Idle Hands

I recall renting Idle Hands back when it was a new release 20-some odd years ago.  This is back when I actually made an effort to keep up with things that were current.  I recall labeling the movie, in my mind at least, an 'instant classic'.  I'm a big fan of horror/comedy movies.   Idle Hands was just a really fun watch with a great young cast.

Making cards for Idle Hands has been on my radar for quite some time.  There's a difference between me wanting make cards of a certain something and having the right look for the cards in mind to motivate me to spend the time to make the cards.  I don't want to "cheat" the cards.  

Back in October I wanted to make something spooky-themed.  That brought back to mind my desire to make something out of Idle Hands.  I was trying to picture something "cool" in my mind.  The one thing I knew is that I wanted to accomplish was to have a PCb. set with a green border, but other than that I was still stumped on what would make the "perfect" look for an Idle Hands custom trading card set.

For some inspiration I took a look at my DVD cover of the movie.  The cover features a hand ripping part of the cover revealing the movie's text logo.  Basically "The Hand" reeking havoc on the cover like in the movie.  That got me thinking about how the 1985 Topps Rambo: First Blood Part II (an all-time favorite non-sports card set of mine) has a jagged torn looking border.  Right then and there I was able to picture the perfect look for these cards.  

1985 Topps Rambo: First Blood Part II

Then, like I do when I set out to make cards, I started watching and studying the movie.  I knew it would be a fun set to do with the horror-zombie imagery, drawing the same exuberance as my Night of the Creeps set.  When I started sourcing images I began to realize this set was going to be as comprehensive as probably any set I've done.  I was finding lots of great images and was seeing that I could make a set that followed the sequences of the film pretty well.  Plus, I had a good time coming up with caption puns.

I ended up with 39 cards, but that was just a weird number to leave it at.  I didn't feel like there was any scenes that I "needed" so I decided to finish the set off with checklist to round it out to a nice even 40 cards.  I really wanted to post this set up in October but I decided to take my time and not rush to get it done so I chipped away at it for a little while.

For the card backs I designed somewhat of a hybrid of the Rambo cards and the Idle Hands DVD cover.  The card backs are very information rich with a combination of character profiles, scene descriptions, trivia and movie factoids.  I'm really happy with the end result and feel this could be the most "perfect" custom card set I've done to date.