C.J. Burke's .sig card #101: The Pun-isher

Since C.J. has given his blessing to proceed with alternate artists, here comes the first new card under that umbrella. Enjoy!

Downloading PDFs

It's not very intuitive, so here's how to download the PDF:

1) in the upper right hand corner of the PDF, click the little box to open the PDF in a new window.

2) In the new window, on the left side you will see two options: File and View. Click on File to open a submenu.

3) On the submenu select Download Original.

The file size is about 24MB, which is close to the 28MB of Phil's Seven Seas PDFs.

Good luck!

First Hi-res template

A new link has been added in the Sidebar called "Champion's Odyssey Hi-res PDFs". This will take you to a shared Google Docs folder containing all the PDFs.

I had to remove the PDF embedded in this post. Not only was it consuming lots of my precious download limit every time I loaded the page, it was also nearly impossible to edit the post.

And on that note, the second PDF is done...

Hi-res card template

In one of my previous "Bringing Homebrew Cards To Life" posts, I describe how printing the Seven Seas PDFs result in cards smaller than standard cards. The size of a standard Guardians card is roughly 2.5 inches by 3.5 inches. A Seven Seas PDF card measures 2.25 inches by 3.125 inches. It's a noticeable difference.

To make a 3 x 3 printing of standard cards, you get a total measurement of 7.5 inches by 10.5 inches, which should fit on a standard sheet (8.5 inches by 11 inches) of paper. But not so fast! Many printers can't print to the edge of the page...you should allow for at least a .25 inch margin on each side of the sheet. That brings the total measurement to 8 inches by 11 inches, which barely fits. That also means the cards must be up against each other with no gap between them. Therefore the PDFs will have 9 cards, arranged in a 3 by 3 grid, with no space between them. If people are against this, please let me know before I get too far, and I'll lay out a different grid (maybe 2 by 4).

I'll post some images of this concept soon.

News, News and More News

First let's start with the poll. It's gone. I really liked the concept, but it was poorly designed. I could not create it without voting myself. Others apparently cannot vote even though they were signed in. And though I don't use Internet Explorer, the poll doesn't even look correct under IE. So I have removed it until something better comes along.

Second, early opinions are that I should start working on hi-res PDFs of Champion's Odyssey and Sig cards for people to download, so I will start this soon. I thought I would need Acrobat, but apparently Photoshop is capable of creating PDFs.

Third, C.J. has given me his blessing to continue making Sig cards using other artists. So instead of stopping at 100, I will produce more Sig cards soon.

I hope you'll all bear with me on the recent changes and layout experimentation. I am committed to a goal of continuous improvement and excellence for this blog.

Trying Out Poll Feature in Sidebar

I'm going to try out the new Poll feature over in the sidebar to see how useful it is. If I don't get much of a response I will probably get rid of it. Unfortunately I believe you must be logged in to vote. I have tried hard to make it easy to post on this site, allowing anonymous comments and not requiring word verification (meaning I must police the site regularly for spam postings). For the voting, though, my hands are tied...logging in is a required feature. I could not find any other poll gadgets, so this is all I've got. If you'd like to vote and don't have a Google (Gmail) account, take a moment and sign up. It's free, relatively painless, and you don't have to do anything with it (except log in and vote, if you wish).

So the first poll will be about what I've been discussing lately - what's coming up next for the blog. The poll asks what would YOU, the reader, like me to work on next? Enter the poll to let me know.

Note: You can vote for more than 1 selection, and you can also change your vote. Please let me know here in the comments if you experience problems voting...

New design features in sidebar

I have not changed the layout of this blog in a LONG time. C.J. has made me aware of two great tools which I have incorporated into the sidebar.

The first is Recent comments that show what has been posted lately. The second is most popular comments so that you can see what has generated the most buzz.

Please make use of these features and see what C.J. has been up to. And please leave comments for him...he is, after all, the designer!

UPDATE: I have removed the popular posts but left the recent comments feature. The popular posts goes off of page hits rather than quantity of comments, and I didn't feel it added enough to bump the links and archives so far down the page. In addition, I added a poll feature for future use...

Adding to What's Next, and a celebration is in order

Be of good cheer, everyone! C.J. Burke has returned to the Guardian community! I don't know how long he'll be back, but he was sorely missed and we are lucky to have him for whatever amount of time he'll be around...

In my last post I talked about what's next for the blog. As I was going through emails, I came across a message from a gentleman that I had forgotten about...I promised him a few things that I would work on, so here are a couple more items I'll attempt to complete:

A. Hi-res PDF versions of Champion's Odyssey, and now C.J.'s sig cards, similar to what Phil created for the Seven Seas set so that readers can print decent copies of these cards.

