Materials

This is way fun.  I like the challenge of painting within a small workable area.  It saves paint if nothing else.  The possible themes are great, too.  Anime style or not, I like any excuse to draw girls and small animals.  So far, my eyes are holding out just fine.

On materials:

We've been using mostly inexpensive acrylic craft paint.  We have a lot of basic colors: red, blue, green, yellow, cyan, magenta, black, and white...and lavender and orange. 

 We also have used metallic Jacquard paints with success.  Over light colors, these metallics are sort of transparent.  Over dark colors, the metallics seem more solid.  Some of them look one color like blue and shine another color like gold, depending on how much paint is layered on and which angle they're viewed from. 

I'm not sure how other mtg card alterers have been using Prismacolor markers because they seem to just wipe right off the card.

We have also purchased some gold leaf, but haven't tried it out yet (none of us have leafed anything before, as far as I know.).  Could be cool, we'll post the results when we do use it.

For standard artwork removal, acetone all the way.  We bought ours at Menards in the paint section, but you can find it at most hardware stores.  The fingernail polish remover acetone has too much water in it and water will damage your cards, so go ahead and spend $5-10 on the industrial stuff.  Removing ink with Acetone takes a lot less time than an eraser.  It can be smelly though, so open up a window (or you will probably get high).  And don't smoke, I guess.  For removing tiny areas, we've had good luck just scraping it off carefully with an X-acto knife.  We have the normal blade and a curved blade. 

Selkie has been sealing all of the cards, so he'll have to explain more about what goes into that.  Also open up a window and try not to smoke.  And be careful using it outside 'cause stuff can blow onto your sticky card.