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Midnight Cards -- Officical Thread

Posted: Tue Oct 16, 2012 10:17 am
by RandyButterfield
Hey Everyone,

I thought it was about time to start an Official Thread for Midnight Cards. I love the new UC look and notice a lot of new faces when reading posts and threads. For the new faces who may not know of Midnight Cards, I designed the ORNATE Sapphire and Scarlet Decks that sold on HouseofPlayingCards.com back in August. I have a few new things coming up. One of them is a Kickstarter project with my brother that should get approval from KS today or tomorrow. It's a non-Playing Card related project but still pretty cool.

For Playing Card projects, I designed a contract Deck that should be out in a month or so. I can't say anything more about it though! Next month I'll be putting together a presentation of ideas for a 2nd Edition of ORNATES that will probably be available in the Spring or Summer, and in December I have 2 new Deck ideas to get started on. I'll also be having a sale on the empty Custom Brick Boxes in a week or two!

For updates on Midnight Cards we are on Facebook at: http://www.facebook.com/midnightcards" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

thanks, Randy

Re: Midnight Cards -- Officical Thread

Posted: Wed Oct 17, 2012 3:57 pm
by RandyButterfield
I've been working on a Carnival Funfair 2013 Calendar project with my brother, Kevin, and it was just launched on Kickstarter. The Calendar uses Kevin's night photos from various Carnivals / Fairs and some designs I did for the rest. If you want to check it out the project is at:

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/169 ... 3-calendar" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

thanks, Randy

Re: Midnight Cards -- Officical Thread

Posted: Wed Oct 17, 2012 6:10 pm
by Adam
Nice does that have anything to do with the carnival board game on ks last year? The logos look similar.

Re: Midnight Cards -- Officical Thread

Posted: Wed Oct 17, 2012 6:12 pm
by Adam
http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/dic ... -dice-game" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Never mind I guess they're not that similar. Still pretty cool calander.

Re: Midnight Cards -- Officical Thread

Posted: Wed Oct 17, 2012 6:34 pm
by RandyButterfield
Thanks Adam, I actually pledged for and have the Carnival Game in your link! I love the design on it and purposely tried not to take too much inspiration from it when I was working on the graphics. A similar rustic tan background was something I thought was a given though!

Thanks, Randy

Re: Midnight Cards -- Officical Thread

Posted: Wed Nov 07, 2012 1:08 pm
by RandyButterfield
48 Hour Sale on all ORNATE and Midnight Brick Boxes starting this Friday!
I'll kick it off with a contest tomorrow night at:

http://www.facebook.com/midnightcards" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

thanks, Randy

Re: Midnight Cards -- Officical Thread

Posted: Wed Nov 07, 2012 1:21 pm
by MagikFingerz
Awesome! Thanks for the heads up, Randy :)

Re: Midnight Cards -- Officical Thread

Posted: Thu Nov 08, 2012 8:54 pm
by RandyButterfield
The Contest is up at the Midnight Cards Facebook page:

http://www.facebook.com/midnightcards" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

thanks, Randy

Re: Midnight Cards -- Officical Thread

Posted: Thu Nov 08, 2012 9:57 pm
by alric
These are the sturdiest brick boxes I've seen. Definitely a big upgrade over the plain white brick boxes. Happy to see these on sale since my card collection is growing so fast due to all the new decks being released these days. Will there be new designs coming up in the future?

Re: Midnight Cards -- Officical Thread

Posted: Thu Nov 08, 2012 11:29 pm
by RandyButterfield
alric wrote:These are the sturdiest brick boxes I've seen. Definitely a big upgrade over the plain white brick boxes. Happy to see these on sale since my card collection is growing so fast due to all the new decks being released these days. Will there be new designs coming up in the future?

Thanks for the kind words Alric! I finally got my hands on a USPCC Brick Box recently and they are a lot more lightweight than I had envisioned. I didn't really promote these the right way when the Decks launched in August. I think the "Display you Collection — with Style" tagline gets more to the point of what I was going for with these.

