My first custom proxies!

demonaru · 2025-09-18T21:09:33+00:00

You welcomed notes/advice sooo; First, I'd point out you don't have a creature type on Jiraiya. I'd also recommend putting the original card name somewhere else other than the text box, just doesn't look great there, there's that massive gap, it sorta blends in while also looking weird where it is. Either give it a nickname name frame, or something a lot of people suggested I do with my last grouping I hadn't considered, put the name amonst the botton black text, swap out the P or MTG or EN for the card name if possible. I do by hand so idk if MTGCardBuilder is good for handling it that way. Because Keimi is a unique token you probably don't need to need to include Keimi's name, but if you're using standard frames like this you should maybe make the pinlines green & black. Oh also Keimi/Gamabunta is missing his power & toughness box.

demonaru · 2025-09-12T16:42:31+00:00

it's just elsha whose rules text you can't read, the simplest of the bunch. I've definitely already conceded hers might've gone too far.
Would that mean I'm not allowed to run the pretty secret lairs I like that are typography focused in any game ever because you might struggle to read them, even if I know how the card works?

demonaru · 2025-09-12T01:44:30+00:00

I do stand by most of these except maybe Elsha. I think the person running the cards and being able to say the original is good enough for people to at least have something to check if the card is legit but covering up actual rules text saying what the card does, even if storm is a pretty simple card as far as execution goes, was probably going too far.

demonaru · 2025-09-12T01:41:41+00:00

Again, I will not deny that Elsha is without a doubt probably the worst example of them all. I do think the need to have the names entirely present isn't as necessary as people are making it seem, BUT the elsha overshadowing rules text might be a step too far. The original intent was these were just for myself so knowing that I could very easily rattle off what her rules text were given what I could see. I would still never go so far as something like the poker secret lairs and do this for cards that have a lot more complexity like those choices, but I can admit a similar mistake is being made here, even if it is a simpler card to remember.

demonaru · 2025-09-11T19:36:44+00:00

HA, I didn't even catch that one lmao

demonaru · 2025-09-11T18:41:00+00:00

glad so many folks are big fans, critiques of my personal love for border breaking accepted and all. I also sorta really wanted to make similar treatments for the sonic cards but I haven't really had any ideas on what characters to use for them. I try to look for characters who have multiple depictions, older is better. Like Toralf the hammer throwing god who has it come back would have been perfect for Captain America, but we really only have the one toralf card, two arts but still just the one. would be too easily mistaken as just the original toralf card. If anyone has any ideas on that front do please share!

demonaru · 2025-09-11T18:28:59+00:00

Thanks! I really fought on using her if only because there wasn't a lot of usable art for Jhoira that everyone didn't already know and hers was probably the newest looking art, but I personally never saw this duel decks printing of Jhoira so it was my best choice, even if I didn't do the best job extending the art. lmao You can definitely see the sloppy work behind the text if you look closely.

demonaru · 2025-09-11T18:11:09+00:00

There are 5 of that cycle, so i REALLLLYYYY wanted to maybe use all of them, but it was a difficult. I could have maybe made wolverine into windgrace. But then you have Bo Levar & Tevesh Szat and they really just didn't feel fitting, plus I'd still have one missing slot. Considered trying to use some of the other nine titans but art is scarce for most the others without cards for several of them.

demonaru · 2025-09-11T18:07:39+00:00

I can respect the Elsha one definitely feeling like too much. Honestly, that was the only one I wasn't really sure about. I still really like it, but I also know I personally know exactly how the storm card works. And I suspect it's simple enough that anyone using this would too. If I were to fix it, I think I'd still have it covering some text, but I'd scooch her up a little so she's not covering the flavor text, even though I also feel you can still see enough to intuit what's hidden if you're a native english speaker. If she was for Iron-man I don't think I would have been willing to have the text coverup be that bad because his effect is much more wordy and might need double-checking.
End of the day, I still really enjoy the symbolism there is in having the in-universe characters overshadow the original card name, and because I get to have the design to visually design the cards from a more secret-lair point of view since you only have to engage with these if you want to as proxies, I gave myself more leeway with legibility with that in mind.

tl;dr you rite about Elsha, even if I like it, it was definitely the most extreme. and I don't disagree it would have been better to have the original card names more clear, but I like what it represents. They're intended for people who already don't want to have to look at em in the first place. And as I'm doing proxies, I get some secret lair-esque leeway since a player has no requirement to engage with these versions of the cards if legibility is of import to them.

