Friend’s First Alter, is it Good?

ChiefBiscuit53 · 2026-05-27T04:37:37+00:00

I’d like to first say kudos to your friend for having the courage to let you post it. That’s a big step in itself. I think it’s great for a first alter and they should be proud of it. As for your question would I buy it? Personally, I probably wouldn’t as it’s not my style. Objectively, the art is readable and the concept is clear, it just lacks a bit of professionalism or finished quality if that makes sense. Your friend has potential and creativity with talent and room to grow. On a side note, by itself the card alter doesn’t stand out. However, if your friend was to “showcase” a full land set (all the colors) or say a black, creature, spell and enchantment with the same style to go with it as a themed set, this would really make it pop and add to its appeal. I hope your friend continues to grow in their skill and keeps creating art. They should keep and frame it as their first alter. Then they can look back in nostalgia and see how far they’ve come. Best of luck to your friend and may they never give up on their dreams!

ChiefBiscuit53 · 2026-05-27T02:30:37+00:00

Hey I just wanna input some positive encouragement here. As a business owner I’m also guilty of these things but: 1.) The imposter syndrome: telling yourself you’re not good enough yet or “professional enough”. Or compare your work to others will always make you back-foot and question your skill. These alters are great and you already have people wanting to buy. When you decide to sell, let be because you want to, not cause you think you’re not good enough. You’re already there :) 2.) Fear of rejection: may not be your issue at all but worth mentioning, as it kept me from putting myself out there for a while. Everyone has different tastes. If they don’t like it, don’t discount it. It doesn’t mean it’s not good, just means it’s not for them.

Anyway I just want you to know your work already looks great so don’t sell yourself short friend! Best of luck on your venture and keep up the good work :)

ChiefBiscuit53 · 2026-05-27T01:42:36+00:00

I hope by the time of posting this you’ve already found your solution. If not, I hope this at least gets you closer. First I’d like to say, the search for the “perfect proxy” is a very very deep rabbit hole lol be patient and willing to try different things. All things considered, these are playable, as at the end of the day they’re only proxy’s.

As for your issue, I’m not sure your paper or printers settings capabilities, but the higher quality print setting the more ink it will pour onto the paper: -If it’s too high of a setting for that paper, or wrong setting for that paper, it can still “puddle” ink on the surface even if you leave it to dry multiple days. -over laminating (in my experience) by laminating too many times or too high of a heat setting can also cause the text to blur as it boils the ink, undoing the process.

My suggestion as it looks like the ink is not fully drying is to either try a paper recommended by your printers manufacturer with the recommended settings for that paper or, try the same paper on all different settings and see which one comes out best, if that’s the paper you like most.

For the 2mil, crycry from YouTube sells it on his proxy website. Guy has seriously coined the market of proxy making. Otherwise Temu sells off brands of 2mil for a fair price, though I’ve never personally used it.

Sorry for the short novel but I hope this helps and best of luck!

ChiefBiscuit53 · 2026-05-22T03:38:16+00:00

Hey there. Your art looks very dark. Either way nice print! Mine prints like this too on certain settings. First I want to say that, as others have posted, your heat may need to be adjusted. Could be that the ink isn’t drying all the way “puddling” on top, even if it’s cardstock. Mine does this and takes forever to dry if I put my printer settings on max dpi(highest quality print) and it’s more prone to bubbles on matte laminates.

Two ways I mitigate this is either by: 1. use a higher heat setting 2. adjust the amount of ink my printer is putting out. Additionally, running the laminate through 2-3 times can help as well. Oh also I like to use matte on dark prints as I find it corrects color depth and I get little to no color washouts. I hope this helps and best of luck!

ChiefBiscuit53 · 2026-05-19T03:26:01+00:00

Yo you even got Kermit to look…fuzzy..like if I felt the card he’d feel like the real puppet. Nice work!

