Hello again Mananation.com readers, and welcome to my second article on altering Magic: The Gathering cards. I've just returned from an Amsterdam Pro Tour Qualifier in Orlando. Congratulations to Travis Turning who ran the up and coming Superpals deck and took home the envelope.

Some of you may remember "Getting Messy with Paint" where I demonstrated some good tips on doing a borderless alter on a Putrid Leech. This time around I'm sticking with the Putrid Leech, but this time we're doing a character drawing by replacing the gooey leech on the art with geek favorite: Domo Kun.

We'll need a lot of the same supplies from my earlier painting article, plus a few more. You'll need a pack of paint brushes; one of my favorites is the Craft Smart Golden Taklon 4 Pc. Variety Set CS-204, which you can pick up at any Michaels craft store. The set comes with a number 4 shader, a number 3 round, a 3/0 liner and a number 8 shader. If you can't get this set, you can grab these individual brushes at most any craft store, and don't worry if you don't know the difference between a shader and a liner, all the brushes are labeled!

Next you need some paint. Michaels has 2 ounce bottles of Craft Smart Acrylic paints for $.50 per bottle. For this project you'll only need white, black, brown and red. Domo is easy!

And you'll need a Sharpie Pen. This is not your normal Sharpie, it will be labeled “Sharpie Pen”. A normal Sharpie uses a different kind of ink which doesn't blend well with Acrylic paints, they run when you try to paint over then. You can pick one of these up as Michaels as well, or just about anywhere they sell school supplies.

Everything else we need you most likely have lying around. You'll need some newspaper, paper towels, two short plastic cups that you don't mind trashing, dish or hand soap, toothpicks and scotch tape, and most importantly a Putrid Leech that you're not real attached to.

First, fold a sheet of newspaper in half, roll up some scotch tape and put it all around the edges on the back of the Putrid Leech, and stick the card in the center of the newspaper. Taping the card not only holds it still while you're painting, it also keeps the card up off the paper so any paint that should go over the edge won't end up on the back of the card. Take another sheet of newspaper and fold it up into somewhere around a 8” square, this is for mixing paints on, so it should be several layers of newspaper thick. Cardboard from a pizza box also works really well for this.

Fill one of your plastic cups with clean clear water. You will be mixing your paints with a lot of water. To avoid adding thickness to the card you will generally be mixing in 50% or more water into your paints.

The other plastic cup you need to fill with soapy water. Soap water is the best way to clean acrylic paint from your brushes. Before you take a break or change colors wipe excess paint from the bristles of your brush with a paper towel, then swish the brush thoroughly in the soapy water, then wipe with the paper towel again. Before you stop painting with a brush for any period of time do this several times to get all the paint out. Your brush will love you for this! If you ever let paint dry in the brush, and especially if the paint gets up into the ferule, your brush will be forever useless.

When you squeeze paint out of the bottles just give it a little squeeze so the paint will come out one drop at a time. To mix water in the paint I will dip my finger into the cup of clean water, then hold my finger over the drops of paint and allow the water to mix in one drop at a time. Keep this in mind during this primer when I talk about drops of paint and drops of water.

First you want to break out your Sharpie Pen and draw an outline of Domo. You can use the pic below as a guide. Here I've drawn the outline and ran back over it several times to make the line very dark and very thick. The Sharpie Pen can be erased with a normal pencil eraser until it has dried, which takes a good 15 minutes, so no worries if you mess up a little.

Next you want to mix 3 drops of brown with 1 drop of black, and then stir in 5 drops of water. Mix this watery paint up well with your number 8 shader and use it to fill in all of Domo. You're painting on the raw card so you won't get much coverage on the first coat, so don't try putting the paint on really thick as this will cause the card to warp a lot later, you just want to get a little paint on the card, it will still be translucent, but we'll be applying another coat. If the number 8 shader seems a little large for the edges and arms and legs feel free to switch to the number 3 round for those details.

When you have a little paint all over Domo wash those brushes out really well and let him dry for at least 20 minutes. I normally do a playset at one time so I can move to the next card while waiting for this one to dry.

After Domo is good and dry add two drops of water, a drop of black and a drop of brown to paint you already have mixed and apply another coat. This coat should cover completely without having to lay the paint on too thick. Now it's starting look like Domo! Let this second coat dry for another 20 minutes.

Now you want to use your Sharpie Pen and draw in Domo's mouth. If you mess up inside his mouth it's ok since we'll be covering that with more paint, if you mess up outside his mouth you can always just paint a little brown/black over it, so no worries!

Now mix one drop of red and one drop of water with your number 3 round brush. Fill in Domo's mouth with the red paint. Red is a tough color to paint with, and doesn't cover very well. You'll need to put on three coats of red, allowing each coat to dry for 10 minutes, to get it looking ok.

Now break out your Sharpie Pen again and draw Domo some teeth. Domo has 4 evenly spaced teeth on top and bottom.

Use your 3/0 Liner to mix one drop of white and one drop of water to fill in Domo's teeth. You can cover some of the black lines but just be careful not to go too far over the lines with the white paint. Let this white paint dry for 10 minutes.

Now use your 3/0 liner to mix one drop of black and one drop of water. Draw some orbs for eyes. The center of each eye should be in line with each side of Domo's mouth and halfway between the top of his mouth and the top of his head. Continue with the 3/0 liner and go back over outlines of Domo's mouth and teeth, and clean up any of the outline where you may have gotten some brown over the lines.

Put one drop of brown on your mixing paper, then a drop of white down a little ways from the brown. Dip your number 3 round into the white, then mix what's on your paint brush into the drop of brown with a drop of water. Do the same with a drop of brown and a drop of black and a drop of water. We'll use these mixtures for shadows and highlights. Imagine the light source is in the upper left of the picture, so all top and left surfaces will have the lighter highlight color and everything down and to the right will have the darker shadow color. When applying highlights you want your brush to be almost dry, so dip it in your mixture then rub it on clean paper to remove most of the paint. Shadows paint as normal. Use your 3/0 liner to put the highlights in Domo's eyes.

And there you have it, Domo is comin' at ya'! I'm not sure If he wants a hug or to smash you to death. Doesn't really matter, it's Domo!

If you are ever wondering what you can put Domo on, you can put Domo on ANYTHING!

That's how to draw Domo!

[easybox]WARNING: This card will most likely not be legal anywhere. Your local FNM judge may allow it, but possibly not even there. You've been warned![/easybox]

If you tried this I would love to see your results! Scan your card or take a picture of it and send it to dalelovelace@gmail.com and I'll post it here in a future article.

This weekend I'll be in Atlanta judging the Georgia National Qualfiers, good luck to everyone trying to make it to Nat's next weekend! After Nat Qualifiers I'll be heading to San Juan Puerto Rico for almost 2 weeks ending in Pro Tour San Juan! Until next time, this is Dale Lovelace telling you there is more than one way to play!