The plan is to definitely produce more Brick Boxes with different designs. I paid for these myself and they aren't cheap (more per Box than most USPCC Decks), so I have to really plan ahead and gang-up multiple designs to make it feasible. As of right now the plan is to do 1 or 2 New designs for the V2 ORNATES and a design each for 2 new decks I'm starting on soon. My goal is to get all of the designs finished by February or so and then take it further once they're all done.

thanks, Randy

Re: Midnight Cards -- Officical Thread

Posted: Fri Nov 09, 2012 4:57 pm
by RandyButterfield
Here's a Sell Sheet with the specifics of the 48 HOUR SALE that starts tonight at 8:00pm EDT.
A PDF version of the Sell Sheet is available here for download:

http://www.midnightcardcompany.com/BRICKSellSheet.pdf" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

thanks, Randy

Re: Midnight Cards -- Officical Thread

Posted: Wed Nov 21, 2012 2:14 pm
by neongrey
Looks like I was one of the lucky ones to get a free deck with box order. Friendly little deck of scarlet Ornates. Thanks! :)

Re: Midnight Cards -- Officical Thread

Posted: Wed Nov 21, 2012 3:57 pm
by RandyButterfield
neongrey wrote:Looks like I was one of the lucky ones to get a free deck with box order. Friendly little deck of scarlet Ornates. Thanks! :)
No problem! I hope you like the Brick Boxes!!

thanks, Randy

Re: Midnight Cards -- Officical Thread

Posted: Wed Nov 21, 2012 4:52 pm
by neongrey
Oh yeah, definitely. It's nice to have something to actually hold these things instead of just stacking them up somewhere, adn these are lovely.

Re: Midnight Cards -- Officical Thread

Posted: Thu Nov 22, 2012 2:13 am
by MJF
Randy, you do excellent work!

Any chance you could branch out and make a custom five row deck holder, instead of those bland white cardboard ones I'm currently using? :)

Re: Midnight Cards -- Officical Thread

Posted: Fri Nov 23, 2012 9:17 am
by RandyButterfield
MJF wrote:Randy, you do excellent work!

Any chance you could branch out and make a custom five row deck holder, instead of those bland white cardboard ones I'm currently using? :)

Thanks MJF! Do you have any pictures of the five row deck holders you could post? I'm curious to see how they look. I'm picturing just a long, short box.

I just noticed that some ORNATE Sapphire Decks are available on HOPC for purchase! I'm guessing it's some of the extras they hold back to have as prizes and replacements for damaged shipments. Too bad I ordered my Curator and Heraldry Decks last night! I would've ordered some Sapphires as well to get the $100 tier. I still might order some anyway.

thanks, Randy

EDIT: Just ordered some! I also noticed the ORNATE Uncuts are on Sale for $26.00 each, for those that like uncuts.

Re: Midnight Cards -- Officical Thread

Posted: Fri Nov 23, 2012 3:04 pm
by neongrey
Yeah I snagged a sapphire to go with my scarlet, since I really liked it after thumbing through it. Looks like I was placing my order right as it was listed last night.

Re: Midnight Cards -- Officical Thread

Posted: Sat Nov 24, 2012 2:33 am
by MJF
RandyButterfield wrote:
MJF wrote:Randy, you do excellent work!

Any chance you could branch out and make a custom five row deck holder, instead of those bland white cardboard ones I'm currently using? :)

Thanks MJF! Do you have any pictures of the five row deck holders you could post? I'm curious to see how they look. I'm picturing just a long, short box.

I just noticed that some ORNATE Sapphire Decks are available on HOPC for purchase! I'm guessing it's some of the extras they hold back to have as prizes and replacements for damaged shipments. Too bad I ordered my Curator and Heraldry Decks last night! I would've ordered some Sapphires as well to get the $100 tier. I still might order some anyway.

thanks, Randy

EDIT: Just ordered some! I also noticed the ORNATE Uncuts are on Sale for $26.00 each, for those that like uncuts.
Doobybrain posted a few pics on his site... I use the same boxes... They store 5,000 sports cards, or pretty comfortably 120 playing card decks.

http://www.doobybrain.com/2012/06/05/a- ... ing-cards/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Re: Midnight Cards -- Officical Thread

Posted: Sat Nov 24, 2012 12:48 pm
by jriffel
Be carefull using the boxes. Even 100 decks gets pretty dang heavy. Cardboard is great for protecting from sunlight and dust. Just brace them underneath when moving!!

