New Dream Girl Cards Wave 2

As was mentioned in the last post, I'm working my way through a backlog of new additions to the Dream Girl custom set.  Here is the second wave of six cards.  

I noted that there's a few of the girls in the new additions that'll be featured on two cards with my inability to chose one photo over the other.  This time around it was Emma Watson.  My cards, my rules ;) 

New Dream Girl Cards Wave 1

I've been working on a card set that I want to call a "passion project" but at the same time I do not want to call it that because that just sounds overly dramatic.  I like to keep the whole thing fun and not take it too seriously.  These are trading cards and not my "work" or my "art".  The cards give me an opportunity to be creative in an otherwise mundane existence.   I appreciate the humor in them more then anything, coupled with an outlet that can quell my OCD-like need to perfect custom trading card nuance.

So, while I've been plugging away at this card set *tease* I've been adding onto the ongoing Dream Girls set I've cultivated over the last couple of years. I'll see images from time-to-time that I feel would make great additions to this highly subjective series.  But, I haven't stopped long enough to make physical renditions and post them here.

I figured I better put a few of these out there before it gets out of hand.  As it stands there's 17 new DG cards all told.  With that many I've decided to post them in three waves, with this being the first.

Each of the three waves will feature one Dream Girl that has two versions.  Basically it happened that threes time I couldn't choose between two images, so I just didn't.

Mikayla Demaiter II

Upon completing the Michael Scott 1990-91 ProSet hockey inspired card I immediately wanted an excuse to use the template again.  The wait was not a long one having scrolled upon the image of everyone's favorite goalie turned model, Mikayla Demaiter.

Lola Marandel

Maybe a month or so I was just looking through some of the cards I've made over the years, just sort of scrolling through the folder.  I came to the cards I've done utilizing the 1992-93 Upper Deck McDonald's basketball inspired design.  I noticed that the three cards I've done using this template have all been volleyball cards so that got me interested in trying out a different sport whenever the opportunity presented itself.

I recently started following French professional tennis up-and-comer Lola Marandel on Instagram.  While scrolling through her feed I found a couple of pictures I felt would work well for a custom card.  

To give this card a tennis theme I switched out the hardwood bottom border for that of a clay tennis court and of course traded in the volleyball for a tennis ball.  I think my favorite thing about this card is the combination of colors.

Michael Scott Hockey Card

The Office is one of those gifts that keep on giving as far as me making some really fun custom cards.  This card is based on a Season 2 episode entitled "Michael's Birthday".  Kevin is waiting to hear back as to whether or not he has skin cancer which draws concern from his co-workers, much to the chagrin of the attention Michael feels should be paid to his birthday.  To shift the spotlight back on himself errr distract everyone from Kevin's impending prognosis Michael takes his crew to an ice skating rink for a skate party.  It should go without saying -because it's an episode of The Office- but it's a hilarious episode.

What's evidenced in the ice rink scene is that Steve Carell, in full hockey gear, is a very adept ice skater.  Growing up Steve was goalie and had aspirations at one time of a career in hockey, he even has an Elite Prospects page.  In the end Steve shifted his love of hockey over to a hobby to focus on a different career path.

Growing up I was not a big hockey fan because I didn't play hockey.  I've actually only ice skated once in my life.  Hockey is an expensive sport to get into and my family was a $5 Hot 'n' Ready family.  But I did collect hockey cards because... well ... they were cards.  The Red Wings were not dominant until I was in high school but it was still exciting to pull a Bob Probert, Sergei Federov or Stevie Y from a pack.

This card is done in the style of the 1990-91 ProSet hockey cards.  I remember buying a good number of packs of these at my local party store.  These were the first hockey cards from ProSet I believe.  ProSet was fun to collect because they were on trend with what was the newer look in sports cards back then.  They offered an alternative to Topps' traditional look.   White stock instead of cardboard, brighter colors and photography, less framed in and more full-bleed shinier photography and full color card backs, plastic packs as opposed to wax ... all things that could probably be credited to Upper Deck's influence on trading card aesthetics coming out of the 1980s and moving into the '90s. 

This is the second time I've used this particular template.  The first time was 4 years ago with this Sea Bass card.  My cards have evolved a lot since then.  The biggest difference is that back in 2018 I was only doing card fronts.  My thinking was that's what really counts anyways, but I've come to realize how much better a complete card presents.  It takes twice the time to finish a card but it's so worth it in the end.  Obviously still a custom, but less of a custom, if that makes sense.

Grumpy Cat

Back when Grumpy Cat, né Tardar Sauce, was taking over the interwebs I was there for it.  I'm probably what you'd call a "cat person" and I thought the memes were pretty damn funny.  I think my favorite was captioned "That shit better be fancy feast".  Whomever was behind the Grumpy Cat marketing machine did an excellent job as she was everywhere -yes, Grumpy Cat was a female- I even had an official Grumpy Cat t-shirt that I proudly wore as the antisocial that I am.

In 2015 Grumpy Cat, and Arizona native, "threw" out the ceremonial first pitch before and Diamondbacks / Padres game.  I like using the '86 Topps baseball inspired design for celebrity pitches.  If Grumpy Cat was still with us I'd hope she'd absolutely hate this card.

Sig. Showcase: Christie Brinkley

I just got these two cards back via a send-in from a private signing that Official Pix did with Christie Brinkley.  It was pretty much a no-brainer to participate in this signing.  Autograph + 80's icon is an automatic custom card-on for me.   

I've made 3 cards featuring Christie, one as a part of the ongoing Dream Girl set, and two within the Vacation set.  I chose the two pictured above to send in.  It was a toss up between the two Vacation cards.  The other is the iconic shot of Christie in the Ferrari, but I chose the hotel swimming pool scene card with the idea that the upper left corner left a lot of space to really showcase an autograph.

The Dream Girl card is the first of the sixteen "official" DG cards that I've gotten signed.  There's a few rouge Dream Girl cards out there however that were done as commissions that have been inked. 

Another thing that really appealed to me about this private signing was discovering upon some research how clean Christie's autograph is.  I was confident the cards would turn out great.  For Official Pix's part these two cards were signed exactly as I requested them to be, plus they put a nice holographic COA sticker on the back.  I'd highly recommend their service if you're an autograph collector.