TCG Fakes Faking Resources and Help - How to Make Your Own Pokemon Cards!

aschefield101

is behind you !
Member
I actually didn't think a site like this existed, full of decent-res scans of pretty much all English-released cards I mean. This should be really useful to me, thanks man!
Nps, snoops uploads the PTCGO images to it (from HGSS onwards), anything older are scans and they're always on the lookout for better quality.
 

Blui

lv85 paladin
Member
The downside the PTCGO images is that they're prone to compression artifacts. For HGSS the highest quality stuff we have is the PidgiWiki page. They're at print quality (747x1040). Here's a comparison of the two. The PidgiWiki image (taken from official French sources) has far more crispness and clarity than the PTCGO rip. While I chose symbols and text to illustrate this point you can still see that the quality of the texture is higher than the PTCGO rip which is far more noisy.

comparison_zps9gbe9evf.png
 

bbninjas

Ready or Not!
Advanced Member
Member
Does anyone know how pidgi manages to obtain such high quality scans? That could be nice to replicate for future eras. I did notice those artifacts in Snoop's blanks, but didn't really know what it was from, but it was noticeable enough that I didn't really want to use them. :p
 

Nod3

her majesty
Member
Since you left nodaz0r, we use https://pkmncards.com/ now :D

Yeah, I am familiar with this site, I just noticed that the scans there weren't ask good as the Pidgi HGSS scans.

Does anyone know how pidgi manages to obtain such high quality scans? That could be nice to replicate for future eras. I did notice those artifacts in Snoop's blanks, but didn't really know what it was from, but it was noticeable enough that I didn't really want to use them. :p

I think that, as Blui mentioned, Pidgi publishes their stuff at print quality without artifacts -- I suspect that they source them directly from French pokemon news sites, then, and that the French pokemon company (or however it is that international business is conducted) simply publishes HQ images before print. Alternatively, Pidgi has access to some really good scanners, but in my opinion it is in fact pre-print images on that wiki.
 

Jabberwock

#Jovimohnaeliackvid
Forum Mod
Articles Staff
Member
I was at a prerelease the other day and noticed a rather momentous wording change in one of the cards of Guardians Rising. Sudowoodo GUR66's Roadblock Ability reads as follows:

Your opponent can't have more than 4 Benched Pokémon. If they have 5 or more Benched Pokémon, they discard Benched Pokémon until they have 4 Pokémon on the Bench. If more than one effect changes the number of Benched Pokémon allowed, use the smaller number.​

Since Base Set, the rule has always been numerals over spelled-out numbers, without exception. As far as I know, Sudowoodo GUR66 is the first card ever to use the spelled out form of "one" instead of the numeral "1" in attack text.

The text "more than 1" does indeed appear elsewhere––on every GX card, it reads "You can't use more than 1 GX attack in a game." 1 being 1, not one. Victini's Victory Star Ability is another example of this. What do you think? Is this an error? Or is this the beginning of a new complex wording that results in "1" in some places and "one" in others?
 

Yog

Rogue
Member
I am not sure where else to ask this, artistic inquiries seems about right.

Moved to the Faking Resources as you're asking a faking question. ~bbninjas

What do people use for the small icons of the pre-evolutions on a card. e.g. the Bulbasaur glyph to the top left on a Ivysaur card (left of the "evolved from Bulbasaur" text). I have searched high and low but can't find anything the correct size. And attempting to scale anything nearly right up or down at that size always results in a mess.
 

Nod3

her majesty
Member
What do people use for the small icons of the pre-evolutions on a card. e.g. the Bulbasaur glyph to the top left on a Ivysaur card (left of the "evolved from Bulbasaur" text). I have searched high and low but can't find anything the correct size. And attempting to scale anything nearly right up or down at that size always results in a mess.

Scale down Ken Sugimori's official art of a given Pokémon. There are no resources for it because each set of blanks has a different size etc. so it would not be actually possible to do that. You must resize it yourself.
 

Yog

Rogue
Member
Shoot. How do you stop it from becoming a pixel blur? I am using the proper bicubic style for reduction in PS. Maybe I could translate it to be a vector in illustrator and then it would scale to fit with less noticable loss.
 

