The Making of Alter Ego - Part 4 | All things Artwork!
28 Hermits. 36 Artists. 60 days. 196 unique pieces of art. 292 cards.
What does that all add up to?
A lot of moving parts and a limited amount of time! Let’s take a peek behind the curtain to see what all went into creating the incredible artwork for HermitCraft TCG Series 2 (Alter Ego) and how we coordinated all of those moving parts to fit within the timeline.
Before we dive in, though, I should probably introduce myself…
Hey there! My name is Blake Tull (aka CloudFuel) and I’m the Director of Community & Partnerships for CREO. I joined the company back in April and have been working with Luke and the rest of the team to help bring the Alter Ego project to life. As a long-time fan of both Minecraft and HermitCraft, getting the opportunity to work on a project like this has truly been an honor!
Before we dive in, though, I should probably introduce myself…
Hey there! My name is Blake Tull (aka CloudFuel) and I’m the Director of Community & Partnerships for CREO. I joined the company back in April and have been working with Luke and the rest of the team to help bring the Alter Ego project to life. As a long-time fan of both Minecraft and HermitCraft, getting the opportunity to work on a project like this has truly been an honor!
Now that you know a little about me, let’s take a look at the timeline we followed:
- May 2024 - Artist Onboarding + Artwork Begins
- June 2024 - Announcement of Alter Ego + Card Reveals Begin
- July 2024 - Artwork Completed + Pre-Order Begins
- August 2024 - Pre-Order Ends + Manufacturing Begins
The entire project timeline extends further (both backward and forward in time), but for the purpose of this blog post we’ll specifically focus on May to August. Efforts were essentially split into 3 phases over the course of these 4 months (based on the scope and priority of what needed to be accomplished at the time).
Phase 1 | May 2024
In this phase, our primary objectives were to connect with each Hermit, identify the artist(s) they wanted to collaborate with, and get those Artists onboarded so that artwork could begin. In order to streamline this process, we used a combination of Discord (to manage conversations) and Google Suite (to organize / track everything).
With the roll-out of forums via Discord in 2023, we were able to utilize this feature to easily parse out artwork discussions on a per-card basis. While we occasionally ran into some issues with forum posts becoming hidden and tags not being easily updatable, they generally worked really well for what we needed. In addition to the card-specific forum posts, we also had a general channel for everyone to chat in as well as a channel to share finalized cards (we’ll talk more about this in phase 2).
With the roll-out of forums via Discord in 2023, we were able to utilize this feature to easily parse out artwork discussions on a per-card basis. While we occasionally ran into some issues with forum posts becoming hidden and tags not being easily updatable, they generally worked really well for what we needed. In addition to the card-specific forum posts, we also had a general channel for everyone to chat in as well as a channel to share finalized cards (we’ll talk more about this in phase 2).
On the Google Suite front, we tracked EVERYTHING:
- Hermit / Artist assignment
- Total artist workload
- Artist payments
- Details for each card
- Card completion progress
- Asset completion
- Render completion
- Card gallery updated
- Social media posts
- Design proof progress
- and MUCH more!
Another tricky factor that we had to consider was the workload for each artist. There were a number of Artists who were selected by multiple Hermits and we needed to ensure that they had enough bandwidth to tackle each card without jeopardizing the overall timeline (which would cause down-stream delays). Thankfully, we were able to find a solution that worked for everyone and kept us on track!
Phase 2 | June - July 2024
Next up, we had phase 2 (which just recently wrapped up). On the public front, things really kicked off with our joint announcement with VintageBeef on June 7th, 2024. In order to be ready for that, though, we needed some of the artwork to be completed along with a number of graphic design renders & assets. Shout out to CC (our Lead Render Artist) who cranked out over 300 renders during phase 2!
Once the announcement was made, we switched gears and focused on revealing card artwork (in collaboration with the Hermits) on a weekly cadence. Behind the scenes, much of the artwork was still in the process of being completed and this limited how often cards could be revealed. Additionally, we were working with each Hermit to determine if they wanted to reveal their own cards (and if so, when / how they wanted to go about doing so) or if they’d prefer for us to handle that. This ultimately led to card reveals occurring in various places (namely YouTube, Twitter/X, & Twitch) in addition to our Discord server and the card gallery on our website.
It’s also worth noting just how much conversation was going on between Artists on our Art Discord server. As mentioned earlier, we had a channel for general discussion and a channel for sharing final artwork. What I didn’t anticipate (though I greatly appreciated) was how often our Artists would exchange notes / tips, help each other out, and hype each other up. There were even some streaming sessions where Artists would be working on the cards while folks were hanging out, sharing suggestions, and just having a good time. The amount of love, respect, and genuine appreciation that permeated through our Art Discord server was quite an uplifting sight to behold and I feel privileged to have been able to witness it!
Phase 3 | August 2024
As of the time of this posting, we are actively entering phase 3.
What does this mean?
Well, it means that all of the artwork has been completed, all of the wonderful Artists who created that artwork have been compensated for their time and effort, all of the cards have been revealed, and the Pre-Order is coming to an end. It also means that we’re meticulously going card-by-card to ensure that everything is flawless and ready for manufacturing to begin. We’re aiming to have this final check completed within the next 2 weeks and then we’ll be off to the presses!
Lessons Learned
While we came in with solid plans for how best to tackle a project of this scale, we certainly learned some things along the way!
In retrospect, it would have been easier if all of the artwork was completed prior to any official announcement. The timeline didn’t pan out that way… so we did the best we could with the timeframe we were working within, but having all of the cards completed ahead of time would have certainly helped to streamline the marketing process. This would have also allowed us to ensure all cards were revealed at the same time as the project announcement (or within 1-2 weeks after).
Additionally, we ideally should have finalized the card reveal strategy earlier in phase 2 (or possibly even phase 1). There were many days without any card reveals followed by a wave of card reveals in a single day. It was our hope to have at least 1 card reveal per day, so this will absolutely be something we strive to improve on future projects.
As mentioned previously, G Suite was great for tracking all of the finer details of this project, but it definitely took some trial and error to find a way to keep everything organized while ensuring that important milestones weren’t missed. We started with a few internal documents and some shared ones, but as time went on we found that we either needed to add new sections to existing documents or create entirely new ones to capture all of the data we needed. Naturally, this made it tricky to mitigate redundancy and avoid operating with outdated information.
Wrapping Up
I hope you enjoyed this behind the scenes recap of how the artwork for HermitCraft TCG Series 2 came to life and a brief rundown of how everything was coordinated. It’s still incredibly impressive to me that in the span of roughly 2 months, we went from nothing to sketches to fully rendered cards. The amount of talent our Artists possess cannot be overstated and it has been an absolute joy to work with them all!
Would you like to chat with our Artists and learn more about what went into designing each card? Be sure to join our Discord server and look out for our Artist Spotlight beginning tomorrow (August 2nd)! We’ll run this similar to a Reddit AMA (where the community can ask questions over the period of 1-2 days and then Artists will reply afterwards). This will be a great opportunity to ask our Artists about their experience working on HermitCraft TCG Series 2, what went into the creation of each card design, how they got into making art, and much more!
PS: All Series 2 cards have been revealed and are available to view on our Card Gallery! Which one is your favourite? The Pre-Order window closes on August 5th @ 11:59pm EST, so be sure to place your order while you still can!
- Blake "CloudFuel" Tull
Director of Community & Partnerships, CREO