Custom Cards: 2016 Olympics

The way I approach a custom card might be slightly different than most. For starters, if I’m doing a strait recreation of an existing card, it’s to fill a gap in reality. If a person didn’t get a card in a certain year, or on a certain team, that’s a good candidate for a custom. Second, if I feel like the idea was a good one, but I thought it could be executed differently design wise. That’s the nice way of saying that I didn’t like something about the original. That’s not because I believe in any way that I’m a better designer than any of the artists already employed by Topps or Panini, but merely that they have deadlines and productions schedules to meet, whereas I could take months working on something. The third type of custom is the original custom. I love being inspired by a design and then putting my own spin on it. I’ve got a few of those in the works, but this post is actually about the second type.

Topps created a design for this years Olympics cards that was pretty good, but had, at least in my opinion, a few things that needed tweaking. So, this is my re-imagining of the 2016 Topps Olympic card set.

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Summer Stockpile

Seems weird to say “goodbye to summer” in November, but in Texas it’s finally dropped below 80°. Baseball is over for the year, we just set the clocks back, the weather is changing, the summer is most definitely over. I refrained from posting a lot over the summer mostly due to time issues, but that doesn’t mean I didn’t pick up a good amount of cardboard. That said, this isn’t the entirety of what I found, just the highlights, and it’s also representative of May-October, so there’s quite a few. Image heavy post ahead…

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More Cards From AJ

I know I wouldn’t classify myself in the same league as most of you who trade cardboard on a regular basis. In fact, most of my trades are done with a tiny handful of people. Not that I wouldn’t mind making more trades, it’s just that I’m horrible at it. I don’t buy enough stuff to readily have things for other people all the time and I feel vaguely inadequate sending flagship base to people. One of the few people I do trade with is AJ from The Lost Collector. Seeing as how he’s a Yankees fan, and seeing as how the two most heavily included teams in products tend to be Yankees and Red Sox, I actually have various Yankees cards worth trading. He probably feels the same way about the Red Sox. AJ’s trade packages are always excellent and I’m always glad to receive one. I’m filling a box full of Yankees as a return gift, but the box isn’t quite full yet, I need to cram a few more in there to get the most out of my postage dollar.

Let’s see what AJ sent…

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Change of Plans

It’s funny how the plans we all have are often times not the path we end up walking. We learned on Friday that my wife’s job will be going away shortly. The business owner is retiring and they’ll be closing the doors soon. We had hoped to visit my family in New England this year, let the kiddo experience a real white Christmas, all that good stuff, but that’s probably not happening. That’s ok, plans can change. What’s important is that we find a good fit job wise and it’s something enjoyable and fulfilling. It’s only a minor bump in the road, nothing we can’t handle together. Wish us luck!

More team sets

I showed off random team sets earlier this year when several of them hit at once (S1, GQ, etc). Now that the summer has drawn to a close we can take a look at what the past few months had to offer.

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