About tokensformtg.com e-shop
Before we changed our web into a regular e-shop with tokens from various authors and manufacturers, we were making our own tokens, Japanese manga-themed. Nowadays, our artist community consists of talented artists from Czech Republic, Austria, Italy and Taiwan. The illustrations are exclusive to our e-shop.
Besides our own production we offer tokens of other renowned artists and manufacturers from all over the world.
We have the tokens printed in a professional printing company on highly durable cardboard. Our specialty, however, ale especially foil tokens. Some motifs (e.g. from Jason Engle or Aaron Miller) are moreover available only in our e-shop. The gorgeous glittering effect is provided by special foil layered on the printsheets before printing.
All cards from our production are protected against abrasion by special both back and front lamination that highlights the foil effect. Our tokens have rounded corners and fulfills all expectations on a perfect playing card.
About tokens
Card that make tokens are here since the birth of Magic: The Gathering game. You can find them in the very first set, Alpha (Bottle of Suleiman, Tetravus, The Hive) from 1993. But it took years for the tokens to actually get card versions.
What is a token
Most often, a token is a creature (or other type of permanent) created by another card. Many years, the players had to use whatever they had at hand – from pieces of paper through dice to beer coasters.
The first official paper token cards appeared in 1998 in the “joke” set Unglued. In the next three years they appeared in the Magic Player Reward programme, where the players received them as rewards. Beginning with the Tenth Edition, in 2007, they became a common occurrence in boosters.
How a token art is made
Let’s show it by example – a goblin, who lives in a cave and when it comes to meal, is hardly a gourmet.
Each art begins as a couple of sketches, that serve for deciding of placement of individual elements and angle of take. We chose this version.
No, the girl won’t be naked. In order for the author to be able to correctly get the anatomy, he or she mus see the body parts before they are covered by clothes. Note the auxiliary lines helping to catch the proper perspective of the cave interior.
This is a lineart. Both the character and the scene got the proper outlines, now it is “just” a coloring task. It sounds simple, but it really is not. The artist has to play a lot with the fire lighting and many other details.
Well, the art turned out quite great, what do you say? Even so much that it has been used for a quickly sold-out edition of playmats. You can still get it at tokens.
