Well, it's finished. 100 cards. I didn't think I would make it.
It was a lot of work but it was fun. I learned a lot about Photoshop. I even bought a Wacom tablet to paint with.
Are some cards too powerful? Assuredly. Are some useless? Possibly. Without playtesting we'll never know. But if someone does use these and has feedback, I'd love to hear it.
Set Breakdown by Artist
Achilleos: 4
Beauvais: 9
Brom: 34 (wow!)
Hescox: 2
Hildebrandt: 3
Kelly: 2
Maitz: 6
Parkinson: 14
Ploog: 14
Rowena: 2
Sweet: 1
Warhola: 4
Whelan: 4
Set Breakdown by Card Type
Downgrade: 2
Elemental: 11
Event: 16
External: 16
Guardian: 1
Magic Item: 7
Mortal: 13
Shield: 2
Shield/Terrain: 1
Ship: 1
Spell: 17
Standard Bearer: 2
Stronghold: 3 (1 Set)
Terrain: 5
Upgrade: 2
Creatures By Type
Angel: 2
Animal: 1
Centaur: 1
Chak: 1
Demon: 4
Devil: 1
Dragon: 2
Elf: 2
Evil Twin: 1
Fairy: 3
Goblin:1
Knight: 3
Manifestation: 1
Ogre: 1
Pirate: 1
Sea Monster: 1
Slag Beast: 2
Sliph: 2
Undead: 11
Wanderer: 3
Wizard: 1
(Note: some creatures that are double-classed were counted twice)
Creature Stats
Flyers: 7
Bribeable by Babes: 13
Bribeable by Beer: 10
Bribeable by Gold: 12
Not bribeable: 17
Channelers: 2
Channeling receivers: 5
Small: 3
Medium: 23
Large: 14
Card List
Abracadabra
Allura of Damnation
Ancient Grimoire of Knowledge
Arcane Summons
Archangel Sophia
Arnathoid
Autumn
Baba Yaga
Balor
Barbed Lasher
Barricade
Belial
Blood Charge
Breach the Gates
Buffo the Cartographer
Captain Crook
Cataclysm
Cave Ogre
Centaur
Ceremony of Twilight
Chess Piece Shield/Terrain
Chess Piece 12 Shield
Chess Piece 15 Standard Bearer
Chess Piece 19 Standard Bearer
Chess Piece 3 Shield
Circle of Protection
Creeping Doom
Crown of Command
Crypt Ghoul
Crypt Guard
Crypts of Damnation
Deadlands Center
Deadlands Left
Deadlands Right
Deceiver
Desert Island
Desert Scout
Destroying Angel
Doom
Dracolich
Dragon's Wrath
Flametongue
Forcefield
Ghoul Queen
Gloom Jabber
Grizzle and Goolp
Gypsy Caravan
Happy Hour
Helm of Underwater Breathing
It Takes Courage
Jackalwere
Keeper of Souls
Magic Item Meltdown
Mordred the Summoner
Mudback Chak
Mummy's Curse
Naga Serpent
Nebbuch
Ned the Infernal
Night Watchman
Orlan D'bloom
Pawn of the Vierkuns
Pell, Elven Hunter
Peter Pun
Point Blank Range
Possessed!
Prophecy Revealed
Razor Shaman
Razor Specter
Reckoneers
Reincarnation
Revenant
Sand Howler
Scouring the Mid Realms
Shadow Wicker
Shrine Ghast
Sigmund, Sea Monster
Sign of the Unicorn
Skretch
Slave Auction
Spiked Groper
Stanley the Wonder Goat
Stygian Ferry
Sweet's Grotto
Temple of Takuli
The High Steppes
The Open Tomb
Throne of the Gods
Tomes of Transference
Treasure of the Sea Witch
Tusk Raider
Valley of the Gods
Vigil of Bones
Voodoo Skull
Voodoo Staff
Warwick's Dislocation
Witch Queen's Curse
Wraith Lord
Zeenah, Eradicator of Standards
Saturday, April 25, 2009
Champion's Odyssey Stronghold set
Here is a display that shows the completed Stronghold set as it would look on the play area in front of you...
Thursday, April 23, 2009
Tuesday, April 21, 2009
Monday, April 20, 2009
Champion's Odyssey update & what's next
Well, the base set for Champion's Odyssey is almost done. The Stronghold set and the first Shield set are complete. I just need to make the Standard Bearers and a Ship, and the set will be finished. The Shield turned out ok, but maybe someday when my Photoshop skills improve I'll redesign it.
