Martinez Randy - Sketch Card Mania : How To Create Your Own Original Collectible Trading Cards

Sketch Card

MANIA

How To Create
Your Own Original
Collectible Trading Cards

Randy Martinez &
Denise Vasquez

www.impact-books.com

Sketch Card Mania. Copyright 2011 by Randy Martinez and Denise Vasquez. Manufactured in China. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means including information storage and retrieval systems without permission in writing from the publisher, except by a reviewer who may quote brief passages in a review. Published by IMPACT Books, an imprint of F+W Media, Inc., 4700 East Galbraith Road, Cincinnati, Ohio, 45236. (800) 289-0963. First Edition.

Other fine IMPACT Books are available from your local bookstore, art supply store or online supplier. Visit our website at www.fwmedia.com.

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eISBN: 978-1-44031-515-2

Edited by Sarah Laichas
Designed by Wendy Dunning
Production coordinated by Mark Griffin

Table of CONTENTS

PART 1
Sketch Card Tool Box

An introduction to the materials youll need plus basic technique instruction for creating sketch cards in pencil, colored pencil, pen and ink, colored markers, acrylic, watercolor and mixed media.

PART 2
Designing and Constructing Your Personal Sketch Card

What to include on the back of your sketch card and how to print, mount and cut professional cards.

PART 3
Sketch Card Demonstrations

Thirteen awesome sketch card demonstrations from start to finish.

PART 4
Introduction to Self-Promotion

Get started promoting yourself as an artist online from building your own website to getting involved with the best social networking sites for artists. Includes awesome tips on breaking into the business from six industry professionals.

What Youll Need for This Book

Pencils

Use an assortment of graphite pencils for sketching and drawing. Pencils come in a variety of hardness (H graded) and blackness (B graded). A standard no. 2 or HB pencil falls right in the middle and is great for creating sketch cards.

Erasers

Keep a sampling of erasers nearby when you are sketching. A gray kneaded eraser is soft and gentle on paper and can pick up most lines. A white or pink eraser is best for dark lines.

Paper

Choose a paper thats appropriate for the medium youre working with. For sketch cards a sturdy bristol paper works well for most media. You can get full-sized paper and cut it yourself to 2" 3" (6cm 9cm). Pre-cut artist trading card packets of various types of paper are great for practice.

Cutting and Mounting Tools

To cut and mount your sketch cards you need newspaper, spray adhesive, a rotary trimmer and a ruler.

Colored Pencils

There are three types of colored pencils you can use to color your sketch cards.

Wax-based are the most common. You can vary the pressure you place on them to get a smooth, even cover, or to blend with other colors.

Oil-based pencils are slightly harder than wax-based and apply in a drier fashion. They tend to break less than wax-based pencils.

Watercolor pencils are water-soluble. The pigment dissolves on paper when water is applied, acting much like watercolor.

Black Pens and Markers

You will need black pens and markers to ink your sketches and create clean lines. Permanent black markers are great because the ink wont bleed or mix with other media. Try out different pen tip sizes to learn how to vary your lines.

Colored Markers

Build up a collection of a variety of permanent markers. They provide rich, vibrant color that wont fade over time. Water-based markers are OK, too. They may not be as rich in pigment, but they dont have the strong odor that accompanies permanent markers.

Acrylic Paints

Acrylic paint dries really fast, which is its greatest strength for coloring sketch cards. (Oil paint dries very slowly, which is why its a big no-no for sketch cards.) Acrylic paint varies in fluidity and viscosity so you can make it thick like oil paint or thin like watercolor.

Watercolor Paints

You can get beautiful effects with watercolor. It dries quickly and you can vary a colors strength by how much water you add.

Brushes and Palette

An assortment of flat and round brushes sizes 2 to 10 work well for the small work area of a sketch card. Small round brushes are essential for painting fine details in your paintings. Angled flat brushes will give you better control in corners. Flats are good for laying in large areas of color, such as watercolor washes. To mix your paints, youll need a palette with a mixing area and spaces to separate your paint colors.

Mixed Media

Dress up your sketch cards with all different types of art materials: beads, feathers, sequins, ribbon, glitter, gel pens, wax ... anything crafty you can get your hands on.

A Brief History of Sketch Cards

A sketch card is a trading card featuring original, handmade artwork on one side. These collectible, one-of-a-kind signed pieces of art are randomly inserted by trading card manufacturers directly into trading card sets. For earlier sketch cards, professional artists used a pencil, pen or marker to create a simple piece of art. But today fans can find sketch cards created in many types of media including pencil, marker, pen, ink, watercolor, gouache, gold leaf, glitter, beads, glow in the dark, metallic and many types of acrylic paint.

Over the years, sketch cards have been known by many different names, such as artist sketch cards and custom cover sketch cards (Topps), sketchagraphs (Fleer/Skybox), sketchaFEX (Rittenhouse Archives), personal sketch cards and art cards, editions and originals (ACEOs). Sketch cards commonly measure the size of a standard trading card2 3 (6cm 9cm)but they can also be found in other sizes: 2 4 (6cm 12cm) for Topps Widevision sizes, or 4 5 (10cm 13cm) for uncut size.