Stone Cold

To this point I've made custom cards of most of the things I wanted cards to exist for.  So anymore I rely on stumbling upon images that inspire me to make cards.  That's the setup for this particular card, seeing the image of a fair-haired Texas Rattlesnake as a high school football stud.

The exact year of the image I couldn't find with any degree of certainty but through a little research though I did find out that Steve Austin (née Williams) graduated from Edna High School in 1983, so I went with a 1983 Topps football inspired design.

Also see: Pigskin Wrestlers

All The Right Moves

I've been thinking about doing some cards for All The Right Moves for some time now and I finally sat down and watched the movie for some inspiration.  It’s been years and years since I’d seen it.  I remembered two basic truths about the movie: A) it’s an entertaining movie, and 2) Lea

Thompson has a nude scene.  Hey, what do you want from me?  What I came away with after the rewatch was this movie really needs to get more consideration when the subject of best sports movies comes up.  This is coming from someone who is lukewarm at best on Tom Cruise.  He, as well as the rest of the Ampipe Bulldogs, were all believable as high school athletes.  The dreary Johnstown, PA setting was the perfect backdrop to tell the familiar story of using sports as a way out of a dead end future.  The setting also lends to a great choice for a rainy day movie.  And, although the story might be a little cliche, it’s a good cliche.  If a movie makes me think “nice” when the credits roll, to me that’s a good movie.

All The Right Moves was released in 1983 which finally a chance to again use the 1983 Topps football inspired design I first used on my Charles Jefferson football card.  Fictional Ampipe, Pennsylvania is as “Steel Town” as you can get so using Steelers color scheme from the ‘83 Topps was as no-brainer of color palette choice as I’ve had while making custom cards.

I Thought He Just Flew In For Games!

I would put 1982's Fast Times At Ridgemont High in my top 5 all-time.  It's hard to think of any movie capturing a decade like Fast Times did with the 1980s.

Charles Jefferson was a great character, especially seeing as it was Forest Whitaker's first role of note and he's went on to have quite a career which included the 2007 Best Actor nod for his portrayal of dictator Ida Amin in The Last King of Scotland. 

For the character I actually made two cards.  One I would call regular inspired by the 1982 Topps baseball set, and also a football card inspired by the 1983 Topps football since since Charles Jefferson was such a killer on the gridiron.

For the regular Fast Times card I went with a checkerboard design to the first side swoosh, which of course is as a tribute to Jeff Spicoli's Vans that were made iconic by the movie.  I also added the Fast Times logo for a nice little movie card touch.

For the football card I called a audible from my usual preference to use the same year card design that the movie or what ever I'm doing a card of was released.  The '82 Topps football has an illustrated football helmet that I just couldn't seem to reproduce and keep a vintage look to it, so I went with the '83 design which I think worked out pretty well, I mean you can't tell me that's not a mean looking card!  I decided to use "Ridgemont" as opposed to the team name like the Topps NFL cards all had just because it's way more recognizable than "Wolves".