Exclusive Magnet Cards!

With the help of a cool guy I know, I was able to get small run of custom magnets produced using some fake cards that've appeared here on Baseball Card Breakdown in the past.

The entire print run, 5 of each.

We've got a card from each of the Springfield Nine (ballplayers who guested on the "Homer at the Bat" episode of The Simpsons) originally featured in the Springfield Fortnight blog series, with a bonus Simpson Griffey (because I couldn't choose between the two), then there's a third Junior (89 UD/Fleer mashup), a sexy Christina Hendricks (sorry, this one just cracks me up every time), and a Cal Ripken card from the bizarro world where Cal, not Billy, was photographed with that infamous bat knob.

As mentioned, these are all magnets ("black backed" as it were). They are high quality. My buddy has lots of experience making magnets like these, though he usually uses album covers. The Simpson ones are just a smidge smaller than the size of a standard baseball card. The other 3 are a tiny bit larger than an '89 Bowman card. These aren't the flimsy kind of magnets you sometimes see with ads on them or whatnot; these are thick and heavy!-- about the thickness of a typical relic card. And they're super glossy, too, so you can stick them on your fridge and if they get water or some food splattered on them, it's no problem to wipe them off.

Though I've voiced my concerns over the ever-blurring grey area regarding customs and counterfeits, I sure do love making quirky customs, from the gifs and other amusing photoshops I post on the blog, to the glow-in-the-dark sketch cards and silly "blog-used" relic cards that I send off in trades. So making magnet cards from some of my favorite crazy photoshop customs is of course something I'd do!

I've hand-numbered each card (yes, I'm considering these "cards"). I'll hang onto #1 of each card for myself (I love these things!), but the rest are available for trade. A few have already been sent out as surprises recently. I'll also throw some into the mix for upcoming contests and stuff. In fact, I'm planning to kick off a contest this weekend with these in play (among other stuff)!

Want to get one of these silly Baseball Card Breakdown magnet cards to stick on your own fridge or file cabinet (or just sort away into your collection)? Get in touch about a trade. 
(and/or check back this weekend for the contest.) 

Thanks!

Even if we're just glowing in the dark

A few weeks ago I bought a few more '93 UD Fun Pack Glow Star cards (stickers) in an order from Sportlots or COMC or something.

I basically picked up the cheapest ones I could find (plus Griffey). Let's see, there's Junior, Benito, Baerga, Ozzie, Gooden, Clemens, and Salmon.

I've since officially added the subset to my wantlist, as I try to round up the remaining stickers (hell, I'd be fine with getting dupes, too.. I'd probably stick them somewhere.)

Needs as of today, 2/12/2015:
1993 Upper Deck Fun Pack - Glow Stars sticker subset
48 Mark McGwire, 54 Roberto Alomar, 61 Tom Glavine, 69 Robin Yount, 80 Ryne Sandberg, 86 Eric Karros, 93 Marquis Grissom, 99 Barry Bonds, 130 Cal Ripken Jr., 142 Darren Daulton, 148 Andy Van Slyke, 153 Juan Gonzalez, 173 Andres Galarraga, 179 David Cone, 185 Cecil Fielder, 191 Kirby Puckett, 204 Jim Abbott 

Speaking of glowing cards, I've also made a couple glowing customs already this year. First was an Anthony Rizzo sketch card, made by request for Lonestarr as part of the trade recapped here and here.

As usual, drawing faces is my main downfall. Really botched the chin on Anthony here. (Guess I took liberties and gave him facial hair that he doesn't actually sport.) And I didn't get too creative with the glowing; just the last name glows.

But CC seemed to be happy with it, so that's good.

source image

So that was card #1 from 2015 Baseball Card Breakdown Originals.

The second card in this year's BCB set is the first physical custom I've ever made that's not a "1 of 1." I wanted to make my own blogger card along the lines of the fun auto cards that Fuji, Nachos Grande, and Jaybarkerfan have. But I took it to a ridiculous level by making my own "blog-used" relic card.

Autograph button cards! See, I had an old silk shirt that I had recently decided to turn into a rag because it was falling apart a little. Then I had this "relic" idea, so I brought the shirt out of retirement and wore it when I blogged one day. Then cut it up and made these button relic cards. And yep, you guessed it: that yellow area where I signed does indeed glow in the dark a bit.

That's probably as close as I'll ever come to seeing my name in lights.
(How have real card companies not done something like this yet?? There I go again, making the trading card industry's innovations for them. Just a reminder that I'm open to negotiate for employment opportunities, Topps, Panini, Upper Deck, et al. )

Anyways, 3 of these 7 have already been received by "friends of the blog" trader buddies. Still got 4 left to spring on other folks I trade with over the next several weeks. So do a couple trades with me and perhaps you'll get your very own Baseball Card Breakdown #/7 glow-in-the-dark blog-used button autograph card! LOL

Update Signature Edition to my glowing sketch cards

Here's my latest project getting creative with cards: Glow-in-the-dark sketch autograph cards. This is sort of a little "update" set to the art cards I've made earlier this year (featured here).

