Phew, working for a living and trying to do your own thing can be challenging (read: real life gets in the way!). =p
I’m in a push to get playing card files out to Printer Studio tonight and the “official” prototype ones for Mint Tin Pirates are done. woot! =D
I create mock-ups in Fireworks and use a letter-sized template to print 16 cards per sheet (mini poker card size) to save paper and keep card cutting easy.
Once the paper prototype has been blind playtested – Pirates and Aliens have each seen a tad over 100 games with about 25 different people – I export the vectors to FXG (File > Export > FXG and Images) and then tweak in Illustrator.
The last bit was the card back. For this I found public domain images, one from a painting by a US Navy Seaman in the late 1700’s and another from a 1798 book. As with any US government image, video, or audio from the military or NASA, American citizens can use those without restrictions.
The backs are fine for these prototypes but not for the actual Kickstarter version of Mint Tin Pirates. All art will be further tweaked before the “production” version is printed.
These images are double the actual size (mini poker cards); the top is the print-safe area and the bottom is the full bleed.
Avast! Now onto Mint Tin Aliens! (oops, too much pirate on the brain!) =D
I hope you have a great day and get to spend some time on your personal projects! =)
