Painting tiny pieces of expensive cardboard.
Magic: The Gathering - Card altering
Altering is the process of painting new artwork onto existing Magic: The Gathering cards to customise a deck. People who follow the hobby cherish this option to customise their cards and often pay lots of money for their cards to be reworked to their own ideas. This freedom to customise cards means that players look to alter their decks with an almost infinite variety of themes; ranging from popular culture, niche media, already existing MTG lore, TV, Film, music, real life, the possibilities are vast.
I altered MTG cards on and off for around 5 years, the latter 2 years with a commissions waiting list of 3-4 months and customers from around the world. I became a trusted member of the altering community, acted as an admin for a group of over twenty thousand alter enthusiasts and even live streamed my work during the COVID-19 pandemic lockdown.
The card starts out looking like this, and is roughly 6.3 x 8.9cm in size - pretty tiny!
Each card has existing art, as well as information that pertains to playing the game. Most people having their decks altered are fine with covering all of this up, and simply leaving the name (at the top) and the mana cost (at the bottom)
Here’s what the process looks like from initial priming and sketch, through to the finished product.