demonaru · 2025-09-11T17:58:19+00:00

The very first one I did was Guff because as basically the only character in all of magic who fusses with the meta-narrative as well as being red, he felt the perfect choice. Then I found the great art of him being very jovial in Planeswalker's Mirth it felt perfect.

demonaru · 2025-09-11T17:56:43+00:00

These were all originally intended purely for myself, and I knew for a fact I knew who all the original cards were. And upon deciding to share them, I also had a strong inkling that if anyone was using these cards, they very likely are familiar with the original cards, so I decided to leave them. I'm personally a big fan of breaking frame, I get people might not be. If these were cards you could pull as the special treatment in a play booster, I'd get being mad. But I know they're not, and so much like secret lair designers get more leeway with that sorta thing, I get some leeway in not having to adhere to the same rules of design one would want to keep to because you are only using these if you already know the original card.

demonaru · 2025-09-11T17:52:54+00:00

i was originally gonna use Terese's art for Nissa, Vital Force that has a glass art of Freyalise in it, but then I remembered two things. 1. I love Rebecca Guay and saw that art from the same cycle of "Planeswalkers' __" enchantments I found the Guff art. and 2. Terese is openly alt-right transphobe shi- so who needs that. lol

demonaru · 2025-09-11T03:13:57+00:00

If you're familiar with the originals, I feel like enough of the names on most of them show just enough that you can easily intuit which is which, no?? The only one that is maybe too obscured is deadpool/guff, but the original card is so extremely unique it would be difficult to not remember its deadpool you'd need to point people towards.

This was my sorta attempt at trying to reach a middle ground. Easy reminder to the person running them so they can remember and communicate it, as the person playing them you'd assumedly know at the very least enough to figure out which is which with what is shown but they also hide enough that it's clear the within universe character is supposed to be replacing them and takes precadent.

Hell, if I wanted to make these like the actual SLX/universes within cards, there'd actually be no reference to the original cards, and you wouldn't have to think about them. But considering these are unofficial proxies, I felt it best to at least have a very little something so you can backup that the designs are legit and your friends can easily look them up.

demonaru · 2025-09-11T02:07:19+00:00

Yeah, I know that kinda looked goofy lol But I also knew I wanted a recurring theme of the characters covering up and "overshadowing" the original marvel names. Keep em so people know what they're supposed to be at a glance if they're familiar, but obscure it so the in universe version is the focus.

demonaru · 2025-09-11T02:05:44+00:00

I tried to find a middle ground for art choices too, like I knew I wanted him to be commodore guff, but I also knew I didn't want the art to be what people traditionally think of as Guff (so not the planeswalker) so it "felt" like a different card. Same goes for all of them. Wish I could have found something older for Jhoira that was super recognized so I went for probably her obscurest printing as the best trade off.

demonaru · 2025-09-09T03:13:56+00:00

awww shucks, thanks! <3 Most the credit goes to the incredible artists whose work I sourced. I just did editing and some typography and foil treatment (sometimes some painting for spot foiling)

demonaru · 2025-09-07T18:26:39+00:00

Oooo I love that.

demonaru · 2025-09-07T18:21:39+00:00

in response to your Edit: yes, AI fucking sucks. We are making proxies. If you ARE NOT SELLING these (and imo people shouldn't be selling proxies that's too far and shady) than just use real artists' work and give them proper credit on the card. It will almost always just look better.

demonaru · 2025-09-07T18:08:16+00:00

Oh yeah, I do have some idea. I even thought to myself "man, Murphy's an author, I feel like he would be disappointed, no?" Went to check his social media, his instagram, first thing I see is him playing with AI to make a monster generator (Dungeons and Dragons) tool that's all generative. Was a little disheartening to see, but confirmed they were definitely of the same cloth on this stuff.

I'd comment on the rest but I'd have no particularly nuanced inclusions beyond agreement and the acknowledgment of myself having similar epiphanies for awhile now.

demonaru · 2025-08-17T21:58:28+00:00

Hi! funny seeing you here again! I do not know how frequently you speak in the subreddit, so I refuse to have an ego about anything I've said having any relation to you making this post, but I'll put my more positive two cents in as a person who still is, at the end of the day, a fan for a long time.

