Since I've been in the mood to grow the altering community lately, I think it's time I roll out a new feature. Occasionally I will be writing articles that will be dedicated to a specific artist. Notice that I did not define a specific type of artist. I firmly believe that broadening your own horizons and awareness of different forms of art (as they pertain to Magic altering) will improve your own work and skill. While most alter artists work in paint, there are some that choose to alter cards on the computer, or even with other cards! This week, we get an obvious candidate out of the way in CardKitty.

CardKitty has been a leader in Magic alterations for some time now, and a quick glance at their work will show you why. The smooth transition between original art and new art is virtually flawless. The use of colors and lines are fantastic. They work in all different types of alters from accents to full art and even fan-art.

Their website is a great resource to anyone who alters cards from beginner to expert. For starters, there is a step by step tutorial on how to alter a Trinket Mage and also one for Demonic Tutor. These tutorials give just enough detail to get you started and gives a general idea of which colors to use and how to use them, while also keeping some of the tricks of their trade a secret. The Demonic Tutor may not be safe for work. Recently they have released a number of video tutorials showing how they painted specific cards, notably Vengevine and Wasteland for those of you wishing to alter more expensive cards.

Then there is the gallery. Whenever I am lost as to which card to paint next, or how to approach a certain card or idea, I often look to CardKitty for that spark of inspiration. This is mainly because of the vast quantities of alters on their site. There are literally hundreds of altered cards in their gallery, so I am almost sure to find something that relates to the card I'm working if not the card itself.

Though CardKitty works mostly in paint, they do employ the cunning use of markers to complete some of their alters. This is something I would be most interested in learning as it does seem to help clean up an image rather nicely. I still have not learned which brand of markers they use, and the art markers I have don't seem to get the job done. So I leave that mystery to the community to share, or for CardKitty themselves if I am so honored as to count them among my readers.

For those of you who wish to own a CardKitty alter, there is a link to their Ebay store on the CardKitty website as well as a link to contact CardKitty for a commissioned alter. Even if you dont buy from them, I do encourage you to surf through their site from time to time and see what they are up to. I should warn you though, they do a lot of work with anime girls on basic lands, so the gallery is not always safe for work.

Today is also the day that I announce the raffle winners! To protect identities and such, they will be named by their respective screen names.

-JulesRobins (See how much using their Twitter name has protected them?) won the Oxida Scrapmelter

-JoshJMTG (Twiter) Won the Cancel

-the_toMatto (Twitter) Won an unaltered Mirran Crusader

-And one lucky member of our Facebook group won the playset of Lightning Bolts but has not replied. I'll give them until the end of this week, then I will draw another name to win them.

Though I dont feel I should have to bribe you to comment, I will still give out random prizes from time to time so keep the feedback coming! That's all for this week!

-The Painters' Servant

Twitter: PaintersServant

Email: Mbajorek02@gmail.com

**All images were borrowed from www.CardKitty.com with the intent of promoting the well being of the card altering community.

Visit www.CardKitty.com to support this fine artist!