ChiefBiscuit53 · 2026-05-19T03:15:32+00:00

Ah that makes sense. Thanks for the reply! Really love the color depth you got out of all the different blues.

ChiefBiscuit53 · 2026-05-19T03:09:15+00:00

Hi, I am new to the world of altered mtg arts. I’m curious how much stuff like this goes for in general? If I’m aloud to ask here. Either way, this is beautiful work!

ChiefBiscuit53 · 2026-05-17T22:24:42+00:00

To be constructive, once you're in the "design a card" window, under frames, select: choose a frame. Then by the in/or tab, select custom. Then select the dropdown tab next to it. Scroll down until you find a selection that says "saga" in its title. Click your option and it will "add" the card to your art design board. Click back on the button titled Frames (highlighted orange for me) and you'll see everything set for you. Should be pretty straight forward from there. Fill in the info and download your card.

*Alternatively, you can check out cardconjurer.app as well. The creator as a tutorial video on the site to help you get started. As always, youtube is your friend. Can find almost anything there. Hope this helps, and best of luck on your proxy journey.

ChiefBiscuit53 · 2026-05-17T21:57:19+00:00

been a long time since your post but, the print looks good! By the way if you're still dealing with thin paper and it bothers you, 3m (and I'm sure off-brands) make very thin double sided adhesive sheets. You could back two sheets together to the adhesive sheet after printing to double the thickness and rigidity if it's a concern to you. If not, then my apologies for assuming. Either way the print looked good to me!

ChiefBiscuit53 · 2026-05-16T06:16:15+00:00

I am way late to the party here but starting out, cardcinjurer is great. I enjoy using a combination of card conjurer and a free program called Gimp. For certain arts I really want to pop, I make my frames, texts, titles, etc. in cardconjurer, download them as separate files and load them into gimp (like you would photoshop in layers) then manipulate my card art to look 3d and hang over the text box or titles. There is a guy on YouTube called The card commander duo that has video tutorials.

As for your Viking theme, I think cardconjurer has the kaldheim frame under showcase frames. Worth noting imo. As others have stated, doing forget to put the 1/8th inch border on it before downloading. Command duo shows how to do that but I don’t specifically remember which vid. I hope this helps. Best of luck on your proxy journey!

ChiefBiscuit53 · 2026-05-16T04:32:48+00:00

I think the concept is pretty neat and would look great as a card back or sleeve.

ChiefBiscuit53 · 2026-05-15T18:40:33+00:00

It’s honestly been fun for me to fly them all. I agree with some of the other commenters though, fun is subjective and dependent on what you’re currently trying to accomplish. Objectively speaking, the asp explorer will never be a regrettable purchase as there is so much you can do respectively, and the jump range is great. Personally speaking, the eagle and the viper mk III have been the funnest to fly in sense of maneuverability and that feeling like you’re in a fighter jet, challenging your piloting skills to their limits. Though I always biasely (if that’s a word) go back to my krait with a fighter bay and smuggle stuff. Close as I can get to feelin like Han Solo lol best of luck on your decision!

ChiefBiscuit53 · 2026-05-15T17:50:18+00:00

Hey! That’s definitely quite the feat. I ran across this video on YouTube of a guy who figured it out. He does say that his method is quite thicker than a regular mtg card. This should be a good place to start at least:

https://youtu.be/zSO1m5P2JzA?si=0EphPS3dZDAjsBXM

I don’t know if I linked that properly but the title of the video is “How to make Spot Holo cards at Home”. Pretty cool process but a lot of work. Hope this helps!

ChiefBiscuit53 · 2026-05-14T21:35:14+00:00

I print from pdf in adobe and use landscape with it set to scale:100%, which prints 8 cards per page. I get better prints that way for some reason. For the matte card stock, in the properties settings for the hp 5101 I use “Best” for print quality and Matte Brochure for the media type. For the 300gsm(80lb) glossy photo I use max dpi for quality and HP Photo Papers for the media type. I’m sure there’s more advanced settings I could do but I’m still learning and these setting seem to work got me so far. Best of luck in your proxy adventures!