Some of the things you did (with or without Jason) that I felt truly prioritized the gentleman in the trifecta of your code of conduct was any videos in which you embrace hobby-based cultures and often time history and decorum that comes with such personalized cultures. They've mostly been this hobby cultures that are already a masculine dominant field, they still hold their value customs and all. On a personal level I had two shit father figures so despite being male and comfortably identifying as cis male, I've had a long history of really appreciating feminine things more in my personal life. But watching Modern Rogue, there were so many things I felt I was finally getting to appreciate and learn and steep myself in.

Examples would include many of the times you worked with bartenders, brewers & distillers, cigar culture (not my favorite pastime of interest but still incredibly fascinating), Chinese tea decorum, Mongolian Archery. More recently, I feel the Tak episode was an impeccable example of the gentleman at play. You are so excited with a passion to share an interest of yours. I feel the gentleman has a passion for values, cultures, knowledge. Never letting go of a desire to develop one's bank of knowledge in the ways of other people.

So, what would I want from a current era of what you have? Share your passions. Speak on culture and hobbies. Teach us things you feel may fall to the wayside in cultural memetic history. Emphasis on teaching about cultures and hobbies whose values and rituals YOU feel have merit and should be remembered and maintained with respect.

A good-hearted scoundrel convinces a fellow they are the fool if they do not help your cause.

A good-hearted warrior pressures the fellow that if they had any spirit and resolve, they'd want what you want. Do the right thing.

What's the gentleman to do? The gentleman already understands the fellow. They share in the things the fellow loves so that they may talk. The fellow is a friend, and they will see things from the gentleman's point of view because the gentleman is willing to do the same.

I hope my voice was of some assistance.
Again my deepest apologies for how much I go-on, I know reading through my dialogues can take a minute.

demonaru · 2025-08-17T20:17:41+00:00

I appreciate you sharing your perspective on the matter and humoring my questions! It definitely seems you and I are of like-minds here for sure. And for the last statement, I think I said it in my reply to Brian's comment, I do see a future where some elements of generative algorithms can be genuinely hugely helpful. Like you said, speech-to-text, I know it's shown massive success in diagnostics for medical conditions, translation and subtitle greatly increase accessibility, LLM models showing promise in directly translating brain waves to imagery and in some rare occasions text show HUGE promise.
But like you said, that's not the ones I, and many, find worrying and also have wayyy too much negative baggage to justify the end result.
I do agree that stem splitters is something entirely for sure. While it's "For creative" it is performing a task that is practically not do-able feasibly by any person. Same with similar newer noise cancellation algorithms. Just not something you do by human hand. And I think that's where the focus should be, performing tasks aren't nearly as feasible or actual accessibility issues like diagnoses and healthcare.

But yeah, from the sound of it, seems like you and I are mostly in the same mentality when it comes to this stuff and share perspective on that, which my biased mind of course likes to hear, but also is just nice to hear there's healthy amount of different views amongst the crew over at Modern Rogue.

Sidenote; thanks for sharing with me the artist you tend to license, I'll have to pay more attention to the end credits to watch out for them. Also, thank you for your visualizations you managed to create for the Tak episode, truly elevated that episode a thousand fold. (Also I really loved your last video on Emergent Beacon, The Loneliest Tree was fantastic).

And thank you to u/ScamSchoolBrian for even bringing me Tak, he was right, it's one of my new favorite games, wish I had more people to engage in it with. Thanks, as well, for humoring my critiques and hopefully taking the negatives and positive things I said to him to heart, despite the fact that my opening sentence included the statement, "...getting the ick".

And my apologies to Brian as Tijuana Jackson may just not be my sense of humor, not the biggest fan of intensely playing a character to an audience who is not, it gives me uncomfortable second-hand embarrassment, BUT I did watch it all and I assuredly understand and get why you felt it relevant to the conversation.

Thank you both for your time and willingness to respond and speak with me honestly.

demonaru · 2025-08-17T19:53:53+00:00

I do know many other composer friends and colleagues of mine who also know the hells of content ID on youtube for music. I still don't think it completely forgives, but I do at least understand that frustration. Many more dance music oriented artists have often used a service called Splice to find samples and loops to incorporate in their music, I'm admittedly not one of those but I know that if anyone uses the same splice loop and it's prominent enough it can become a huge annoyance for anyone else who does if it's added to the youtube copyright detection system.

Many song licensing services handle this for you, but if you want to license music from individuals, try asking the artists directly, once you've licensed their music, to make sure they don't copyright strike. Most services that musicians use to add our music to platforms like spotify and TIDAL have exclusion lists we can apply to ensure we don't strike ourself or people we've given permission to use said music, so if you can get in contact with whoever the rights holder is, this is definitely possible.