B. Another installment of "Bringing Homebrew Cards to Life". This will actually focus on card creation in Photoshop using the templates from Phil and applying artwork to get that "Guardians Look".

I'm not sure what kind of time I'll have to post over the holidays, I've got a busy schedule, but I'll certainly check in from time to time to respond to comments.

Happy Holidays to all, and may your Beer Sled be full!

What's next for the blog?

It's going to be tough to post for awhile, work is extremely busy and the holidays are coming. But here's what I have planned, not necessarily in this order:

1. Sig card compatibility with Solo.

2. A couple of new game variants.

3. Another installment of Math in Guardians.

4. A new kind of card for Guardians (like how CJ introduced Events).

5. A Deck Library.

6. An in-depth look at Drifter's Nexus & Necropolis Park cards.

7. Some "fan fiction", stories I'd like to write about Guardians characters.

8. Solo Adventures strategy, part 2.

Enjoy your holidays!

Set Summary for .sig cards

This set still needs a name. I am open to suggestions, especially from Professor Burke... 

Set Breakdown by Artist
Achilleos: 5
Beauvais: 5
Brom: 17
Easley: 3

Elmore: 8
Hildebrandt: 1
Kelly: 2
Maitz: 11
Parkinson: 13
Ploog: 9
Rowena: 5
Sweet: 5
Warhola: 2
Whelan: 14

Set Breakdown by Card Type
Downgrade: 0
Elemental: 19
Event: 0
External: 16
Guardian: 0
Magic Item: 10
Mortal: 22
Shield: 0
Shield/Terrain: 0
Ship: 0
Spell: 25
Standard Bearer: 0
Stronghold: 3 (1 Set)
Terrain: 2
Upgrade: 3

Creatures By Type
Angel: 3
Animal: 2

Bug: 1

Devil: 1

Dragon: 1

Dwarf: 3

Element: 5

Elemental Lord: 1
Elf: 3

Gargoyle: 6

Giant: 1
Goblin:1
Knight: 4

Misc. Human: 6

Nymph: 2
Ogre: 2
Pirate: 2

Spirit: 2
Undead: 4
Wanderer: 5
Wizard: 1
(Note: some creatures that are double-classed were counted twice)

Creature Stats
Flyers: 10
Bribeable by Babes: 8
Bribeable by Beer: 11
Bribeable by Gold: 15
Not bribeable: 32
Channelers: 1
Channeling receivers: 19
Small: 7
Medium: 33
Large: 17

Card List
Ahhz-Chooz

Alpha Betty Gal

Angel of Justice

Apple Treefolk

As the Shield Turns

Auntie AOE

Avenging Gargoyle

Banshee

Beer Elemental

Belmont D'yan

Berzerker

Bogus

Catapult

Chicken Soup

Cloud Cover

Code of the West

Collapsible Wall

Combined Forces

Condor

Continental Divide

Cranston

Crazy War

Damned if You Don't

Dark Angel

Dark Nymph

Demonic Pact

Die Hard

Dimensional Maelstrom

Disappearing Tweezle

Dot Breeze

Drift

Dwarven Armorer

Dwarven Mining Operation

Dwarven Nomad

Dwarven Tunneling Machine

Dwarven Weaponsmith

Eager Ogre

Earth-shattering Kaboom!

Edgar Scissorclaws

Elven Priest

Entropy Effect

Fallen Elf

Fire Nymph

First Circle of Hell Left

First Circle of Hell Middle

First Circle of Hell Right

Flanking Army

Fort Knight

Gang O' 8

Granite Gargoyle

Guardian Gargoyle

Haba Naba Raba

Hardass

Hell Hound

High Elf

Ice Gargoyle

Iron Gargoyle

Leftovers

Lion Tayoo

Lost City

Lycanthrope

Miss Good Wench

Miss Spelled

Mr. Suitcase

Mud Elemental Lord

Nicky Threefingers

No Huddle Offense

Orderly Procession

Owl Father

Pain in the Asp

Pandora's Stones

Patron Saint

Peanut Gallery

Pet Dragon

Pirate's Ghost

Playing 'Possum

Poppy Field

Psychic Elemental

Red Ghost

Rogue Ogre

Shadow Elemental

Slag Pile

Spell-free Zone

Squire

Stick 'em Up

Stone Gargoyle

Swords to Plowshares

Tree Giant

Two Kinds of Booty

Uberknight

Unmasked

Up Up and Away

Vampire Gargoyle

Wandering Minstral

Wandering Spirit

Warwick's Wedding Spell

Water Elemental

Wizard's Guild

Y2K Bug

Zephyr Winds

C.J. Burke's .sig card #100: Disappearing Tweezle

And so it ends. 100 of C.J.'s most diabolical card designs are now in the books. I'll have a set summary posted soon...