A question for all of you creative folks out there to get their own alt-arts printed. Where do you go to have this done? Best company that you've seen so far? Please post links.

Thanks!!

There's a couple different options, and it really depends on where you're located since the biggest cost associated with alt-arts is usually shipping.

Here's a good comparison of costs, but it doesn't include shipping which can vary so you might want to check out the comments section on this page:

http://oneblogshelf.blogspot.com/2018/06/print-on-demand-playing-cards-cost.html

It also doesn't account for what options are available. DriveThruCards is what I use but they have a minimum order size and only two types of material they'll print on. MakePlayingCards is three times the cost per card, but like I said, for small orders cards are much cheaper than shipping anyway. I used to use MakePlayingCards more, because their website is far more usable and they don't have a minimum order size, plus they can do fun stuff like print foil cards.

@Kieransi great link! Thank you!!

I had my latest ones printed at a local printer on cardstock, cut it out with an xacto/straight edge and cut the corners with a corner punch I got on Amazon for $12. Hard to tell it from a real card in a sleeve, but you can outside of one.

Image here

I've done MakePlayingCards as well, they're fine but (a) takes time and (b) requires you to "loose" a portion of your art to the safe space.

I order through Drivethrucards as well, and the pricing is great. About a $1 USD for 10 cards. but being in Canada the shipping is silly ($17 USD) so I order at least 300 cards at a time to make it worth it.

update on this topic. Drivethrucards will no longer print x-wing cards unless you have license or permission from Disney/Lucas or FFG. Also, their design and order process isn't exactly the smoothest.

56 minutes ago, Malabor said:

update on this topic. Drivethrucards will no longer print x-wing cards unless you have license or permission from Disney/Lucas or FFG. Also, their design and order process isn't exactly the smoothest.

wait what?

are you making the cards public or buying them as creator?

On 12/12/2018 at 8:48 PM, prauxim said:

I've done MakePlayingCards as well, they're fine but (a) takes time and (b) requires you to "loose" a portion of your art to the safe space.

Just design a bleed of 3mm into your design. Simples

8 minutes ago, benlane17 said:

Just design a bleed of 3mm into your design. Simples

Bleeding out an image, while not requiring a Graphical Design degree, can still be about 20x more work than the 2secs it takes to just grab an image.

Even still, inside the bleed area, MakePlayingCards needs a "buffer area" to allow for image misalignment. Not a big deal if you have a bland background, but for some art its a bummer.

1 hour ago, Malabor said:

update on this topic. Drivethrucards will no longer print x-wing cards unless you have license or permission from Disney/Lucas or FFG. Also, their design and order process isn't exactly the smoothest.

Strange, I just ordered a ton of stuff from them yesterday and had no problem. Are you using Strange Eons or other official X-Wing assets?

15 hours ago, Kieransi said:

Strange, I just ordered a ton of stuff from them yesterday and had no problem. Are you using Strange Eons or other official X-Wing assets?

We just pulled an image from google, did some digital goodness to it and such and submitted it. I then received a response from one of their reps asking if we had official permission, and if so, they needed a copy of it.

4 hours ago, Malabor said:

We just pulled an image from google, did some digital goodness to it and such and submitted it. I then received a response from one of their reps asking if we had official permission, and if so, they needed a copy of it.

Hmm... like, an image of an official X-Wing card? Either way, that shouldn't cause the problem, we've been doing parodies of the official style a bit (although heavily modified).

Did you make the cards public (i.e. available for purchase for anyone except you)? We've always made sure to make any cards private and set any profit settings to zero (we're not selling them for money).

1 hour ago, Kieransi said:

Hmm... like, an image of an official X-Wing card? Either way, that shouldn't cause the problem, we've been doing parodies of the official style a bit (although heavily modified).

Did you make the cards public (i.e. available for purchase for anyone except you)? We've always made sure to make any cards private and set any profit settings to zero (we're not selling them for money).

had no issues getting these printed.

Guess I got ahold of the one guy there who "cares too much". Oh well, I ended up going through a MPC.