So what's coming up once the Champion's Odyssey set has been completed and posted? Well, here's a look at some of the things I'll be working on in the next few months (not necessarily in this order)...
1. Solo Adventures 2.0
2. Sample Solo game posting
3. Solo strategy discussion
4. Discussion of Champion's Odyssey cards
5. Applications of Math in Guardians, parts 2 & 3
6. Guardians Total War!, a game variant
7. Guardians Tactics, a game variant
8. Guardians Board Game variant
9. Possible hosting of C. J. Burke's .sig cards (as a homebrew set perhaps?)
10. Discussion of Necropolis Park and Drifter's Nexus cards
11. Devoting time to my other (neglected) blogs
As you can see, this blog should be quite active for some time. So keep stopping by and I'll do my best to make sure I have good stuff for you. Comments are highly encouraged, I'll always respond!
Cheers,
Jackalwere
So what's coming up once the Champion's Odyssey set has been completed and posted? Well, here's a look at some of the things I'll be working on in the next few months (not necessarily in this order)...
1. Solo Adventures 2.0
2. Sample Solo game posting
3. Solo strategy discussion
4. Discussion of Champion's Odyssey cards
5. Applications of Math in Guardians, parts 2 & 3
6. Guardians Total War!, a game variant
7. Guardians Tactics, a game variant
8. Guardians Board Game variant
9. Possible hosting of C. J. Burke's .sig cards (as a homebrew set perhaps?)
10. Discussion of Necropolis Park and Drifter's Nexus cards
11. Devoting time to my other (neglected) blogs
As you can see, this blog should be quite active for some time. So keep stopping by and I'll do my best to make sure I have good stuff for you. Comments are highly encouraged, I'll always respond!
Cheers,
Jackalwere
Sunday, April 19, 2009
Change to Card Preview #11, Desert Scout
I've made a change to Card Preview #11, Desert Scout. One of the themes of this set is Desert Terrain, and I wanted the card to reflect this, especially since it has "Desert" in its title. So a new version of the card has been posted. This is bound to happen when you start creating cards and by the time you're almost done, the set has evolved beyond your original vision...
Desert Scout can be found here...
Desert Scout can be found here...
Bringing Homebrew Cards To Life, Wrap-up
As promised, photos of my results...
A Seven Seas Terrain card, with a Dry Heaps card for comparison:
The backside of both cards:
There are some color differences, and the edges of the Seven Seas card are a little ragged from cutting. Still, it's kind of cool to see the Petrified Valley as a real card...
A Seven Seas Terrain card, with a Dry Heaps card for comparison:
The backside of both cards:
There are some color differences, and the edges of the Seven Seas card are a little ragged from cutting. Still, it's kind of cool to see the Petrified Valley as a real card...
Tuesday, April 14, 2009
Bringing Homebrew Cards to Life, Part 2
This continues the discussion about how to bring homebrew cards to life.
Part 1 can be found here
A trip to Fedex Kinkos revealed that color copies are $.59 each. For 50 pages of Seven Seas cards, that's $30. Add Event cards and Champion's Oddyssey cards and it's less than $50...but that's just for one set. Printing 4 sets would cost almost $200. I could try to squeeze more cards on a page to drive that down, but it's a moot point. My friend was right - Kinko's refused to print the copyrighted images without some kind of written permission from the copyright holder, which isn't going to happen.
As an alternative, I looked into purchasing my own color laser printer. The price needed to be under $300 and have very good customer reviews. However, after searching, I couldn't find anything I was comfortable with for that much money. My roommate had ditched his Epson R1800 for a new Epson Color Stylus 1400, which makes beautiful prints, but won't take the cardstock thickness.
In the end I decided to print at work and reimburse the company if they complained about my printing. However, I still wanted to reduce the amount of printing, which would cause fewer problems and use less paper. A "real" Guardians card is about 2.5" by 3.5". So I came up with a new layout, the 4 x 2 which looks something like this:
It only prints 1 less card than the 3 x 3 Seven Seas PDFs, without any resizing or printing errors, and the size is the same as a "real" card.
The most important things to consider when making the layout are:
1. Make the document size 8.5" x 11", rotate 90 degrees, and print landscaped.
2. Keep the distance from the edge of the document to the edge of the cards the same for opposite sides. I used .5" from card to edge on all sides.
3. Put the edges of the cards up against each other so that when they are cut, there won't be any white showing if the cut is slightly off.
4. When copying images into Photoshop, copy the images from the PDFs rather than the large jpegs (they seem to be higher quality with less noticeable defects).
I then created a backside single border sheet:
And a backside double border sheet:
You merely print the front side, flip the paper over, then print the backside.
