Youngblood

When you think of great hockey movies the first couple that come to mind are probably Slap Shot and Miracle.  Those are excellent choices, but there's another movie that needs to be mentioned in the same breath... 1986's Youngblood.  It's a true eighties cult classic with a solid young cast.  Just the kind of movie I love making cards for.

These four cards have a design inspired by the 1986 Topps hockey set.  I used the Red Wing color pallete for the Mustangs and the Penguins colors for the Carl Racki Bombers card both based on the look being close to the respective team uniforms to that of the Wings and Pens. 

Even though Keanu Reeves didn't have much screen time in the movie --not even enough to warrant a first name I guess-- I still chose to make him a card because, well, it's Keanu.  It's a pretty early role for him but even back then he was making his classic Keanu faces.  I read Keanue, a Canadian, was actually a pretty decent goalie in real life.

Lzzy, Again

I freaking love Lzzy Hale.  She's such a bad ass and Halestorm's newest album, Vicious, rocked.  She and the band make me believe that rock 'n' roll music is very much alive and well.

I made this Lzzy card and have been wanting to make another, but I wanted it to be cool and not just make one for the sake of crushing on her. 

I've been wanting to use one of the designs from the 1978 Donruss Kiss set.  But, same line of thinking, I wanted it to be cool and no just throw any old thing into the template.  I was bumping around Instagram like I do when I should be doing something productive and came across the pic I used for this card.  I thought the picture sort of hard a vintage rock look and would go great in the design and I was not disappointed. 

Lzzy is right up there at the top of custom cards I'd love to get signed.  One day, fingers crossed. 

Shaqtion Hero

This is a card I made awhile back and just forgot to share it on here.

Unlike most cards that are based on movies I've never seen either of these movies, nor do I plan to.  But, I thought it would make for a fun card having both characters on a card that was inspired by the 1991-92 NBA Hoops League Leaders subset.

I don't dislike Shaquille O'Neal.  I think he's a pretty entertaining guy.  As a basketball player he was just never a favorite of mine.  I grew idolizing Isiah Thomas so as a fan I was attracted to the finesse players that could make basketball seem like a ballet (think those old NBA Action is fantastic commercials) where as to me Shaq was more like a brontosaurus in a pair of Reeboks. 

Princess Leia, Beach Slave

I've always loved the Princess Leia photo shoot Carrie Fisher did with Rolling Stone magazine at the beach in her slave bikini.  The photo shoot was part of an article the magazine did on 1983's Return of the Jedi.

As Jabba the Hutt's slave in that gold bikini Princess Leia was the first crush of an entire generation.  Of course she's looking sexy but I also like the playful frolicky nature of the photos.  There's this one particular photo (above) that is my favorite of the shoot and it's probably pretty easy to see why, so I wanted to use it for a card.  The question was what design?  I thought about making it look like a Bench Warmers set from the '90s but I didn't think the design would be quite recognizable enough.  So, I made it into last minute supplement to the 1983 Topps ROTJ sticker insert set.

This is a faux sticker.  I actually did have some die-cut stickers made up of this one but I wasn't 100% pleased with the die-cut so I'm keeping it faux.

Fun Fact: According to Wikipedia Carrie's princess breasts had to be taped into place so they didn't escape the bikini top.

Martin

Martin was another show I watched a lot of back in the '90s when I didn't have cable.  When it was syndicated on whichever of the big channels it was on I probably watched it every day.  Of course I dug that it was based in Detroit and Martin is a funny dude.  Martin Lawrence for awhile was the "it" comedian, sort of like Kevin Hart is these days.

These cards came to be when I saw a picture of Martin playing basketball form an episode where his mouth gets him in trouble when he scoffs at the idea of women being able to do anything as well as a man, especially sports.  Gina teaches him a lesson setting up a basketball game pitting Martin and his "Marty Mar All-Stars" against some friends of hers that just happen to be the 1996 Woman's United States Olympic Basketball team.  I chose to do the basketball card is in the style of the 1993-94 Upper Deck set.

While creating the basketball card I was reminded of the most memorable image --for me at least-- from the Martin show.  It's from the Season 2 episode "Guard Your Grill" where Martin defends Gina's honor in a charity boxing match against one of Detroit's most favorite sons, Thomas "Hitman" Hearns.  Needless to say ol' Marty Mar got lumped up.  This card is done in the style of Topps' 1979 Rocky II set.  This was the first time using this set for me.  It's simple, but a pretty recognizable non-sports card set from back-in-the-day.

