When it comes to designing chase rare cards, amazing art is just the beginning. Across the TCG space, publishers are continuously innovating with texture, foiling, and more to make cards that immediately look and feel special the moment you rip them out of a Booster Pack.
To give you a little more insight into how we’re approaching this in Cyberpunk TCG, we recently sat down with WeirdCo Creative Director Jonny Erner for a quick Q&A session. Enjoy!
Q: Hi Jonny! To kick us off, can you tell us what Precision Vector Texturing is, and how it appears on Cyberpunk TCG cards?
A: Of course! When we started designing Cyberpunk TCG cards, we knew that we wanted our highest rarity cards to stand out. When someone pulls something special, they should know it immediately. So, alongside our foiling tests, we started experimenting with various different texturing approaches.
We tried all kinds of different texturing methods, but we were immediately drawn to techniques that added custom textured linework aligned to each card’s art, rather than basic repeated texture patterns. After trying a few existing methods for applying textured lines to cards, we settled on our own custom approach, which we call Precision Vectorized Texturing (PVT).
PVT is pretty straightforward. On the creative side, we add extra layers to our card art that map out exactly where raised texture lines need to go on each card. We map these to each card’s art, highlighting key details and bringing the image to life in a way players can touch. It adds a tactile element that makes our amazing art pop, rather than swallowing it up with over-the-top foiling, for example. It’s something we’re really proud of.
Q: That’s brilliant. Across the Secret and Iconic Rare cards in my personal collection, I see a lot of variation in how PVT is used. How did you settle on the amount of texture added to our cards?
A: Good question. At first, we turned every dial up to 11. We wanted to see what it looked like at an extreme level, and work back from there. We quickly found that very high levels of texturing detracted from the card art, and it actually worked better when applied more subtly and deliberately.
After that, we started testing differently. We wanted to see how fine we could make textured lines. This was extremely helpful when evaluating different potential printing partners too. Most could handle thicker, more pronounced texturing well. But at lower thicknesses, the differences in quality between printers became much clearer.
This precise approach enables us to keep texturing tightly aligned with card art. In our Secret Rare treatment of July Álvarez: Nothing to Doubt, for example, you’ll see very subtle texturing of her hair. At the other end of the scale, on the Iconic Adam Smasher: Metal Over Meat, we’ve captured a wide range of textures to reflect the artwork's greater complexity and diversity.
Q: So, should players expect to see more PVT on Iconic Rare cards than Secret Rares?
A: In general, yes. But we’re not just going to slap a ton of texturing onto a card simply because it’s rare. Our Iconic Rare cards feature more expansive, impressive artwork, so the texturing is scaled up to match. Again, it’s all about highlighting our amazing art. We never want to swallow it up or mask it behind our texture and foiling layers.
We’ve taken a similar philosophy with cold foiling. On Iconics, names are cold foiled in Silver. Just like with PVT, we hand-draw where cold foiling should go on cards. Some card art can take a high degree of foiling, and some can’t. We make individual decisions about the level of foiling on each card, just as we do with texture. It takes us much more time, but it’s worth it to ensure every card looks its best.
Q: Jonny, thanks so much for that insight. Is there anything else you’d like to let people know about our foiling and texturing approaches while we’re here?
A: We’re very proud of how our first Secret Rare and Iconic Rare cards have come out. The time the team has put into pioneering the PVT approach has already paid off. But in many ways, this is just the beginning.
From here, we can add further layers of texturing to future sets, and expand the range of foiling techniques we utilize across our cards. The great thing about TCGs is that they can constantly evolve. Our work on set 1 has spawned some amazing ideas for set 2, and we can’t wait to keep amazing our players as they open future Cyberpunk TCG booster packs.