Palatinus' OverPower Forum

So I've been really impressed by the homemade cards I've seen here (especially some homemade foils!), but I have no photoshop skills (or photoshop software). I found a bunch of templates I can use in Paint here http://www.beenhereandthere.com/SMF/custom-cards/my-icon-templates/msg3566/#msg3566, and they work really well, but I haven't yet found a good one for the green background strip on which the Character name and any Inherent Ability they have are found. If I did, I could insert the hero/villain symbol templates on it and insert Text/font changes in paint. Can anyone help me out with this?

I ask because even though I (unfortunately) gave away all my old childhood Holos from the Marvel Trading Cards and DC Trading Cards series, I still have a Marvel Metals foil card of "Venom - Alternate M", which is actually a sweet image of Punisher in the Venom costume from What-If? vol.2 #34. I would love to slip it into a perfect-fit card sleeve and then stick printed stickers of Character Statistics and the name strip onto it.

My plans for this character are the following:

Punisher - Earth 92164  (or, Punisher: Symbiotic Costume)
E - 5
F- 7
S - 5
I - 4
May play any Punisher or Venom Specials except Flamethrower and Eddie Brock: Reporter.

This makes him a 21 point character, which is higher than either Punisher or Venom, but I don't feel that's inappropriate given his power level. I arrived at these stats in the following manner: First, the inherent ability was the logical extension of the Punisher having the Venom symbiote. He can't use a flamethrower, and he isn't Eddie Brock. For Energy I took the Venom stat, under the logic that the symbiote was largely responsible for any greater-than-human energy. For Fighting, it's the Punisher, so he got the Punisher stat of 7. For Strength, I considered that the symbiote increases strength, but Frank Castle isn't Eddie Brock (an Olympic Level Athlete). So I marked it 1 point higher than the Punisher but 1 point lower than Venom. Finally, for Intellect, I again took the Punisher's statistic, since it is Frank Castle under the suit.

not bad dok

Hey dok - I use a program called GIMP to make my customs, which is like a free, open source photoshop.

There is a post somewhere on the forum that lists the appropriate fonts - or you can always get creative and come up with your own.

Otherwise, awesome card!  Looking forward to seeing others that you come up with!

i would say that Frank Castle is pretty close to be being an Olympic Level athlete so i would give him 6 strength and drop his intellect or energy by 1.

I could totally see that. He does make it a point to stay in shape, and in another What If? issue (What If? The Punisher became Captain America) we see him doing single-arm pull-ups, which are basically impossible to do.

In that case, I would definitely shave a point on Energy. I think it's hard to justify knocking off a point of Intellect, which I recognize isn't inherent but still seems to me like something that would be pretty consistent for an individual (in this case, Frank Castle) who hadn't had a major physical alteration (like Beast: the Brute).

That would leave him 4-7-6-4, which is not bad and seems pretty believable for the character. In fact, looking at it, it took me a minute to figure out why I didn't take that configuration as an option. Then I recalled that somewhere on the site (I've been reading lots of threads, kind of playing catch-up with everything that's happened in the game) I read a rule-of-thumb that characters with an 8, or a 7 and 6, in their power grid very rarely get inherent abilities.

Looking at it now, it seems silly, but I think last night I was trying to avoid breaking that rule of thumb so I could include the Inherent Ability without feeling like it was a bad idea.

I think I'll do print-outs of both, and then hopefully I can get Skype installed and working (I've been asked by two people already to play via Skype, and I don't have Skype! Gotta fix that) and maybe play-test a little with it. It would be extremely gratifying to get to try it out, as that was one of my favorite comics as a kid (I ended up giving a majority of my comic and trading card collections to my younger brother, one of those "oops, our other kids are graduating college and we got pregnant" children who totally scored by having an older brother with a 20+ year old collection). In spite of giving away my comics, I held on to that issue and the trading card, for nostalgia's sake. Seems fortuitous now.

Thanks for the suggestions guys! And the info on GIMP, I'm going to try downloading it later tonight and see if I can work with it. I have Magic Set Editor installed, which is sweet and super simple to work with, but I'm an enterprising guy. I managed to manipulate the power grid icon I downloaded from here in paint, and added the numbers (I think the font is wrong, but the size definitely looks right at 36 pt Bold) for to the grid. I may do a test print tonight and see how it looks when printed/how difficult it is to cut well.

I'll post pics once I get farther along, and in the meantime I'll post any other ideas up here. In fact, I might even snap an image of the card I'm working with now, so you can all see how totally awesome it is.


