5/31/2021 Update - Completed Chakram Retriever (Suicune). I tried to make the background look like an old-school holo pokemon card with shiny specs in various shapes and sizes.

Also received this rad Vesuvan Shapeshifter (Ditto) alter from GummyGhost. She's really good at making cute characters and it's nice to have something with a unique style in the deck among all my basic alters. The 90s pattern background is a nice touch. Reminds me of the carpet at Chuck E Cheese.

6/2/2021 Update - Elves of Deep Shadow (Vileplume), Unblinking Bleb (Cloyster), and a bunch of lands are finished.

I picked Vileplume for Elves of Deep Shadow cuz her hat casts a big shadow haha. And Vileplume is totally Golgari. I tried something a little different for Cloyser by dabbing in 3 colors of paint rather than one color to give it more dimension. I like how it turned out. I think the technique works well for a chitinous or rocky look.

6/4/2021 Update - Den Protector (Shuckle) and Dimir Infiltrator (Gliscor). I pushed myself to make these slightly more stylized than my typical alter. I still need to come up with some more abstract/unique ideas for these. It'd be neat to emulate the huge variety of art styles that appear in pokemon cards.

king-saproling I know several artists for Pokemon cards actually take photos of clay or knit or other models. Adding a few of those could be interesting.

legendofa I love that idea! Definitely gotta try my hand at a clay poke. I wonder what the best way to apply the photo to the card would be

I'm not sure. My best guesses are to physically cut out the photo, lightly sand or strip the back to make it as thin as possible, and glue it on, or do the whole thing digitally and use a scan/print.

I love this so much

Thanks magicmax35 glad you like it!

6/10/2021 Update - completed Birds of Paradise (Ho-Oh) and the remaining lands

6/11/2021 - finished Skinthinner (Mawile) and a Creature Guy (Luxury Ball)

Ironic that you deligated Shuckle with the lowest possible toughness.

Ha GrimlockVIII I hadn’t even thought about that. At least the megamorph gives him an extra toughness.

I love Shuckle and had to fit it in somewhere. Den Protector seemed right since its abilities are reminiscent of Shuckle moves like power split and rest. I used to run a Shuckle with the Contrary ability, plus shell smash, toxic, the aforementioned moves, and leftovers. Man it was hilarious

6/22/2021 Update - completed Dimir House Guard (Houndoom)

This is so cute, love the mimikyu and the ditto card, well done!

Thanks um_fido!

I am in love with this deck, this layout and the fact you manage to make a Commander legal Pokemon deck! This is amazing; well done!

Thanks so much Ravenrose!

7/7/2021 Update - Completed Silumgar Spell-Eater (Charizard). I know it's weird for Charizard to be a blue card, but I thought the fire in the art was fitting. Also Silumgar Spell-Eater has Megamorph and Charizard has mega forms so there's some similarity there too.

7/14/2021 - finished Nylea, Keen-Eyed (Hitmonchan). Hitmonchan's passive ability in the pokemon games is Keen Eye so I thought she'd be fitting for Nylea, Keen-Eyed

7/20/2021 - completed Ulvenwald Hydra (Ferrothorn)

This is ART and I love it.

I love this so so SO much. The flavour you got with the Morph tokens as pokeballs, and Spark Double works just so well name-wise as Plusle and Minun

Thanks so much Icbrgr and thijmnesoy you are both too kind! Makes me glad some of my little ideas didn't go unnoticed haha

this has me wanting to start making alters myself as well! can I ask, what is your process with making these alters? and what materials do you use?

Go for it thijmnesoy! I found making alters to be a lot easier than I originally assumed, and it's fun.

First I plot out the cards digitally and overlay a reference image, resizing as needed to get a good look. The magic select feature in Paint 3D is really nice for clipping out a subject image that you can then copy and paste on top of a card image. I like for the subject to pop out of the art frame a bit without overlapping the border (just my personal preference). So I size the reference with that in mind, then print them out so that I can have it next to the physical card when I start altering. Having the printed reference image is really helpful for getting proportions correct.

I use two kinds of acrylic paint: the cheap ones that come in little $1 bottles at walmart, and acrylic paint pens like these:

Amazon - Acrylic Paint Pens

The paint pens are my preferred media. They're easier to use than paint brushes and then end result looks really clean. The problem with the pens is that you can't mix the colors to achieve a different shade, which is where the traditional bottled paint comes in. A tip with traditional paint that I learned the hard way: use small amounts when mixing together, and toss in a bit of water. Mixing large amounts takes a while and leads to an uneven palette, and the water improves the texture (makes the end result smooth rather than lumpy).

Once everything is painted, I use an ultra-fine-tip permanent marker to do the line work. And that's it!