Ty Comfy Hat

The Cosmic rage of Astral Dwarfs from Aberdeen.
Member
Shoot. How do you stop it from becoming a pixel blur? I am using the proper bicubic style for reduction in PS. Maybe I could translate it to be a vector in illustrator and then it would scale to fit with less noticable loss.
Eh, are you using a really old version of PS, or a really low-res blank? Photoshop usually applies some kind of anti-aliasing effect to things that you scale down to avoid them looking like a mess of pixels. Unless you've been fidgeting with the settings, in which case I'm not sure how to help.
 

Yog

Rogue
Member
The blanks I'm using are Aschefield's 747*1038 so I believe that is pretty large. Photoshop is the CC 2014 release but no updates since, so not all that old. And I use Bicubic Sharpening (the reduction one) but it gets screwey on me. idk, I will tweak settings some and see if I can get to the bottom of it.
 

WastedSkyPirate

...
Member
@Yog In CS2 I'm just using Free Transform to scale them down on the default settings - it's working without a hitch. Anyway to revert to default settings?

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

I was at a prerelease the other day and noticed a rather momentous wording change in one of the cards of Guardians Rising. Sudowoodo GUR66's Roadblock Ability reads as follows:

Your opponent can't have more than 4 Benched Pokémon. If they have 5 or more Benched Pokémon, they discard Benched Pokémon until they have 4 Pokémon on the Bench. If more than one effect changes the number of Benched Pokémon allowed, use the smaller number.​

Since Base Set, the rule has always been numerals over spelled-out numbers, without exception. As far as I know, Sudowoodo GUR66 is the first card ever to use the spelled out form of "one" instead of the numeral "1" in attack text.

The text "more than 1" does indeed appear elsewhere––on every GX card, it reads "You can't use more than 1 GX attack in a game." 1 being 1, not one. Victini's Victory Star Ability is another example of this. What do you think? Is this an error? Or is this the beginning of a new complex wording that results in "1" in some places and "one" in others?

That's a good spot.

When you refer to Victini's Ability, are you referring to the Victini printed in Guardians Rising? If that card has 1 as "1" then I'm of a mind that the wording on Sudowoodo's Ability is a mistake. Otherwise, perhaps it's the beginning of some scarily-hard-to-assess rule of using "one" over "1". Fingers crossed it's just an error...
 

bbninjas

Ready or Not!
Advanced Member
Member
The blanks I'm using are Aschefield's 747*1038 so I believe that is pretty large. Photoshop is the CC 2014 release but no updates since, so not all that old. And I use Bicubic Sharpening (the reduction one) but it gets screwey on me. idk, I will tweak settings some and see if I can get to the bottom of it.
I'm not too sure what Bicubic Sharpening is, but I generally Free Transform the Pokemon and Sharpen it up once I'm done. Depending on how big the original source image is, you might want to Sharpen it up once it gets to about half-size before going further.
 

Yog

Rogue
Member
I'm not too sure what Bicubic Sharpening is, but I generally Free Transform the Pokemon and Sharpen it up once I'm done. Depending on how big the original source image is, you might want to Sharpen it up once it gets to about half-size before going further.

It's one of the options for when you use Free Transform. It'll be on the top bar by default. You can have it set to different settings for if you are enlarging, shrinking, or perhaps want a pixel grid to be exactly halved without it rounding off corners and the likes.

I think I got to the bottom of this anyway. After some resetting to defaults it works fine now the way people have described. Must have ticked a wrong box somewhere.
 

Kangaflora

Aspiring Trainer
Member
With the new SM Larger Blanks, I'm looking forward to seeing the other seven types being completed. Once they're completed, I can plan out my set.
 

bbninjas

Ready or Not!
Advanced Member
Member
Does anyone know where I could find decent art work that could work on cards for Johto Gym cards?
What type of style are you thinking of? Do you mean the older/paler Sugimori style, with the white highlights and the like?

If you feel like browsing, looking around DeviantArt generally always reveals some good options. I do believe there are some artists on DeviantArt who draw Pokemon in the style mentioned above. We also have a compilation of artists who have given their permission for the faking community to use their art on cards, which you can find here.
 

SneaselGenesis

Aspiring Trainer
Member
Really any style would work, but what I'm looking for I've been having difficulty finding. Basically I'm looking for interiors of gyms for Stadium cards from the Johto region. So like for a Blackthorn City Gym card and such.
 
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