one card for each team in the NFL. Didn’t seem like much at the time, but by the time I finished the last card, I was ready to move on.
As you go through these cards, you will notice when my approach changes. With technique as well as medium. The first few are the really early batch. Just trying pen and marker on the unprepped card backs.
Those of you that know football will notice that these running backs are from several different eras of football. And some will be a little less “known” players. I thought since I was basically doing this for myself, (I’m aware that the MTG community may not be the biggest collection of football fans), that I would focus on guys that were meaningful to me. Not necessarily the best ever. This isn’t a National Football League Hall of Fame collection. It’s an Aaron Riley Hall of Fame. Guys that were memorable from Tecmo Super Bowl, monsters in fantasy football or just guys I thought were awesome for one reason or another.
Still with the slick back, but trying to dress them up a bit. And weirdly a 2nd Emmitt Smith. Odd, since I am most definitely not a Cowboys fan. Still not the look I was wanting.
Around now is when I’ve had it with the slick back cards. I started sanding them down, but the bleeding was a bit too much.
Now we’re getting into when I started priming the surface. I sand the cards with a really fine sandpaper, tape the cards down and use gesso. I tried a few different gesso surfaces. Plain ol’ gesso, a copic ground type, and an absorbent “watercolor” ground. I can’t really tell you which is which as I started to lose track while I was working on them.
I’m also trying alcohol markers, and watercolor markers. Usually both, but I had to be careful to use the alcohol first as they would really screw up the watercolor. These are the things you forget when you work digitally for more than 14 years.
I’m starting to hone in on a style I like for these cards at this point. I like the ease of use with markers. I don’t have to get paint out, clean brushes and palettes etc… But….there is a bit too much control with the markers. I want a bit of chaos. (See how I keep making this a much more involved and difficult process?)
And after a long break from these cards, I came back to finish the series. I had new ideas for how to approch them. More painting. Less inking and lines. This final batch has finally gotten pretty close to what I wanted for them.
And now these last few were some of my favorites. Par for the course, I found a way to make it even more of a time sink. I still do the sanding, gesso and drawing. But now I’ve added a liftout technique with watercolor or gouache, sealing the image with fixative, clear gesso, and then acrylic on top. I’m nearly positive, by the time I paint my last AP, it will weigh 5lbs.
Great in college. Great in the pros. So good for what seemed like a very long time. The Steelers had to play him quite a bit. And he was the first Titan running back.
Somebody so big should not have been able to move like that. Also a fantasy monster. That visor helped with the mystique too.
Another team with a lot of running backs to choose from. But this one was on Tecmo Bowl.
Franco is my second favorite Steeler of all time. (Only surpassed by Jack Lambert) I had both a home and away jersey as a grade schooler. This is a shot from his Super Bowl MVP performance. there is another Franco card in the collection. But it’s one of the early ones that are pretty rough. I couldn’t have that.
That’s it. Looking back on these, I’m kinda bummed that I did so many of my favorite players in those early cards. But, I kind of like that the entire series is a timeline of my struggles to get results I’m happy with.
If you like the post, there is a like button at the bottom. Feel free to comment if you think you have a better player suggestion for a team. I’m always happy to argue football. In a fun way. Don’t be a dink. The likes and comments let me know that I’m not just typing to myself.
All of these cards will be up for sale soon. My guy Donny Caltrider handles all of my AP’s and original art. We are putting them up when football season starts. If you want one of these, one of your favorite players, or if you want something completely different on an AP, you can contact him.
donald.caltrider@gmail.com or any socials- Messenger, Instagram, Twitter, Discord @DonnyCaltrider
Cheers. See ya next time.