EDIT: Nevermind, I'm an idiot. I literally cannot figure out how to get a photo inserted in this thread. Insert Image keeps giving me image tags, like I should be putting a URL in, and max file attachments are 128 kb. Trust me when I say it's a sweet looking card though. I'll try to be less stupid later, when I have more time.

I use Picasa web: photos.google.com for my customs.

This is the card I'll be using as a base to create this custom.

I'm slogging through the GIMP manual now, as I have literally no background in any kind of image manipulation software. I'm excited though. Might treat myself to a good flat scanner for Xmas, so I can scan images from the What If? issue to make specials like "Symbiotic Machine Gun" and "Glider Wings" (Punisher did crazy things with the symbiote in that issue).

I also decided (after looking at your post teesaw, which is awesome) that I'd like to do a couple of other characters that never got cards but deserved them:

Trevor Fitzroy

Shard

The Vulture

Electro

The Squadron Supreme (either as a team with each special one member, or each character as a card)

And maybe a few other variant characters, like :

The Spider (from Exiles, a spider-man/carnage hybrid)

Cyclops: AoA

Iceman: AoA (ah, who am I kidding, all the AoA characters that don't exist already as cards)

Spider-Man 2099 (and the rest of the 2099 characters, especially Hulk, Ghost Rider, X-Men, and Punisher. I suppose some of the 1-off to 2099 characters, like Ravage. And some of the villains, like Vulture 2099, who was way more awesome than the original and also a cannibal which made him more freaky and awesome... I really loved the 2099 series as a little kid. I like even more that some of these variants will not have access to some or all specials the originals have. For instance, the Inherent Ability on Spider-Man 2099 would be "May use all Spider-Man specials except Clonal Confusion", and for Ghost Rider 2099 I don't think I'd give him the "may play Ghost Rider specials" IA, just his own specials, because he's so differently-powered than the original. Punisher 2099 would be an example of a "may play any Punisher specials" character... this just begs to be a set, "OverPower 2099")

I know I'll be able to find images for a lot of these online, so the only limiting factor will be my free time and how long it takes me to learn GIMP!

I think I'll start to work out some stats, abilities, and specials for these characters later.

Doktor - best of luck to you - let me know if there's anything I can do to help, including sharing some of the template files that I've got already loaded up in GIMP (once i find them).

shoot me an e-mail or a PM on the forum.

i think it would be fair to increase Strength to 6, the symbiote should enhance what you already have, especially in the strength department, maybe not a 7 like Brock, but thats ok. its close. Malebolgia is a high point character with an innate, i think its fair how you have this setup... its not like Punisher or Venom has game breaking specials. its a fair trade off.

I could be on board with that.

Off the original stats, that would make him 5-7-6-4 for E-F-S-I, which is a 22 point character. I actually like that quite a bit, and not just because it means a pet character of mine would be pretty well-statted. I didn't want to push his stats too hard, but if Spawn is an elite warrior with a living symbiotic costume and he's a 21 point character, I can see an argument for Frank Castle (who is combat trained, like Al Simmons, but has 30-50 years of combat experience instead of only a decade or so) being a 22 point character with the Venom symbiote. It's not an exact analogy, but to your point, neither character has specials that are totally bonkers, and I don't see any incredibly unfair interactions between their specials yet.

teesaw has been incredibly helpful in providing me with info on GIMP, fonts, and GIMP templates. I'm hopeful that by New Year's I'll have enough experience to print off these stickers and post a finished product. Then I've got some fun ideas for custom cards!

Team x has an inherent ability and they have a 7 and 6 in there grid. Your character is fine.

Cool. Looking over every card he'll have available and his stats, I would call him strong but balanced. No special is too outrageous and I haven't seen any game-breaking combos hidden in them; eliminating the Flamethrower special was not only flavor-appropriate to a character with the Venom symbiote, but also removed the pseudo-redundancy with Alien Symbiote (because what character needs access to that many 4attack+Power card specials). Otherwise he's at the usefulness level of any of the other characters with the AE type special, although with slightly better stats in my opinion.

