Card Art Dimensions?

[Mr. Pale]

Hey just got a commision for some cards for a card game smilar to Magic. The final dimensions of the illustration are small, Roughly an inch and a half square.

Question for anyone whos done Card art what size and resolution do you start your illustrations out at?

I want to have a fair amount of detail, but I don't want to do something huge that's going to be shrunk so small, Or go too small and not have enough detail.

Can anyone help?

[Dougbot]

For me I usually go 200 dpi, and 3x4 (say for a card that will end up 300dpi and 1x2). Sometimes a bit bigger 94x5,5x6), sometimes not. Just keep the aspect ratio the same and occasionally zoom out, or resize it in PS or painter, to make sure it's working at the final size.

Congrats on the job.

[Matt Dixon]

Work as big as you can.

I prefer to work at a high resolution anyway, but for 2 x 1.5 inch cards illos, I set up an 8 x 6 canvas at 300dpi. As Dougbot says, you'll need to zoom or resize occasionally to keep an eye on how the image is working at 'final' size - though you might be surprised to see how much detail comes through even at small dimensions. Keep your value placement and composition bold and you'll be fine.

In addition to giving you a good sized image for your portfolio or if you decide to sell prints of your work, delivering a high resolution file to your clients gives them more flexibility if they decide to use your work for promotion / packaging and so on, maybe even giving your pieces the edge over other work delivered at smaller sizes in this regard. Some of my work has found it's way onto POS packaging, posters and even a t-shirt - something that probably wouldn't have been possible if I'd turned in 600 pixel square finals.

Hope the gig goes well.