Re: Midnight Cards -- Officical Thread

Posted: Sun Nov 25, 2012 9:14 pm
by RandyButterfield
Hey MJF,

I thought you were referring to a 5 Deck box, not one of those bohemethes! With all of the inserts and thick cardboard needed for a box like that, I think printed graphics would make the cost very I feasible. My guess would be they would cost somewhere around $10 just to manufacture (per box). With a minimum run of 500 or 1,000 I think it would be too risky to invest that much money on a product that may only be desirable to a few collectors.

Thanks, Randy

Re: Midnight Cards -- Officical Thread

Posted: Mon Nov 26, 2012 1:10 am
by MJF
One can dream can't they? :)

Thanks for the feedback though... just FYI, I paid $5/each box... so $10/box isn't too much more, especially if it looked good. ;)

Re: Midnight Cards -- Officical Thread

Posted: Thu Dec 06, 2012 2:48 pm
by RandyButterfield
I was putting a couple Christmas gifts together last night and thought "I should promote the Poker Chips more often".

Awesome Gift idea if you have any friend or loved one who likes to play Poker!
(I bought the Dice from Chessex and the 100 Set Wood Box is all over the web at $15 - $20)

http://www.abcgiftsandawards.com/ornatepokerchips.htm" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

thanks, Randy

Re: Midnight Cards -- Officical Thread

Posted: Fri Dec 07, 2012 2:34 pm
by RandyButterfield
It's way too early to start a new thread for this, but I thought I would use the Official Midnight thread as a place to post updates on a Deck I'm just getting started on - the Fabergé Deck. The Courts (and Back Design) will feature different Eggs inspired by Fabergé Eggs, most notably the Imperial Eggs. This is a screenshot of the first egg model in Lightwave 3d. I'll probably fine-tune it some more or add some more embellishments, but it's a good starting point and helped to nail down some of the 3d Modeling techniques I want to use throughout. It still needs surfaces to give it the shiny metallic and glossy enamel look associated with Fabergé.

I'll update here and my Facebook page a new image once a week to show the progress.

thanks, Randy

Re: Midnight Cards -- Officical Thread

Posted: Fri Dec 07, 2012 4:29 pm
by DukeBoy
Very Nice, I will keep an eye on this one.

Re: Midnight Cards -- Officical Thread

Posted: Thu Dec 13, 2012 1:06 am
by RandyButterfield
Here's the 1st Egg on its own.

thanks, Randy

Re: Midnight Cards -- Officical Thread

Posted: Thu Dec 13, 2012 1:23 pm
by RandyButterfield
Here's a couple fun side-by-side comparisons showing the original 3d Renders and the final Photoshop composites. The Egg isn't a huge difference, but the ORNATE Joker's involved a lot of cleanup and added details!

thanks, Randy

Re: Midnight Cards -- Officical Thread

Posted: Thu Dec 13, 2012 11:46 pm
by volantangel
Whoa what an egg !! looks incredible, but how are these gonna translated into cards?? as the front or the back?

Re: Midnight Cards -- Officical Thread

Posted: Fri Dec 14, 2012 12:47 am
by RandyButterfield
volantangel wrote:Whoa what an egg !! looks incredible, but how are these gonna translated into cards?? as the front or the back?
I have it all planned out in my head (and sketches). Hopefully they'll turn out as cool as I think they will. I will post finished cards once I get to the Designing stage.

thanks, Randy

Re: Midnight Cards -- Officical Thread

Posted: Thu Dec 20, 2012 2:28 pm
by RandyButterfield
This week's Faberge Deck post - the Egg for the Queen of Spades!
Each court card will have 2 copies of their Egg (to make them symetrical), plus a few other design elements.

thanks, Randy

Re: Midnight Cards -- Officical Thread

Posted: Thu Dec 20, 2012 10:56 pm
by MJF
Ohhhhhhhhh, I get what theme you're going for now... very nice... that's a lot of work though... ;)