I've been really charged with ideas for cards in the last 24 hours, and have come up with the following custom sets I'd like to create in GIMP:

OverPower 2099  - 84 Cards
16 Characters
Spider-Man 2099   IA: May play any Spider-Man specials except Clonal Confusion
Hulk 2099   IA: May play any Hulk specials except Betty Banner
Punisher 2099    IA: May play any Punisher specials
X-Men 2099 (team card)     IA: X-Men:2099's team is +1 to venture for each hit on their permanent record
Ghost Rider 2099
Doom:2099 (reprint)    (IA: May play any Doctor Doom specials)
Ravage  IA: Ravage is -2 to defense if opponent controls Doom:2099
Vulture 2099
Venom 2099  IA: May play any Venom specials except Lethal Protector and Eddie:Brock:Reporter
Theatre of Pain (team card)  IA: Theatre of Pain's attacks are +1 for each hit on defending character's permanent record
Glitterspike
Golden One
Anti-Hulk  IA: Anti-Hulk's attacks are +1 against any Hulk character.
Halloween Jack
Multi-Fractor: Jigsaw 2099
Tyler Stone

2 new specials for each character who can play an older version's cards (4 characters, 8 cards total)
5 specials for each new character with no pre-existing specials (12 characters, 60 cards total)

OverPower: Alterniverse - 37 New Cards
11 Character cards
(Exiles) The Spider   IA: May play any Spider-Man or Carnage specials except Clonal Confusion, Science Whiz.[and With Great Power]
(What If) Punisher: Symbiotic Costume  (what I came up with first, that led to all this and which you guys have helped me get feeling like a good character)
(What If) Thordis   IA: May play any Thor specials
(Machine Man 2020)  Arno Stark: Iron Man 2020   IA: May play any Iron Man or War Machine specials except In the Line of Fire and Pepper Potts
(Fantastic Four) Hyperstorm
(Exiles) Brother Mutant   IA: May play any Wolverine, Magneto, Scarlet Witch or Quicksilver specials (This may need further review)
(Excalibur) Shadow-X   IA: May play any Professor X or Shadow King specials except X-Men Founder or Shi'ar Battle Armor
(Elseworlds)  Superman: Red Son   IA: May play any Superman specials except The Man Beyond Tomorrow
(Elseworlds) Robin:3000     (like Ghost rider 2099, one of those rare characters that I don't believe uses any of their original versions' specials)
(Elseworlds) Flash: Justice Riders    (ditto to Robin:3000)
(Green Lantern) Lex Luthor: Orange Lantern  IA: May play any Lex Luthor Specials

1 new special for each character who can play another's specials (8 characters, 8 new cards)
6 specials for each new character with no pre-existing specials (3 characters, 18 new cards)


Marvel OverPower: Age of Apocalypse  35 Cards
25 Characters (6 reprints, 7 if Morph is an exact reprint)
Cyclops: AoA
Jean Grey: AoA
Jubilee: AoA
Gambit: AoA
Ice Man: AoA
Magneto: AoA
Rogue: AoA
Sabertooth: AoA
Strong Guy: AoA
Blink
Morph: AoA (reprint with Mission control art, since it was AoA anyway)
Sunfire: AoA
Quicksilver: AoA
Banshee: AoA
Storm: AoA
Forge: AoA
Sugarman
X-Man (reprint)
Wolverine: AoA (reprint)
Colossus: AoA (reprint)
Shadowcat: AoA (reprint)
Dark Beast (reprint)
Holocaust (reprint)
Apocalypse: AoA
Sinister: AoA

5 New specials for Blink and Sugarman, nothing for anyone else.

Possibly new-art versions of each character's specials.


Obviously that's a ton of stuff, and is easily 2 years worth of projects, but I'm a lifelong comic geek and am enjoying learning how to use GIMP to make my dream cards come true.

Plus, as teesaw mentioned to me last night, how sweet would OverPower: AoA be as a limited format in tournament play?

I'll post up images here as I get cards completed over the next few months.

I used color label stickers to make Homemade cards back before technology.  LoL

https://plus.google.com/u/0/117757427014976594764/posts/6S2N26hXcXU?pid=6085713260302927202&oid=117757427014976594764

https://plus.google.com/u/0/117757427014976594764/posts/6S2N26hXcXU?pid=6085713291622697922&oid=117757427014976594764

Awesome!

Guess I'm not the first to the party on Punisher/Venom and Punisher: 2099, LoL!

I'm really excited to try my hand at customs. I've played MtG a long time, and have used excess bulk foils to get a lot of practice cleaning off the foil and separating the back so I can attach another card back (I also practiced re-backing using some MtG World Championships cards and Regular MtG cards, so I'm pretty ok at that). I can't wait to try some other OverPower custom prints, like a foil character series (similar to the Wildstorm foils).

Of course, first I have to actually work out how to use GIMP. But after that, the sky's the limit, and I have some fun ideas.

I'd be willing to purchase a foil of punisher symbiote from what if.  Look forward to the final result!