Remember that extended deck that isn't Faeries or Wargate? I decided for this week's article to work on one of the star players in that deck, which has a lot of potential in Standard as well- Tempered Steel.

Note: For anyone new to this article, I'll be using Citadel acrylic paints. These paints come in a HUGE range of great colors, and dry extremely flat on the cards. You can find them at any hobby store. I include the names of the colors that I use for each section in parentheses.

I want to try something new for this alteration. I'm going to create the illusion of the artwork interacting with the border. This is normally done with burnt edges. I've seen burnt edges on Banefire (makes sense), Force of Will (ok, the art is fiery…), Gideon Jura (…what? Why?) and just about anything else you can think of. Although Tempered Steel using fire makes as much sense as Gideon Jura, I'm going to do something that makes a little more sense i.e. shattering borders.

First I'm going to mix a tiny bit of beige (Bleach Bone) with my white (Skull White). Notice that the outer border is just a little off-white. Then I'll start by painting splinters of ‘border' around the epicenter of the shatter, where the fist is. Remember the border contains a few colors, the outer border, an inner white outline, and a shadow. We'll paint all these in to complete the illusion. I'll paint the white outline first and then a black line between for the shadow. Then I'll go through and add the bold black outer border to the shards.

I'm a little unsure of where to go from here, but I'm not going to sit in the tank. I think the best way to go is to mix up some dark gray paint and extend the steel and/or rock that's being smashed into our border. I'll just add some black (Chaos Black) to medium gray (Codex Gray). I'm going to go in between our big border shards, and then a ways underneath them on the right side, and finish by adding some craquelure (see- possibly made up Photoshop words) in black. Then I'm going to add tiny lines of medium gray (Codex Gray) around the darker gray shapes for highlight. This step isn't totally necessary, but it certainly adds to the effect.

Next I'm going to fill in black above the shattered area on the right. I'll also extend a little piece of debris over the title box, and add dimension with a couple lines of my medium gray (Codex Gray).

Continuing on, I'll mix some dark olive (Catachan Green) with some medium green (Goblin Green) and paint some of the green background peeking through ‘cracks' along the border. I'll also fill in with some beige (Bleached Bone) around the creature's legs on the left.

It's still not exactly where I want it to be with the effect of the border shattering, so I'm going to use my dark gray color (Codex Gray with a little Chaos Black) and cover most of the leftover border.

When that dries I'm going to add more cracks in the gray with black, outline those with medium gray (Codex Gray). It's a lot of work, yes, but the effect will be worth it.

After completing this process, I'll add some small black flecks in the green areas on our border, to unite them with the original art a little better. I'll also continue the creature's leg on the left in black.

And that's it. Sign and date the cards, and spray them with a clear acrylic sealant.

While I was working on this, I got an email from a reader named Mike asking about some different illusion techniques. Since I already mentioned the ‘burning' technique, I'll do a quick demonstration.

Start by painting the fire over the border in an organic shape. As usual, I'm going to paint beige (Bleached Bone) first, then the yellow (Golden Yellow) and orange (Blazing Orange) on top.

Next I'll take black and paint charred "paper" where the burned border is.

Finally I'll mix my dark brown (Scorched Brown) with black, and with my ratty brush I'll drybrush the burnt brown color around the edges.

It's that simple!