How do I submit my first Alter?

and how long does it take for it to show up in the store?

Under 3 Minute Read.

In this article, we cover how to get started and upload an alter onto the platform.

Make sure you are signed up as an Artist!

    The very first step is getting set up as an artist and to make sure you have been approved, we go over this in our third article about becoming an Alterist, an artist who sells on Alter Sleeves. Once you have gone through that process, open up your dashboard and head on back to the submit alter the page.

The Submission Page!

    The Submit Alter page can be broken up into five parts, note however the page will change as we fill it out, but before we start doing that let’s go over what each part of the page actually means. We will go over in more depth in another article about how to set up, export, and make sure your alter is ready for upload. 

A.    I am uploading

This step determines whether the artwork you're uploading is completely new or is a variation of something you have previously uploaded

• A new design - the file I want to upload is either brand new and I haven't uploaded anything like it previously, or it is an artistic variation on something I've previously uploaded (ie different colour scheme)

• A cropping or printing variation for an existing design - the file I want to upload is a crop or print variation of an existing design

B.    Design Name

The design name will be used for to search for it in the back end when adding variations and on your royalty statements.

Unfortunately design names are not currently customer facing due to legal complications regarding name usage, though this is something we hope to solve in the future.

C.    Crop Type

The crop type is type of cut you have applied (or want to apply using our cutting tool) to the file you are uploading.

Crop Type definitions can be found here.

Generic Design

Selecting this checkbox means that this design will appear in generic search results for all cards with a matching frame set of your selected printing.

Frames and generic adornments are considered generic in all situations. For Art replacements, you may choose.

D.    Design Availability

The availability of your design on the Alter Sleeves website.

    Available in Store - Users can search for and purchase your design

    For internal use only - Only you and administrators can access your design. It is not searchable.

    For purchase only - Your design is not searchable but can be purchased; accessible directly via link (coming soon)

    Visible on site, not available for purchase - Your design is searchable but can not be purchased (coming soon)

We may now proceed to the next page:

Here you will search for the card you are submitting, Lets try a Sol Ring.

Printing Selection

Select a printing from the options. Options are divided into all available printings of a card that has been released physically.

If you have selected an art replacement type, it will select all versions with the matching framecode. If not you must select individually due to color differences between printings.

When you select a printing, it will grey out other versions as the variation must have consistency of printing layout, As such:

Once you have selected your desired printings, we may go to the next page.

In this page you will submit your file;

A.    Upload Design

Click the browse button to select a file from your computer, make sure your file complies with our file size and format specifications here.

B.    Upload Signature. (Optional)

Here you may upload an image file for your artistic signature.

C.    Preconfigurations and Elements

Once your file is uploaded you may use these checkboxes to “cut” our parts of your design, as such:

Here we see a full art design cut to show the card elements chosen in the check-boxes to the right.

Once you’re happy with your design you may click to the next page.

Tags

During the process of uploading an alter design, you will be asked to select from a pool of tags. These are a board list of tags that help customers search for your designs. Select which tags more accurately describe your design, if you select too many we will manually remove them. There are two categories, style, and theme. Style refers to the art style of the card while the theme is about what the design is contextual. But what do these tags mean? Check our quick list below:

• 3D - Has elements of extreme depth or uses 3D modeling.

• Blueprint - Has elements of design that look like a designer’s or engineering blueprint.

• Digital - Was designed in a digital fashion, does not look painted or the like.

• Distressed - Made to look damaged.

• Foil Appropriate - Made to go over foil cards.

• Monochrome - consists of a single color and black/white or in greyscale.

• Oils - Traditionally oil or acrylic paint was used.

• Painted - Made to look painted, either digitally or real, but done in a non-traditional way.

• Pastel - Done in the pastel color scheme.

• Photo Manipulation - Primarily a real-life photo that has been heavily edited.

• Photobash - A design style using real-life photos and graphics to form a scene.

• Photography - A real-life photo that is not heavily edited.

• Pop-Out - Designed to wrap into the frame and “pop” out of it.

• Realistic - A design that strives to be photo-realistic in nature.

• Stained Glass - Made to look like it is made of glass or adds highlights to cards like glass.

• Texture - A design that adds textured details into the card.

• Vector Art - A flat color designed design using vector shapes.

• Watercolor - Painted or digital design that looks like watercolor style art.

You now reached the final screen.

In here, you may write a Bounty code, Bounties are occasional events Alter Sleeves run that may affect royalties or promotional contests, We announce bounties when they happen on the discord.

Legal Notices:

Checking this box confirms that you have the rights to all images and contents used in this design and that the design is in compliance with our copyright rules.

And you’re done! You may now click next and finalize the process! Congratulations on submitting your first Alter Sleeve!

Curious about what the Approval Status means?

    For more current info check out our approval page: https://www.altersleeves.com/design-statuses-and-what-they-mean.