Weekly Movie Custom Thread
- aaronbartz
- Jan 26
- 5 min read
Updated: 5 hours ago
Thanks for checking out my series of 10 custom novelty trading cards. The first set is featuring 10 of the most iconic baseball movie characters. I try to incorporate something into the card from the year the movie came or the year that the movie takes places...or both! Some of the designs are also available in merch from Teepublic as well. Links to everything will be included.
Movie Card Number 6 - Roy Hobbs - The Natural
Possibly the most known character on the list through a span of generations, Number 6 on the list is Roy Hobbs from The Natural. Side 1 of this one I went with the year that the book came out. The movie takes place in 1939, but anything from that era had been done more than a couple times. The book was released in 1952 so it made the choice. Went went the same color background that Mantle. Really clean look and my head was spinning for refractor ideas.
For side 2, The movie hit theaters in 1984, and I've imagined one day doing the 1984 set, and here we are. When I was doing research, I was surprised that there wasn't any 84's showing up. Then after completing it, I was working on the 52 and saw one version out there. Weirdly enough the other one even used the same picture in the lower portion, but slightly different. The pic was too perfect not too use it.
The refractor of the 1952 is in contention for my favorite in the series. Giving "The Jet" Gold refractor a strong run. This one I did a bit of a redesign and think it came out perfect. Spent way too much on it but ultimately worth it.
The refractor I changed the trim to white and added the black ground with gold swirl. This is inspired by the Japanese Art form called "kintsukuroi". Which I stole the idea from Topps Finest. It took me all my will power to use the 87 background :-)
Movie Card Number 5 - Henry Rowengartner - Rookie of the Year
Another character a lot of kids lived vicariously through was Henry Rowengartner. This movie was so awesome as a kid to watch, plus all the big leaguers made it even better. And to think this it's because of this movie that Pete Crow-Armstrong exists, and he's a Cub is crazy! Rookie of the Year came out in 1993 and since I just used the Jeter rookie layout, had to do some research and find some other ideas. What are the chances that the Pacific Nolan Ryan set came out in 1993? Talk about perfect. One flame-thrower to another.
For the back, I kept looking around for another design and went with another Diamond Kings design I always liked. This one is very classic and gives "painting" vibes which I thought works really well.
Refractors went full color and they came out really sharp. The Diamond King came out great, and I love the updated look to the classic design.
Movie Card Number 4 - Benny "The Jet" Rodriguez - The Sandlot
Being young when The Sandlot came out, Benny "The Jet" was the character I wished I could be. I don't think I was alone in this which is why "The Jet" is fourth in the set. Released in 1993 and I think most of us has seen the iconic Topps Draft of Derek Jeter. Seemed like an easy choice. This was a fun one to recreate.
The movie took place in 1962, and once again the logical 62 choices were already taken. So I went to the Football sets and found this design. I already had the B&W photo, so this layout was perfect. Once again, again, I changed it from horizontal to vertical :-)
The Refractors for this one came out really good. The gold version of the draft card is one of my favorite cards I've done yet. The back I did a Dodger Blue Comic Theme and loved how it came out.
I couldn't decide which design to put on shirts. So they are all there!
Movie Card Number 3 - Jimmy Dugan - A League of Their Own
My all-time favorite movie and character comes in at number 3. Jimmy Dugan was a hilarious coach in an already entertaining movie. He took it to the next level with quotes that are still iconic. There was already a lot of customs of Dugan out there, so I wanted to do one that I hadn't seen. Since the movies takes place in 1943 there wasn't a ton of layouts to get inspired by. But then I saw the Cracker Jack set and with the color scheme, it seemed like a perfect fit.
The back I chose to make one of my favorite inserts into a one-person card. Not usually a fan of horizontal cards so I wanted to re-do this layout as standard orientation. The insert and movie both came out in 1992! This is the first card I decided to design the front and back has two stand alone cards. Rather than a front and back. I'm thinking of it as a front and a front.
I felt like I'd been doing too much overthinking on the parallels so for this one I just did the base refractor.
Two shirts available for Jimmy Dugan!
Movie Card Number 2 - Ray Kinsella - Field of Dreams
An all-time classic movie needed a card. Another 1989 release, an iconic movie needed an iconic layout. 89 Upper Deck. Enough said. This is the only card so far with 2 base versions. As I was playing around, I used the 87 wood background on the 89 Upper Deck and really liked how it came out. Another simple back design, but I like how it came out and glad I had the idea of having his dad in the background.
For the refractor, I used the dark swirling sky for the front background and the back is plain refractor.
The base version is available as a T-shirt too!
Movie Card Number 1 - Ricky "Wild Thing" Vaughn - Major League
This was the card that I was designing that made me want to turn in this into a project. I've been wanting to work on the 1989 Donruss Diamond Kings and this seemed like the perfect time. Major League came out in 1989 so it seemed perfect. I went with a very simple design on the back to better show the iconic picture. Here's a look at the base version...
I'm also doing a refractor/parallel version of each card. Went colorful on this one and both front and back are Cracked Ice Refractors.
A couple of the movie designs will make to my Teepublic site as well. I thought both of these base designs were worth posting there as well.
Thanks for reading! This is a fun project and I'm excited to share them each week.
Do you have any character or set requests?
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