Cara Delevingne

After spending so much time doing the 40 card Idle Hands set I've mainly been making single cards that are made in hopes of a through-the-mail autographs.  Mainly horror movie autograph cards. 

Every once in awhile though I'll run across a photo and take a screen-shot it for future card making.  That was the case with this card.  The photo is of English model Cara Delevingne donning a football helmet and jersey from a DKNY photoshoot for their 2014 Spring / Summer collection.

I was originally going to use an Upper Deck football inspired design.  UD is kind of my go to when it comes to female athlete cards (or models dressed as athletes).  The reason being is the photography on a gloss white stock is what Upper Deck was all about when they came out and changed the game in 1989.  I decided not to go with an Upper Deck inspired design just to switch things up a bit, but I did do this card on the same white gloss stock that I would have used for a UD inspired card.

I chose the 1989 Topps football inspired template.  I went this route due to the designs largely unobstructed photo area.  I thought it had just enough of a generic sports card look to make this card make sense.  I chose the color combination from Bo Jackson's card in this set because, well, Bo Jackson, c'mon.

Instead of recreating the '89 Topps football back I freestyled a back that I thought had more of an Upper Deck look for a true hybrid style of the two sports card titans. 

Shitter's Full

'Tis the season, right?  Favorite Christmas movie, no hesitation, Christmas Vacation.  So many classic scenes and lines that have been part of every Christmas since 1989.

Chevy Chase is brilliant in this installment of National Lampoon's Vacation.  "Sparky" Griswold, the put-upon family man that despite genuine best intentions everything just ends up backfiring in his face.  All too relateable to yours truly.

These cards are inspired by the 1989 Topps football cards.  It really was a toss up between the year's football and baseball release, both of which I had templates ready to go.  The football won out because it's clean and a bit easier for me to work with; which was a factor seeing as I set out to make a mini-set.

These cards might not be quite as awesome as a one year membership to the Jelly of the Month Club, but I would place them a close second. The set could have been larger had I come across quality images of a few more of the "jolliest bunch of assholes this side of the nuthouse", but I did get all the characters that I considered 'must haves'.

UPDATE: Awesome TTM success!

Pigskin Wrestlers

There's a number of big time wrestling names that had football careers prior to stepping inside of the squared circle, and I'm happy to have recently added two of them to my list of custom card TTM successes.  Both all-time greats, and both Georgia residents.  I don't know how significant that second statement is, but I just felt like adding it.  Also, while I'm on a tangent, it seems to me through my TTM requests that a lot of retired pro wrestlers reside in Florida.  Neither here nor there, but whatever.

Bill Goldberg played defensive tackle for the University of Georgia Bulldogs in the late '80s.  He was taken in the 11th round of the 1990 NFL draft by the Los Angeles Rams.  He spent one season with the Rams and then onto the CFL before landing on the Atlanta Falcons from 1992-94 and then shortly after suffered a career ending injury.   Bill was spotted by none other than Lex Luger (whom also had a pre-wrestling football career) and Sting.  Those two encouraged him to pursue pro-wrestling and the rest, as they say, is history.

To stay era-appropriate I chose the 1989 Topps football design, and it's actually the year the photo used was taken.  There's nothing too fancy about the design, but every time I use it I come away thinking it's a clean design and perfect for customs.  I got the card back from Mr. Goldberg pretty quickly and was actually pretty surprised as he had just come off his pretty well publicized comeback with the WWE.

Ron Simmons played for Florida State from 1977-80.  His FSU career was quite prolific. He was an All-American in 1979 and 1980.  He was in Heisman consideration in 1979 and had his number retired by the Seminoles in 1988.

Simmons was taken in the 6th round in '81 by the Cleveland Browns and played for them in the 1981 and '82 seasons.  He then played for the USFL's Tampa Bay Bandits where he was teammates with ... wait for it ... Lawrence Pfohl, aka Lex Luger.

I tried to get Ron's autograph on a wrestling card awhile back and got a note in return saying he's now charging $5 for cards.  I thought that was more than reasonable although I didn't immediately resend my card, and this was before I really started to get going with my custom cards.  I ran across some pictures of Mr. Simmons being a monster for the 'Noles and decided to make a custom feeling fairly certain I'd have a return success.

I chose the 1978 Topps football design, a year right in the middle of Ron's FSU days.  I liked the design because it really has funky retro feel to me, and I was very pleased with the end result.  I think it has a great vintage look. I sent $10 and two card and asked if he could add his WWE catchphrase "Damn!" to his signature, which he did. He also included a signed WWE card of his own, plus the turn around was pretty quick.

Also see : The People's Champ

The People's Champ

Some ideas for cards I'll think of and put them in cue, others go straight to the front of the line. Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson college football cards were made pretty much on inception.  I ran across some pictures from The Rock's days at "The U" and thought they'd make great cards.

In case you were not aware, Dwayne Johnson played defensive tackle for the University of Miami from 1991 (National Champions) - 1994. In 1995 he made the roster of the CFL's Calagary Stampede, but was cut from the team two month's later, which in turn led to his wrestling career.

I only have a few football templates made, but all though not year accurate to Johnson's football career, I thought the 1984 Topps and 1989 Topps designs went perfect.  The '84 looks great with the Hurricanes colors and I was especially stoked to use Miami's ibis mascot logo.  I love cartoon character logo's and Miami's is one of my all-time favorites.

These went out in the mail.  Obviously it would be huge to get them back signed as Dwayne has become arguably the biggest movie star on the planet, but even unsigned I love the way these came out.