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Method for card creation

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Tube_Maxwell
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Joined: 12/31/1969

A friend of mine showed me a card he made as a part of a gift for a relative, (re-producing a childhood card game with meaningful photos of family, etc.)
and I though the card seemed quite nice.

His method: Print out the fronts on photopaper, and the backs are shelf liner paper, or mac-tac. Basically that gluey sticker stuff that goes in the bottom of shelves. It comes in basic patterns and colours, and although his was a purple-marble-ish pattern, I bet there's some plain ones out there you could even print a back onto.

I like that it wasn't laminated, as I find that a bit too thick, and it did have a surprising amount of stiffness. I assume you'd want a more matte photopaper as opposed to a really glossy one.

Possible flaws? Maybe with lots of shuffling it would start to peel at the corners. Maybe the photopaper side would get scratched a lot. I think my friend and his family might play a few games, but probably not any more than that, so I won't have his info on how they hold up.

Overall, I think it looks like a pretty good idea for prototype cards anyway.

VeritasGames
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Joined: 08/01/2008
Method for card creation

It's a great idea except for two things:

1) You still want to spray the faces with clear plastic sealant to protect them;

2) And when cutting them out your blades will get gummed up from the adhesive

That aside, however, it's not a bad idea at all.

I'd like to see the finished product, however, because I'd suspect that the cards would tend to curl in one direction or another.

Tube_Maxwell
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Joined: 12/31/1969
Method for card creation

He showed me one,

Actually the only reason he showed me was because he happened to have one on me and we were talking photoshop. He was proud of his accomplishment with the photo, but I was impressed with the card itself.

I'll ask him about the gumming.

There was no curling, and the edges weren't sticky. It really seemed the expected drawbacks weren't present. That's the main reason I bring this up.

Also, what is this spray plastic you speak of? (Maybe he used some... I don't know.)

VeritasGames
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Joined: 08/01/2008
Method for card creation

From my game designer's glossary:

http://www.veritasgames.net/cgi-bin/load_page.cgi?content_page='cgi-bin/glossary/glossary.cgi?entry=plastic_spray_sealant'

Feel free to browse around the Game Design section of my website.

Hope that helps.

For the record, I wasn't thinking the card itself would be gummy, but that the blade cutting through the adhesive would get gummy after a while. Almost every type of tape, adhesive mount, etc. that I've cut through with scissors causes your blade to get gummy. That's not hard to clean off of scissors in some cases, but a rotary blade might by trickier to clean.

FastLearner
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Joined: 12/31/1969
Method for card creation

I use Xyron cold laminate for mine, laminating 110# cardstock. The results are excellent cards that are long-lasting and aren't think at all. It's just like that contact paper stuff, but on both sides.

Cutting them does gum up blades, but a bottl of De-Solv-It lasts forever and cleans them up lickety-split.

For spray sealant I recommend Krylon Crystal Clear (also sold as Krylon Spray Acrylic sometimes).

Shrike
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Joined: 08/26/2010
Method for card creation

I know this has been said, but if all you're doing at the time is prototype cards, try CCG card sleeves, like the ones from ultra pro (disclaimer, I DO NOT sell these things) =)

http://froogle.google.com/froogleq=ultra+pro+sleeves&hl=en&lr=&rls=GGLD,GGLD:2004-13,GGLD:en&sa=N&tab=ff&oi=froogler

I use these things all of the time, you put a card in there and place your paper print out in front of it, long wear, shuffles great... and if you want to change the card all you do is pull out the paper, print anew and slide it in.
Regular playing cards should fit, but if not, talk to a CCG player at your local comic store (or the owner) they ALWAYS have tons of "junk" cards laying around, my local store gave me close to 3,000 warhammer CCG cards just to get them out of his store! Your mileage my vary, btu that is my two cents.

Shrike

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