Hello again, my delightful minions!  The alteration Queue for February is about to open, so I figured I’d repost the info as a refresher:

I’ve had a mighty, throbbing deluge of email queries about how one might procure themselves the curiously random binder-jem of a genuine Steve Argyle card alteration.  Up until this point, one would have had to meet me at an event, physically hand me a card, and pray to Chibi-Odin that the fickle winds of my decision gland favored heaping more work on top of a schedule already creaking and shuddering with strain.

But now, it’s as easy as mailing me a card.

The queue will open for 10 acrylic alterations per month.  The current rate is $40 each.  And if you want to buy anything else off my website, I’ll credit 20% of the purchase cost toward an alteration.

The alterations will be done in one big batch at the end of each month, and mailed out when they’re all finished.  (Probably a week or two into the next month.)

I will only alter cards on which my artwork appears.  (I’m only interested in defiling my own work, not my friends.)

Requests will be considered, but not guaranteed. 

The cards themselves are not included in the alter price.

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Email me to get in the queue, first come, first served.  steveargyle@gmail.com

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A bit of history.

My first alterations were tiny little scribbles here and there at events.  I’d sharpie “Trogdor, the Burninator” on a Togashi Satsu dragon card, or whatever.  For the most part, they were few and far between, and I didn’t give them much thought.

Enter my first Magic the Gathering GP.  This was something I was tragically unprepared for.  2,200 players between two artists.  Mark Poole was there, and he knew what he was doing.  I, however, metaphorically flopped about like a squid on the deck of a buttered sailboat.  One of the first folks in line asked for an alter, and I scribbled something inane in silver sharpie.  He asked what he owed me, and I just said “Oh, don’t worry about it.  I don’t want to charge for something like that.”  What I did not realize is that this was kicking over that first domino of catastrophe.  Each person that followed wanted their free alter too.  The line became impossibly long, moving as hopelessly as an obese tortoise who’s legs no longer reached the ground past his belly.  Folks who had come a long way didn’t get a chance to really talk with me, because they didn’t want to make other people wait any longer than they already had.  I was the world’s most disappointing line-ride.

After that, I wised up some.  I started charging $5 each, just to thin out the numbers.  I figured that would weed out the folks just looking for free stuff, or for something that would trade/sell at a higher value.  But there were still plenty enough takers that I was still making people wait a lot longer than I wanted.

So next, I started doing “next-day” alters.  Where I’d set them aside, paint them in my hotel, and bring them in the next morning.  This was great in theory, but in practice, I ended up spending all night on them, and burned myself up but-good by the time the weekend was over.

I upped the price, but then I also felt I needed to do nicer work.  So I did end up doing fewer alterations, but in total it took just as long.

Repeat the above a few times.

Next thing was to do “take-home” requests.  I’d take a stack home with me, and do them over the next couple of weeks.  This mostly works, and it’s how I’m currently doing things.  I still take home way too many, and spend more time than I really should be on each one.  Matching price to time is my perpetual juggling challenge.

I started posting them, because players seemed to get a kick out of them at events, and I realized that I had hundreds of alters that I’d scanned or snapped a picture of with my phone.

And here we are.  Lot’s of questions in my inbox, and it seems like a torturous tease to just tell everybody “Glad you like ‘em.  But if you want one…  Nah, I’d rather plop onto the couch with a commercial-sized palate of chocolate and watch Top Gear until the insulin shock makes me pass out.”

I’ve still got a pretty bloated schedule.  But I’ll damn sure make as much time as I can for you fine folks who are the reason I don’t still work at a fast food drive through.