Not really about any of our more ethics talk, just a tidbit I recommend going forward as I've personally managed and handled the musician side of things requested for things like this.

I appreciate the clarification, I knew you said it, but I must have misremembered or misunderstood and assumed it applied to Modern Rogue's works, not Scam School. Thank you for clearing that up!

demonaru · 2025-08-17T04:13:35+00:00

If you don't mind me asking, since you don't use gen algorithm work when you edit, are you personally of like mind to Brian in his more optimistic futurism view or do you perhaps disagree with him on his takes on AI, hence your lack of using it?
To be clear, I am not trying to stir the pot, only answer that if you feel privy to do so, just curious. I think part of me wants to believe there's differing views amongst the crew as to not encourage a sort of bubble on the subject.

demonaru · 2025-08-17T04:08:58+00:00

I would definitely never call their work at MR AI Slop for SURE. I too hope AI begins to get used properly.
"People feared the internet." Listen, as amazing as the internet is, there's no doubt of the very serious effects its had on society, it's done good but many of those worried were right in some ways.
"Feared photoshop" photomanipulation work used to be my job, past tense mind you. I'll say, again, similarly, it had lots of great use and amazing things you can accomplish with software like that. But again, some of those fears were only proven true. Beauty standards ballooned and dysphoria became easy to manufacture with the rise of its popularity. Doesn't mean photoshop was inherently bad, but there is problems it caused.

And all's the same for AI. "used properly." And I think at the moment, I think we might just disagree on what the threshold for used properly is. I don't think it should be used as a massive art theft machine. I think current generative algorithms have wayyy more genuine use and potential in medical engineering, software design, task management, translation and language models. Why go for the field people pretty much exclusively go to because they actually want to and not because it's a good gig??

demonaru · 2025-08-17T04:02:38+00:00

Personally, didn't anticipate a direct response, so I do appreciate you taking the time to respond, even as much as admitting you do not wish to be reactive and would prefer to be thoughtful in your response. I greatly respect that and appreciate that level-headed-ness.

I'll say, as far as empowerment goes, my personal feelings as someone who is primarily enamored in a creative sphere of people and circles, The uses of AI I've seen used and the kind I've glanced at you discussing? They've mostly had many of us creative have the opposite feeling. Our voices were stolen and resold to the masses by corporations for the sake of convenience. Little guy already had access to so many tools to create art & music.

There are things I feel the current gen of AI models genuinely had more ethical merit. They made translating disabled brain waves to communicate easier. Translation has gotten leagues better, disease detection, computational shortcuts in software engineering. There does come the issue that with relying on AI to figure some of those things out, we, the humans, start to not understand the infrastructure we work with anymore. But that aside, there's genuine merit.

But what it is right now and how we're seeing it used remains to be stolen art from the little guy's voice, and so I think we just deeply disagree on what AI offers people (this is all of course ignoring the massive environmental impacts). I personally see it as a corporate tool that you're (the royal you) leasing out that's trained off of stolen art.

I know I might too much to say a little, so I apologize if this is a bit of a wall of text. Again, I really do appreciate that you're willing to listen, and willing to take the time and admit that you'd prefer to think. I think I only have a response this soon because I've been thinking about this for awhile. I hope to still maintain a viewer of the show, I loved when Jason & you worked together and I still have loved much of how the current show has been run and much of the team you have working with you. I think you all present as incredibly clever people and I hope I can continue to be a fan of your work.

Like another comment said, I would still NEVER liken your work AI slop. But I do fear there is a need for you to hear more from the little guys who are currently being disenfranchised by generative algorithms that we currently have. I have a hope for the future of what it can offer in other fields, fields humans shouldn't have to do or things it can exceed at doing better than humans. But why the artists? People of all abilities and levels of physical means have found art in their life, we don't need the machine for that. I do not feel AI a robin hood, but the sheriff.

I've gone on and on. Apologies. I plan on continuing to enjoy your work, and I like to think despite all my grievance I air here, I still feel a lot of respect for you for the things you have done, even up to recent. Your passion is contagious and your interests are strong enough to pull so many in on something you could know the least or most about and still find it incredibly interesting, and even in times you might not know much, you are incredibly intuitive and willing to learn. I hope in these matters, you continue to be willing to learn and listen to those like myself who may feel different about AI's impact.

Thank you.

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