The card lab

Rick, 2026-09-28: when they draw a monster card it could show the monster on that card, similar to Magic the Gathering, and when they are at battle the card of the character and the monster are showing and then go away. Then, picking the style: a kind of canva PAPER ... on the figurine base only have it CUT out ... for the characters too. We show them their card and then it transfers to the figurine.

So every figure is a paper cut-out: on its card first, then lifted off onto its base on the board, where it stands in place of the cone or the figurine. It is on the card again beside every fight. Three of Rick's own paper pieces so far (his Canva design nerdhostelpaper): the knight (a player's figure), the bearded warrior (the Berserker), and the backpack (things on the ground). The rest come from Canva from 1 October.

Paper, Rick's pick

The knight as a player's card (at character creation), the bearded warrior as the Berserker, and each card as it is left once its figure has lifted off onto the board.

The art to make

One simple prompt an image, for Gemini or Copilot; then in Canva Pro: improve resolution, the paper style, remove the background, improve resolution again, and export a PNG with a transparent background. Copy takes the whole prompt, the shared style included. Save each as the name shown, in game/public/art/. A tick means the game already has it. The game adds the white border and the card's thickness itself.

The two styles tried before, with stand-ins from the covers

Painted, like the cover; pen-and-ink, the style bible in docs/11.

Every monster card

Without art a card shows the monster deck's skull until its picture exists. In the game the same picture stands on the board as the standee.

The players' cards

By the figurine each seat picks, which is the character; a shield in the seat's colour until its picture exists.

Arena RPG by Rick Tew · play the game (in paper: the knight, the Berserker, and things on the ground; ?art=painted or ?art=ink for the stand-ins) · the character lab