Dustin Wolf Art Card
In the summer of 2024 I was approached by the owners of a card shop in Airdrie, Alberta, Morrisson Trading, about drawing a portrait of the Calgary Flame’s goalie, Dustin Wolf. They knew I was an artist for trading card companies, plus I’d come into their shop a few times before to buy cards. They had a few of my published Topps baseball cards and loved the idea of me doing something similar.
The idea was that I’d create the artwork and another company would turn it into a trading card. The event was to be heavily advertised with limited tickets made available for the signing and a portion of the proceeds would be donated to the Calgary Children’s Hospital. In return for my artwork I’d receive a few copies of the card they made, have a few signed by Wolf, and I’d get to meet him. I was in!
Things moved pretty quickly after they asked if I was interested. Wolf’s schedule was hectic and I had about a week to complete the portrait once they found out when they could have him in the store for the event. I was also asked to design the graphics on the front and back of the card, all within that 1-2 week timeframe; thankfully I didn’t have too many other projects on the go outside of my day job! I worked all weekend, from Friday night after work to the evening hours of Sunday to get the painting finished. I then tinkered with the graphic design in the evenings of the following week, and before I knew it everything fell into place.
How I Created the Dustin Wolf Card
For the painting I used pencil crayons and gouache. I started out with a pencil sketch that was sent to Wolf for his approval, and once I had that in hand I quickly got to creating the full painting. The painting was 4.5×6.5″, which when reduced would fit nicely into a 2.5×3.5″ trading card. Even before this I had drawn him on a personal sketch card I had but wasn’t happy with how much of the top of his mask was cut off and the loss of detail happening in the smaller version. With the larger drawing I went over the pencils with polychromous pencil crayons and then painted over that with designer gouache, and then layering the painting with pencil crayons and gouache until I was happy with it.
With the painting finished I scanned it and made a few minor tweaks in photoshop -adjusting the blacks and colour saturation. Also in photoshop, I added a golden coloured background and a custom ‘Dustin Wolf’ lettering to go behind the painting. For the back of the card I switched to using InDesign and included Morisson Trading Post’s logo, my logo, the event info, and a few other tidbits of information. I kept the design pretty simple and I think it turned out pretty well!
Please checkout my previous article about How to Make Sketch Cards for more on my process and ideas on how you can draw your own!
The Dustin Wolf Signing Event
The event was a complete success! I showed up early and was able to meet Wolf and had him sign a few of my own hockey cards, plus the original painting, the first sketch card I drew of him, and a mitfull of the art cards that I’ve given to a few friends and sell at shows and my website (getting a few of the signed copies to resell was part of my payment for the project.
The event lasted for several hours, with hundreds of people happily waiting to meet the Flames goaltender. Attendees had the option of having an 8×10″ photo of Wolf, something they brought with them, or to snag a copy of my art card to have signed. I hung around at the front of the shop offering to sign the backs of my art cards. I always find it a little awkward showing off my artwork but it was really great hearing from so many people that they liked what I had made and were choosing to have my card signed instead of or in addition to a photo or what the item they brought.
There’s no official word yet but hopefully this won’t be the last art card I create for a signing at Morrison Trading!
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