O hai, here is my simple three step process of how to make magic cards prettier. It is a card game.
Step one: Obtain a card.
This is the easiest part. Once you have one, you may proceed to step two.
This one is called "Mishra's Factory", by Kaja and Phil Foglio.
There are others.
Step two: Remove offending border area.
There are several ways to do this. Some people erase around the edges, and some people use acetone. But I scrape it away with a razor blade, using a perpendicular scraping motion. You can do yours however you want, but I think this is the fastest, and you don't risk ruining the card with toxic liquid, and erasing just takes too long. Razor scraping also gets rid of more paper, which is good because it gives more room for the paint. If your paint is too thick, the card will be unplayable. If you don't want to play with it anyway, you can make it as thick as you want.
But if you're gonna do that, you might as well just get a blank piece of paper and make an original painting.
Step three:
Paint.
I like to use acrylic paint and a small brush, and water to thin the paint sometimes, for painty effects. Most people use common colors, so you can just get one of those cheap sets of 24 acrylic paint tubes, and that will let you replicate most of the colors.
This step requires some painting skills, so if you're not sure about yourself, practice with a cheap rare first. Your practice must be on a rare card, because that's more badass than to risk wasting a cheap common card.
Use thin layers of paint, using either water or slow-dry fluid retarder. Painting multiple thin layers will prevent texturing, keeping the surface smooth and thin. The first few layers will not look pretty, so don't worry about how it looks at first. The point is to make it look pretty at the end.
I might take pics of the next card I make, to show more steps.
More of my painted cards are
here, but I made this blog for people who are seeing it from there, so you probably already know.
That is all.
