I haven’t really felt like making any new cards in a while. But now that the season appears to be back on track, the Reds are giving me new reasons to keep supporting them.
Votto sported this BLM t-shirt during batting practice the other day, and Amir Garrett proved that he could hit the high 90’s in the Arizona heat while wearing a mask (so you probably don’t have an excuse to not wear one when you go to pick up your groceries).
If I had to pick one Reds player who just plays the game the way it should be played, who loves the game and has fun with it, I’d have to pick Joey Votto (with Amir Garrett a close second). His leadership, humor, and talent make him one of my all-time favorite Reds.
His disappointment over last year’s performance (.261, 15 HR, 47 RBI) was evident, and he put in the extra work this off-season to make sure his 2020 numbers are better. I’m expecting a BIG bounce-back year from Votto.
As for these cards, the first one is a custom design of mine. The second card is a spin on an O-pee-chee hockey design.
Here’s my latest custom design. It’s not too flashy, but I like the simplicity of it. The green color I used comes from an old scoreboard. I used the player icons like the old Topps cards, but I created new, modern-looking versions of them.
Here’s another new custom set I’m working on. I’m not 100% sure about the fonts I used, but I really like the “box” style for the team & player names.
I love this photo of Denard Span at Fenway Park, so I threw that Rays card in as a bonus.
The 1976 Topps set was one of the first that I collected as a kid, so I’ve always had a soft spot for that design. Ever since I started this blog, I’ve wanted to be able to recreate that design. The problem was those little position icons on the lower left. I couldn’t find clean versions of those icons to work with, and without those, the whole card just looked bad.
Fortunately, Bob Jonas from the Custom Baseball Cards group was kind enough to share a set of icons that he had cleaned up. I worked in Photoshop to try to nail every little detail of the 1976 design – from the fonts down to the exact borders around those icons.
Here are the results – 6 alternate cards for the 2020 Reds. I even made one for the newest Red, Travis Jankowski. Janky plays every OF position, so he’ll probably get a chance to play a lot in early 2020, especially if Senzel isn’t ready for the start of the season.
When I found the Luis Catillo picture, I knew I had to do something with it. So I immediately started working on a design that, I hoped, would bring more focus on the photo than the other design elements.
Then I found the Votto pic yesterday, and it seemed like a natural fit for the same design. I’d love to add more cards to this series, but I don’t think it will be easy to find more photos with this same style.
I saw a custom Topps 1953 card that looked pretty interesting, so I decided to do my own version of that year’s design. This was a pretty basic design, but I ended up playing with the minor details quite a bit. I wasn’t really loving it until I lowered the opacity of the background and added a black layer underneath it.
Aquino hit number 14 last night. Unreal. I’ve posted a ton of Aquino cards already, though, so today’s cards are a new set of customs featuring Joey Votto and Amir Garrett.
Votto has already locked up his place in the Reds’ Hall of Fame, of course, and Garrett became a fan favorite this year when he charged in to fight the entire Pittsburgh Pirates’ bench.
The Votto cards are brand new custom designs of mine, and the Garrett card is a bit of a tribute to the 1956 Topps design.
I’m a few days into this card blogging thing, and just realized that I haven’t posted any cards of the legend himself, Joey Votto. So let’s fix that.
Here are two new custom Votto cards based on the 1977 Topps design. Votto is a great player on the field and an even better guy off the field. He’s everything you want your star player to be.
Also…to honor the fact that Aristides Aquino hit ANOTHER record-breaking homer last night (his 13th in only 100 at bats) I’ve thrown in another Aquino design for the Topps ’77 set. Once I saw this pic of him in that classic throwback uniform, I knew I had to put it on a card. To be honest, this might be my favorite card design so far.
Alternate Reds 