Vision Quest

I really, really like the movie Vision Quest.  It's one of those movies where if I'm staring at my VHS collection wanting to watch a movie but nothing is really jumping out to me I could always watch Vision Quest.

I would call Vision Quest a quintessential 80's movie, complete with training montage and kick ass soundtrack.  Any time I watch it I really feel inspired by Matthew Modine's portrayal of Louden Swain.  It's not only for the character's determination but also Louden seems like a genuinely good person, an all-american kid who is still naive and yet to be hardened by pressures and experiences that come with adulthood.

When I started messing around with making cards Louden Swain was one of the very first cards I did.  It was natural because I love the movie so much and since it came out in 1985 which was the first template I recreated for custom cards.  Upon a recent viewing I was inspired to revisit my admiration for the movie and add a Brian Shute card.  At first I was just going to add a card to the Louden I'd already made in the '85 Topps baseball design but I decided to do go a different direction and make two new cards.

I went with a Star Co. basketball inspired design.  For me it has a classic trading card frame and it's also a bit of a cheat since Star used the same exact template for their cards from 1983 through 1986, they would just switch the color of the card's frame for the different NBA teams.  The Star design allowed me to add the the weight class where the player's position would normally go.  That's an important detail of the movie with Louden pushing himself to his physical brink in an effort to test his mettle against the reigning state champ in the toughest weight division.

Fun facts: The actor who played Brian Shute, Frank Jasper, had wrestled but leading up to the movie was doing body building, was closer in 190 lbs ... Jasper literally had to out wrestle the other guy  vying for the part of Shute ...

Matthew Modine

Today I got quite the surprise on my Instagram account. Matthew Modine reposted my Dr. Martin Brenner Stranger Things TTM success from him.  Talk about floored!

As you can see he tagged my account and captioned it "let's make this happen".  I'm not sure what that means? I mean, as far as my cards go I would consider myself very small-time.  It's more of a hobby.  It takes me forever just to make a few, so as far as mass production goes I would need the support of an entity with the know how.  It's just me, my laptop, my printer, and a guillotine style paper cutter.  Not sure what would come out of this, if anything.  I was just more than thrilled with the shout out from one of my favorite actors.

As for the show, I loved Stranger Things.  I'm usually not really big into sci-fi, but being that the setting for the show was Midwest America in 1983, they got me ... hook, line, and sinker.  I thought it was awesome, and what a cast!  I cannot wait until Season 2 which is set to hit Netflix on Halloween.

That brings us to the card.  It's inspired by the 1983 (naturally) Topps baseball set.  Where the player position would normally be I made note of the fictional town of Hawkins, Indiana and trimmed the card in the Stranger Things themed red and black border.

That card was actually one of two cards Mr. Modine signed for me.  I also did one for his character Louden Swain in the 1985 movie Vision Quest.  This one utilized the 1985 Topps baseball inspired design.  The colors are Thompson HS's school colors and I was able to recreate the Warriors logo from a screen grab of one of their wrestling singlets.