Inspired by those who have already blazed the trail (
Raudulfr Shieldcrusher,
mathguy, and probably others), I'm working on my own rectangular cards. Seems silly when others have already done the work, I know, but several things led me to start this project:
- A large number of my Clix minis are not the ones depicted on the Army Cards, and I prefer miniature shots to comic shots.
- Originally, I wanted to do bridge width instead of poker width. (Changed my mind on that one later.)
- I wanted to be very space-efficient with all the visual parts of the card, to maximize text area and keep font size from getting too small.
- And finally, even though I am certainly Not An Artist, I can't resist tinkering in Photoshop.
I wasn't really ready to post all this and start collecting feedback just yet, but I made the mistake of posting a card or two in another thread, which of course led to conversation, questions, and the (good) suggestion not to steal bandwidth from that thread. Hence this one.
This is a work in progress. Design is still underway. Some parts aren't good enough to make me happy yet. And I've probably made some decisions that may offend! But here it is, warts and all.
First, the basic template. As I mentioned, I'm trying to be as space-efficient as I can while still having at least a little bit of aesthetic interest. It's very orthogonal and spartan, but a little bit of 3D beveling livens it up for me.
I wanted at least a hint of the real Army Cards' angularity, and took some inspiration from the peculiar relationship between the MOVE, RANGE, ATTACK, and DEFENSE labels. Notice the amazing coincidence of their alignment:
Even in my earlier tests with LIFE stacked on top, the alignment still held its magic. This was too good not to do something with.
You can see below that I've rescued the Super Strength and Flying icons from their exile at the bottom of the Army Cards. This was partly for space-utilization reasons (I can't let these icons cost me two full lines of text), but also because I wanted to cluster together all the most frequently referenced "at-a-glance" visual information. Also, when reading an unfamiliar card (depending upon one's learning/reading style), it can sometimes be helpful to notice Flying or Super Strength before reading the other special powers, since there could be a design dependency.
You've probably noticed those other icons, following the MARVEL logo, for Stark Industries and the Avengers. I call these "affiliation icons" and they are sort of visual/thematic counterparts to the Heroscape generals' icons (which will also likely be placed in this area when I start making classic cards.) These have no gameplay meaning, and are mostly just "flair" (though I didn't leave room for 37 pieces). At some point I'll probably use them as scenario aids, but for now they're just there because I feel like some acknowledgement of a character's affiliations is appropriate. I've not yet settled on how many of these I want, or who "makes the cut" to get them.
On Iron Man, you may also have spotted the teeny-tiny Hasbro icon following MEDIUM 5. Naturally it is imperative to acknowledge the C3G team's excellent work, so I scaled their logo to fit, and then made a version for the Hasbro cards I plan to convert and another for my own custom crap. At some point I'll need to gen some for C3V/SoV.
The placement of the point value is quite deliberate. I want it to be easy to see at a glance what a particular army build contains, and what it costs.
Here's a vanity shot of one of my favorite cards. Partly because I like the actor and his portrayal of Dugan in the MCU films, and partly because this is one of those Clix where WizKids posted a nice high-res CG image of the figure. Oh, and because I'm vainly amused by my silly Howling Commandos affiliation icon.
There are more features to show later (some controversial), but I think that's enough for now.
June 13th, 2017, 09:48 AM
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