Fan-made card
A fan-made card, sometimes referred to as a fake card, is a custom or fictional card based on cards from any particular trading card game, but created by one or more fans of the game rather than the original creators. They are distinct from counterfeit cards, which are duplicate or fictional cards that are created by some other person, group, or company than the original creators to sell to unsuspecting consumers.
Since the release of the Pokémon Trading Card Game, several groups of fans have formed creating their own versions of Pokémon cards, and still continue to do so to this day.
Types of fan-made cards
There are three main categories of fan-made cards: text fakes, hand-made cards, and image fakes.
Text fakes
Text fakes are cards that are created only in text or written form with very little, if any, imagery used to create them. They are generally simple and easy to make. Message boards with a sizable Pokémon TCG community typically have a fake card creation forum, such as The PokéGym's Create-a-Card forum.
Hand-made cards
Another popular method of making custom cards involves creating them by hand using tangible art tools. Usually, creators will take an existing card, cover up parts of the original card using correction fluid, and write in their own text. Other methods include using blank templates, such as those provided by the staff at various Pokémon TCG tournaments, including Wizards of the Coast's own Create-a-Card templates. These templates had spaces to draw a Pokémon and write in all the text necessary for the card, and sometimes also included a sheet of energy symbols for its attack, type, weakness, and resistance.
Beckett Pokémon Unofficial Collector was known to publish custom cards which had been sent to the magazine.
Image fakes
Image fakes are cards created using a computer and a system of blank cards and other elements to create completely new cards from scratch, such as by including new text or original artwork.
At one point, image fakes may have been the most popular fan-made cards within the Pokémon TCG community. They gained prominence when Nick15's first fake, Missingno., was posted on one of the largest Pokémon TCG websites of the time, the PokéCenter at CCGNews.com. He later shared his creations on his own website, Pokémon Aaah!, which included instructions on how people can make their own image fakes. This system gradually grew in popularity and was adopted by other sites, like Pokémon Zeo!. Over time, however, image fakes began to fall out of favor, even though sites such as PokemonCardMaker.org continued to promote them. Despite this decline in popularity, some fake card creation sites, such as mypokecard.com, still remain active.
At times, image fakes have been found on auction sites sold by people who did not know that they were unofficial.
External links
- FakeCard.com Archive of the first Pokémon TCG fake card website, previously known as Pokémon Aaah!, created by Nick15
- Pokémon Zeo The second ever Pokémon TCG fake card website, created by The Echidna and purity
- My Pokecard An easy-to-use card making site
- PokemonCardResources DeviantART group dedicated to creating fan-made cards
See also
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This article is part of both Project TCG and Project Fandom, Bulbapedia projects that, together, aim to write comprehensive articles on the Pokémon TCG and Fandom, respectively. | 
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