What I do is pick up boring, inexpensive signed index cards of interesting guys. Then I "repurpose" the autographed note cards into standard baseball card sized sketch cards. At first I thought about making them "cut auto" style, but then I was like, screw it, just draw right on the index card. This method keeps the autograph "on card" but the downside is if you screw up the sketch, you kinda ruined the autograph. But these index cards just set me back an average of a couple bucks each, so it wasn't a huge risk or anything. These guys are/were very prolific signers (well, maybe Jay Bell less so, but definitely the other three), which is a big reason the auto index cards were so cheap. So no one should feel bad about me "ruining" a perfectly good signed index card with my amateur doodling.

Instead of filling the back with my sloppy handwriting, I've typed up and printed out backs with a short write-up on the guy, as well as an explanation of the card's origin and something of a COA statement. I subtly snuck in the source image I used for each sketch in the background. They're printed on stickers that I then slap on the back of the sketch. I need to be better at placing them straight and centered, as well as giving the ink plenty of time to dry (smudges easily for a few hours).

Of course I've also got to kick up my art cards by making them glow in the dark and sparkle in the light.

The glowing silhouettes look better in person.

The Feller was the first one I made, and I'll probably hang onto that one. The other 3 have been sent out as holiday gifts to lucky friends of the blog. Hopefully the recipients have received them by today.

I've got a few more signed index cards waiting to be transformed into auto sketch cards in the coming weeks, so stay tuned.

2014 Baseball Card Breakdown Originals

I photoshop up my share of "fake cards" here on the blog, but I also whip up a real physical card from time to time. Here's a recap of the few sketch cards I've made in 2014. These are all "1/1" of course but what really sets them apart (and helps make up for my lacking artistic ability) is the fact they all glow in the dark(!!). And I think they all look better in-hand, with sparkly action that doesn't come through in the photos. All of these have been lovingly sent away to trader buddies of mine, but I took pictures of them before sending them off. These gifs are otherwise undoctored images put together to give you, the reader, a feel for the cards.

2014 Baseball Card Breakdown Originals

BCB-RY
Robin Yount

 

I made this as a surprise for Tony L. at Off-Hiatus. The source picture was from Robin's 3000th hit celebration, I believe. No one's going to confuse this for a real artist's work, and looks a little more like Don Mattingly or Jeff Foxworthy than Robin Yount, but not bad for a first attempt at a glowing sketch card.

BCB-HK
Hiroki Kuroda

This Big Hirok was a surprise for Zippy at Dishin' Out Yankees. I think it came out the best of this year's set, actually. Not perfect, but pretty decent. This one glows on the back, too.

BCB-A
Archer

A surprise for Greg Z., this one came out pretty good.. but then again, it's a drawing of a drawing, not a real person, so it's almost cheating. Greg has quite a collection of real, officially licensed Archer sketch cards, but I thought this would be a neat addition for him.

BCB-JA
Jim Abbott

I needed a little something extra to balance a trade with Dimebox Nick, and a sketch card seemed like a good idea. Since it's Nick, I obviously had to make it out of the ordinary, so I found a source image of Jim at bat during his stint on the Brewers. I'd love a second chance on the face (looks like Randy from Pee-Wee's Playhouse), but oh well.

BCB-CK
Clayton Kershaw

I made this one for Alex at Chavez Ravining recently. It might be my first "by request" sketch card. We were hammering out a trade and he asked if I could whip him up a Kershaw or Matt Kemp. Forgive the racial implications, but black guys are hard to make glow-in-the-dark sketch cards for (I need to find or make some glow-in-the-dark brown paint.) Anyways, this one came out ok.

So there are the sketch cards I've made this year. Sure, they're B- "high-school-art-class"-grade projects, but they're fun to make and people seem to be happy when I send them one. As you can see, I didn't really stick with a specific design, though I did favor a horizontal layout, apart from the first one (Yount). I'll try to keep making these and hopefully improving at it. I should also work on the backs more.. at least spend a little more time on my chicken scrawl. I also need to work on doing black guys (don't take that out of context).. I've specifically been wanting to make myself sketches of Nate Colbert and Dick Allen.

I've actually got some new ideas I'm pretty excited about trying, so I might end up putting out an "update series" for my 2014 customs with a few more cards before the year's out.

And I'm open to being commissioned to make a custom card for anyone, either in exchange for cards off my wantlist, or failing that, a few bucks.