Hi guys
A while back I restored an ESB AtAt Driver card and a few people asked for a tutorial. Well I finally got round to it yesterday with a Boba Fett Kenner ESB 41 back.
For this i've taken step by step photos showing the results of each stage. To be honest, once you have the print size right there's not much to it. The sizing is all important. Colours are also crucial depending on how good you want the job to turn out. As i'm not trying to make these things exact I haven't spent much time on matching print. It's very very difficult to match the colours and the slightly matte finish of the original card. It is possible to minimise the noticeable difference in finish with some clever cutting which I have attempted here.
I wasn't sure if this was the right thing to be doing with old cardbacks. Something i've noticed very recently is that prices have shot up whereas a few years ago these things were practically worthless. The way I see it these are cards with a section torn off. Back in the day we just chucked them in the bin. As they are they don't display particularly well but they are of interest. I'm just trying to make them look a bit better without going too far. What i'm very careful of avoiding here is carrying out work that cannot be undone.
These days instead of PVA i'm using double sided tape which can be taken off if need be. I'm not sticking tape to the original print, just the torn section. The only real controversial part of the process is the repro bubble. Make of that what you will. Original bubbles to match these cards are virtually impossible to find so this is a necessary evil. Saying that, I have done a few reseals using the original bubbles with mixed results. I would class these not as a reseal but somewhere in the middle of reseal/custom card. A reseal should have all original parts in my book. These things are part custom/repro
Anyway, enough waffling. This is the original knackered card
The first stage is to print out the replacement section using a template. There are various sources for these on the web but none of them are the right size. I've used Photoshop Elements 9 to correct the size. The process is hit and miss and can take a while to get right. What tends to happen is the print gets stretched as the dimensions on the template are wrong. Eventually I hit on the size shown which nine times out of ten seems ok. The best thing is to alter the size by a few fractions until it's as good as you can get it. It will never be perfect and must be checked for matching up at various points on the print.
For matching the print to the original i've used the silver track and Fett's shoulder as a guideline. This takes practice ...a lot of practice. Once it's all lined up and presuming your colours are somewhere near then it's time to stick down. As said earlier I used double sided tape for this.
The problem I find with the available templates is the black borders are too wide. When resizing this causes the image to skew and so far I haven't found a way to correct this. However, this does have to rather helpful benefit of the black border being wider than needed. This gives a slight overhang from the card once stuck down and can be trimmed to a neat edge using the original card as a guide. Be careful not to cut the original!
Bubbles can be sourced from various places. I won't say where I get mine as I don't wish to promote sellers of repro parts. The process of sticking these down is simply double sided tape trimmed around the edge. I do not advise using any other method. Glue, such as PVA, is moist and can make the ink on the printed section run and smudge. Using an iron is probably not best either :wink:
I wasn't going to fix the weapon in place but did as a little extra touch. Not sure it's right. Looks ok
Oh! It's worth noting that the bubbles for characters such as Fett have more depth than others. Various bubble sizes are available.
The finished article -
I tried to hide the cut edge of the template by masking it with the bubble. Kind of works in parts. Bloody hard to do. This photo actually makes the print match look better than it really is. The original card is one of those with a slightly green hue so it doesn't colour match the new glossy black print particularly well. This leads me on to my next important point -
Even if I had the ability to make these resto's near perfect I wouldn't want to. The way they turn out even a complete novice could tell they aren't fully original, but they do display well. I'm happy with that. This work involves taking what is essentially a destroyed original cardback, replacing a section and breathing new life into it. This is not trying to kid someone into thinking they are looking at a completely original MOC.
I hope you enjoy this tutorial. If anyone has any questions, or answers for that matter, then please get in touch
A while back I restored an ESB AtAt Driver card and a few people asked for a tutorial. Well I finally got round to it yesterday with a Boba Fett Kenner ESB 41 back.
For this i've taken step by step photos showing the results of each stage. To be honest, once you have the print size right there's not much to it. The sizing is all important. Colours are also crucial depending on how good you want the job to turn out. As i'm not trying to make these things exact I haven't spent much time on matching print. It's very very difficult to match the colours and the slightly matte finish of the original card. It is possible to minimise the noticeable difference in finish with some clever cutting which I have attempted here.
I wasn't sure if this was the right thing to be doing with old cardbacks. Something i've noticed very recently is that prices have shot up whereas a few years ago these things were practically worthless. The way I see it these are cards with a section torn off. Back in the day we just chucked them in the bin. As they are they don't display particularly well but they are of interest. I'm just trying to make them look a bit better without going too far. What i'm very careful of avoiding here is carrying out work that cannot be undone.
These days instead of PVA i'm using double sided tape which can be taken off if need be. I'm not sticking tape to the original print, just the torn section. The only real controversial part of the process is the repro bubble. Make of that what you will. Original bubbles to match these cards are virtually impossible to find so this is a necessary evil. Saying that, I have done a few reseals using the original bubbles with mixed results. I would class these not as a reseal but somewhere in the middle of reseal/custom card. A reseal should have all original parts in my book. These things are part custom/repro
Anyway, enough waffling. This is the original knackered card
The first stage is to print out the replacement section using a template. There are various sources for these on the web but none of them are the right size. I've used Photoshop Elements 9 to correct the size. The process is hit and miss and can take a while to get right. What tends to happen is the print gets stretched as the dimensions on the template are wrong. Eventually I hit on the size shown which nine times out of ten seems ok. The best thing is to alter the size by a few fractions until it's as good as you can get it. It will never be perfect and must be checked for matching up at various points on the print.
For matching the print to the original i've used the silver track and Fett's shoulder as a guideline. This takes practice ...a lot of practice. Once it's all lined up and presuming your colours are somewhere near then it's time to stick down. As said earlier I used double sided tape for this.
The problem I find with the available templates is the black borders are too wide. When resizing this causes the image to skew and so far I haven't found a way to correct this. However, this does have to rather helpful benefit of the black border being wider than needed. This gives a slight overhang from the card once stuck down and can be trimmed to a neat edge using the original card as a guide. Be careful not to cut the original!
Bubbles can be sourced from various places. I won't say where I get mine as I don't wish to promote sellers of repro parts. The process of sticking these down is simply double sided tape trimmed around the edge. I do not advise using any other method. Glue, such as PVA, is moist and can make the ink on the printed section run and smudge. Using an iron is probably not best either :wink:
I wasn't going to fix the weapon in place but did as a little extra touch. Not sure it's right. Looks ok
Oh! It's worth noting that the bubbles for characters such as Fett have more depth than others. Various bubble sizes are available.
The finished article -
I tried to hide the cut edge of the template by masking it with the bubble. Kind of works in parts. Bloody hard to do. This photo actually makes the print match look better than it really is. The original card is one of those with a slightly green hue so it doesn't colour match the new glossy black print particularly well. This leads me on to my next important point -
Even if I had the ability to make these resto's near perfect I wouldn't want to. The way they turn out even a complete novice could tell they aren't fully original, but they do display well. I'm happy with that. This work involves taking what is essentially a destroyed original cardback, replacing a section and breathing new life into it. This is not trying to kid someone into thinking they are looking at a completely original MOC.
I hope you enjoy this tutorial. If anyone has any questions, or answers for that matter, then please get in touch