Once you have your sheet, use an Exacto blade and a ruler to cut the cards.
The corners are still sharp, though. So you'll need something like this from Fiskars:
It's called "Round the Corner" and it works really well. You can get it at most craft stores in the scrapbooking area. You stick one corner of the card in the slot of the punch and line it up to the "V", back it out slightly, then press the handles together to round off the corner. If you don't back the corner out slightly, the punch will cut off too much card. You'll still have a rounded edge, but if you place next to a "real" card you'll see it cut off too much.
I'll add some photos later tonight to show how the finished homebrew card looks compared to the "real" cards...
Part 1 can be found here
A trip to Fedex Kinkos revealed that color copies are $.59 each. For 50 pages of Seven Seas cards, that's $30. Add Event cards and Champion's Oddyssey cards and it's less than $50...but that's just for one set. Printing 4 sets would cost almost $200. I could try to squeeze more cards on a page to drive that down, but it's a moot point. My friend was right - Kinko's refused to print the copyrighted images without some kind of written permission from the copyright holder, which isn't going to happen.
As an alternative, I looked into purchasing my own color laser printer. The price needed to be under $300 and have very good customer reviews. However, after searching, I couldn't find anything I was comfortable with for that much money. My roommate had ditched his Epson R1800 for a new Epson Color Stylus 1400, which makes beautiful prints, but won't take the cardstock thickness.
In the end I decided to print at work and reimburse the company if they complained about my printing. However, I still wanted to reduce the amount of printing, which would cause fewer problems and use less paper. A "real" Guardians card is about 2.5" by 3.5". So I came up with a new layout, the 4 x 2 which looks something like this:
It only prints 1 less card than the 3 x 3 Seven Seas PDFs, without any resizing or printing errors, and the size is the same as a "real" card.
The most important things to consider when making the layout are:
1. Make the document size 8.5" x 11", rotate 90 degrees, and print landscaped.
2. Keep the distance from the edge of the document to the edge of the cards the same for opposite sides. I used .5" from card to edge on all sides.
3. Put the edges of the cards up against each other so that when they are cut, there won't be any white showing if the cut is slightly off.
4. When copying images into Photoshop, copy the images from the PDFs rather than the large jpegs (they seem to be higher quality with less noticeable defects).
I then created a backside single border sheet:
And a backside double border sheet:
You merely print the front side, flip the paper over, then print the backside.
Once you have your sheet, use an Exacto blade and a ruler to cut the cards.
The corners are still sharp, though. So you'll need something like this from Fiskars:
It's called "Round the Corner" and it works really well. You can get it at most craft stores in the scrapbooking area. You stick one corner of the card in the slot of the punch and line it up to the "V", back it out slightly, then press the handles together to round off the corner. If you don't back the corner out slightly, the punch will cut off too much card. You'll still have a rounded edge, but if you place next to a "real" card you'll see it cut off too much.
I'll add some photos later tonight to show how the finished homebrew card looks compared to the "real" cards...
Monday, April 13, 2009
Completed work on new Guardian
I've completed work on the new Guardian that will be part of the Champion's Odyssey set, but it will be the last card I reveal (card preview #100). I put a lot of work into it (which is why I haven't posted anything lately), and I think it turned out pretty well, but I'll let you be the judge when the time comes.
I'm also working on a Shield set and a Stronghold set but these are even harder than the Guardian. I just can't get them to look right. If I can finish them, including the Standard Bearers, these will be card previews 91 to 99. Since I'm currently on card preview #83, that means there's only 7 other cards left.
Stay tuned for more card previews soon...
I'm also working on a Shield set and a Stronghold set but these are even harder than the Guardian. I just can't get them to look right. If I can finish them, including the Standard Bearers, these will be card previews 91 to 99. Since I'm currently on card preview #83, that means there's only 7 other cards left.
Stay tuned for more card previews soon...
Friday, April 10, 2009
Corrected Accessory errors
I realized earlier today that the cards I created as accessories had a "H" in the item type (upper left corner of card) instead of an "A". These have all been corrected. The affected cards were:
Voodoo Staff, card preview #81
Throne of Bone, card preview #77
Tomes of Transference, card preview #54
Voodoo Skull, card preview #34
Ancient Grimoire of Knowledge, card preview #24
Voodoo Staff, card preview #81
Throne of Bone, card preview #77
Tomes of Transference, card preview #54
Voodoo Skull, card preview #34
Ancient Grimoire of Knowledge, card preview #24
Thursday, April 9, 2009
Sunday, April 5, 2009
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