The Mountie

Some of my cards I have an idea for a card and I source out the images for it, others I see an image and want to make a card out of it.  This was the latter.  I saw this picture on one of the the old school wrestling pages I follow on Instagram ... I just can't remember which one.

For any that don't know this is Jacques Rougeau who for a long time wrestled under a Mountie gimmick for the WWF ... errr, WWE.  When I was a kid I didn't care for Jacques because, well, he was a "bad guy" and I was just a dumb little kid.

Not knowing exactly what year the picture was from I chose to plug it into the 1990-91 Topps hockey inspired design I've used a couple times before.  I figured seeing as Jacques started his run as The Mountie is 1991 it was about as good of a choice as any.

Best Of Times

Best of Times is a movie I've had requested a number times but I wanted to hold off until I got a chance to rewatch to be reacquainted with the characters and details. I finally got a chance to do that a couple of weeks ago after picking up a VHS copy.

These are of course done in the style of the 1986 Topps football set.  I gave the cards the color scheme used for the Jets because that's what the Taft Rockets' uniforms most reminded me of.

I didn't realize it before but '86 was a great year for football themed movies.  Between Best of Times, Lucas, and Wildcats you've got three 80's classics.  I've actually done all three movies in this Topps style, I just have to get around to completing the Wildcats set.

Major League Turns 30

Now that the 2018 NFL season has wrapped up it’s time to start gearing up for baseball’s spring training.  We’re also coming up on the 30th anniversary of an absolutely iconic baseball comedy, Major League.  It’s a little hard to believe that come April 7th this movie will officially be thirty years old!  Be that as it may it’s as timeless a  tale of underdogs defying all odds as there is.

I actually made a few Major League cards with an ‘89 Donruss inspired design a few years back.  They were okay but I knew that with all the cards I’ve made since that I could do better.  With the timing of the movie’s anniversary coming up I wanted to make a mini-set for the movie that would be one of my best sets to date, and I think I just may have accomplished that with these.

In thinking what design to use there was a few to consider.  I did not consider Topps’ 1989 design because 5 years ago they had Major League cards in their Archives set for the movie’s 25th anniversary.  I wasn’t looking to duplicate my ‘89 Donruss effort and 1989 Score… super “meh”.  There was really only one correct selection … the set that brought collectors perhaps the most infamous baseball card of all-times.  Of course I’m referring to the 1989 Fleer Billy Ripken F*ck Face “error” card!  It was only fitting that I commemorated Major League’s motley misfits with this design.

I wanted the set to be as comprehensive as I could so, unlike the real Fleer baseball cards, I’ve included the coaching staff, team owner, GM, and even color man Harry Doyle.

I added two cards in style style of the “Super Star Specials” and “Major League Prospects” subsets that were part of the ‘89 Fleer set.  The Hayes / Vaughn Prospects card is easily my favorite of the mini-set.

I specifically wanted to find a picture of Pedro Cerrano doing his voodoo snake ritual.  I wanted that

card to be in homage to another famous Fleer baseball issue; the 1984 Glenn Hubbard card.

The two rival Yankee cards in the set are actually cards I made quite a while ago in the style of the 1988 Donruss set.  I think the Clu and Duke cards in a different design adds a nice contrast for the movie’s goliath-like antagonists so I included these two as official parts of this set.

Jackalopes

The Foo Fighters did a funny as hell short video -- directed by Dave Grohl -- to promote their performance on DirecTV the Saturday before Super Bowl LIII.

In the video they play a fictional 70's era misfit football team called the Jackalopes.  I had not seen this video prior to a person, who is familiar with my cards, recommended I make football cards based upon it.  Not only that but he recommended the perfect design, a 1970 Topps football inspired template. This person thought I'd love the idea and he was exactly right.  I'm sure had I seen it before this the mini-set would have already been in the works.  For a long time the Foo Fighters were my favorite band (now they share the top spot with Halestorm).

Here's the real kicker, the requester was attending a Super Bowl party in Atlanta on the Friday before the Super Bowl and the Foo would also be there.  So the goal was to get these babies autographed.  I also made a set for each of the band members to have.

The word was that Pat Smear loved them.  Nate Mendel thought they were cool and Dave, who in my opinion is the bar none coolest guy in rock, got a good laugh out of them.  All signed except Chris Shiflett who I guess just doesn't sign.  And, I'm told I should have signed copies of the Dave and Pat's card in the mail soon.  I might just sleep by my mailbox until they get here.  This gentleman is seeing the band again towards the end of the month and will try to get the additional signatures.