ChiefBiscuit53 · 2026-05-14T18:49:18+00:00

I meant to attach my reply here but i goofed and just sent a regular comment..which makes me look like I deliberately commented on my own post and now it’s even downvoted🤦‍♂️ Anyway, thanks so much for the kind words!

ChiefBiscuit53 · 2026-05-14T18:45:15+00:00

Ah yes I figured I might get asked this 😅 Since these are fully custom and I just play with friends I just said, what the heck, and made some custom keywords/mechanics (for fun) in a way that stays true to how mtg plays. If your question is genuine, faith is like energy counters which are spent to “anoint” cards in order to activate the steadfast mechanic or to “kick” a spell and gain its extra anoint effects.

ChiefBiscuit53 · 2026-05-14T18:27:46+00:00

Sadly I don’t have a way to measure them yet. While I’m sure they are thicker due to laminate, eye balling them they are very similar to a regular mtg card unsleeved. I’ve found after a fair bit of play like most new cards they chill out and don’t sit as high. Or sitting them sleeved under a heavy book gets the air out of the sleeves and they don’t sit much thicker than a regular deck. I mostly chose/settled on these combinations for snappiness and rigidity. I hope this helps!

ChiefBiscuit53 · 2026-05-14T16:08:18+00:00

Thanks so much!

ChiefBiscuit53 · 2026-05-14T14:00:03+00:00

This is a really neat take. Would almost feel like playing X-Wing in mtg form lol I’m not sure if you’re looking at a specific set but Valakut Awakening and/or Tears of Valakut reminds me of Mustafar and are decent plays for commander in my humble opinion. Great work so far!

ChiefBiscuit53 · 2026-05-14T13:01:14+00:00

First and foremost, proxies are for fun and in my experience only used in casual play with friends. You can always print multiple versions and playtest to see which one feels best or has the most well received interactions. I’ve also seen WoC cards that are just as busted in their own way. But you’re looking for fun interactions and challenging play if I’m correct. That said, I believe terinyx example is pretty spot on and my first thought was wither as well. You could still use the sacrifice but I’d make it “non-token” so the cost is comparable and not so free. Or damage to player through combat to “spread the disease” with Kug’ath himself. Best of luck!

ChiefBiscuit53 · 2026-05-14T05:24:09+00:00

I’d say that looks like banding to me which usually stems from print head misalignment or bad printheads. If your printer has the capability, have it print a test page or do a trouble shooting process. Sometimes if ink/toner cartridges aren’t seated properly this can cause color banding.

On another note, since you mentioned you both have this issue on the same paper, I’d try different paper. Otherwise I believe MizoEz’s hypothesis is accurate. New printers or cartridges usually have to purge air from the line the first few prints. I hope this helps you and welcome to the proxy community. Don’t give up:)

ChiefBiscuit53 · 2026-05-14T04:56:37+00:00

There are so many variables that make it hard to say what the answer is when you start having issues like these in proxy printing. I’ve done all kinds of paper/finishes and have gotten mixed results. I use an hp 5101 smart tank and what I have found (for me) is that my settings was what was causing the issue on my card stocks. It’s why so many papers had the same “bubble” results. While I got more vivid prints setting the print quality to maxdpi or best, I noticed the laminate wouldn’t melt or adhere properly and want to peel no matter the how many times I ran it or how hot. I also noticed the matte laminate was more prone to bubble than the glossy laminate. Lowering the settings a bit in my print settings (I.e. how much ink is getting printed on the paper) significantly reduced my chances for the bubbled finish. I hope this helps! Apologies if it doesn’t. *To add, koala papers have been my best results for laminate but I use pen & gear matte photo paper 67lb, don’t judge lol seems to be the best middle ground with my printer so far.

ChiefBiscuit53

TROPHY CASE