# Custom Magic / Master Magic Insert Showoff Thread



## monkeytherat (Apr 15, 2012)

I recently made some custom inserts for my unstrung magic and decided to, looking or a gallery-of-sorts for magic inserts, peruse the forum. To my surprise, there were none! I decided there were two possibilities...

1) No one thought to do it
2) Only very few people have custom magic inserts

In case of possibility 1, I decided to make it, and hopeully inspire more people to customise their magics if option 2 was the case. So, here it is! Please post scrambled (starting position) and solved (finishing position) pictures of your amazing, creative, artistic, or funny custom magics. Dazzle us all (you know you want to show off all your hard work), or get to work on a custom magic and post here for confirmation that you are a star.

What would a thread's first post be without an example?

Scrambled: http://instagr.am/p/JaxWQlik_C/ Or "Front_Final.png" in the attachments.
Solved: http://instagr.am/p/JaxZE4ik_D/ Or "Back_Final.png" in the attachments.

I decided to write up a tutorial for people who didn't understand Garron's page.


Spoiler



*How to Make Custom Magic Inserts *

Hello world, it has come to my attention that Lucas Garron's custom Magic inserts page may be a bit confusing or not in-depth enough. Therefore, I have decided to write up a (hopefully) more detailed and easy-to-comprehend tutorial.

There are two ways to make these inserts: by drawing them, and by using a computer. For the most part, it is the same exact method for both of them, but there are differences, so I will go over them here.

NOTE: When I mention the scrambled position / starting position, I mean the rectangle. When I mention the soved position / finishing position, I mean the heart-shaped one.

COMPUTER METHOD:

Firstly, you will need GIMP, it's free and amazing, so you might as well download it HERE. Secondly, you need your designs. You can resize them without much quality loss in GIMP, so don't worry about size. If you want to, you can make your own designs with your favorite graphics program (cough GIMP cough), or you can find pictures on the internet. And lastly, you need a printer to print out your inserts.

Now that you have your stuff, open up front.xcf in GIMP (download in attachments) and copy your designs in. What you have should look something like this (pictuere here). If you don't have the layers box open, you can get it by pressting ctrl+l. 

Next, resize your picture however you like as long as it stays within the black.To do this, click on the resize button (right above the paint bucket) and click on your pasted design. Enter your desired size or drag your image to resize it. Now click the "Scale". And lastly, save your masterpiece in the .png format. Now do the same thing for the back.xcf, making sure it stays in the black. 

If you want to have multiple images together making up a side, give each individual picture it's own layer by right clicking the pasted layer in the layers window and clicking "New Layer". If you do this for each picture, you can manipulate each image separately (just make sure you've selected the layer 
that you're trying to work on. To do this, simply click the layer in the layers window.

When you are satisfied with your two images and have saved them both as .png files, open them in your computers image viewer (Windows Photo Viewer for Windows, iPhoto for Mac). and Print it, making surre you select to fit the picture to the frame. If the images come out the wrong size, you're unfortunately just going to have to experement yourself with resizing the picture. Don't worry, I believe in you.

Finally, now that you have your images printed, you can move on to the FINISHING portion of the tutorial, or read the HAND DRAWN portion if you feel like it.

HAND DRAWN:

This method is much easier if you haven't taken apart your Magic yet or if you have a spare one to trace. it's still doable if you don't have this, but also much less precise and more time consuming, as you have to worry about getting perfect 90 degree angles. In addition, you need two pieces of letter-size (8.5 x 11 inches / 21.76 x 28.16 centimeters) printer (lineless) paper, a sharp pencil, and whatever colors you want to use, whether it be crayon, markers, colored pencils, pens, or anything.

Firstly, draw the basic outline of the scrambled side. (picture) It's an 8.5 x 4.25 in / 21.5 x 10.75 cm rectangle. Then, divide it into 8 separate, identical, 2.125 in^2 (2.125 x 2.125 inches) / 5.375 cm^2 (5.375 x 5.375 centimeters) boxes (a ruler is very useful here). Next, draw in your design. Try to keep track of where the lines of the boxes are, as this is where you will be cutting in the BOTH section.

Next, draw the outline of the solved position. (picture) It's a 2.125 x 2.125 x 4.25 x 4.25 x 6.375 x 6.375 inch / 5.375 x 5.375 x 10.75 x 10.75 x 16.125 x 16.125 cm irregular hexagon. This is why it's easier to have sThen, divide it into 8 separate, identical, 2.125 in^2 (2.125 x 2.125 inches) / 5.375 cm^2 (5.375 x 5.375 centimeters) boxes (a ruler is very useful here). Next, draw in your design. Try to keep track of where the lines of the boxes are, as this is where you will be cutting in the BOTH section.omething to trace. Then, divide it into 8 2.125 in^2 / 5.375 cm^2 boxes (a ruler is very, very, very useful here). Next, draw in your design. Again, keep track of where the lines of the boxes are, as this is where you will be cutting in the FINISHING section.

FINISHING

The home stretch, this is where the two methods start being the same. You will need to cut the solid pictures into their shapes. If you drew the pictures and preserved the lines, this step should be easy. If not, it's still not too bad. Firstly, cut out all of the empty white space so that you are left with just the images. 
For the scrambled position, hold the magic as if you are about to start your solve and fold the paper in half vertically. You should get what looks like a 1x4 square. Now, cut along the crease you made. Next, stack the two pieces of your scrambled side and fold them in half the other way so that you get what looks like a 1x2 square. Cut where you make creases, then stack all of your pieces and fold them one last time. You should get a 1x1 square. Cut one last time along your creases, and now you should have 8 identical squares.

For the solved side, cut along the parts that stick out from the 2x2 square at the tip of the heart. next, cut the 2x2 square in half. Stack all of your 2x1 squaress and cut them so that you have 8 1x1 squares

Now this part is the confusing bit. Look at these pictures HERE  and HERE. 

Now orient your squares so that they look like they would on a magic, and have both sides next to each other. (Ignore the numbers in that picture) Now look back at those pictures up above. You want to match the number there (mentally) with your actual pieces. 

Next match up each number from both sides so that you have pairs of the same number. For example, the top left piece of the scrambled side matched up with the middle left piece of the solved side. But in the diagram, the scrambled piece is 1', not 1. This means that when you put them together (white sides facing each other), you must flip one of them upside down. match up all of the pieces.

Finally, put all of your piece pairs into the plastic squares and restring your magic. Hopefully, everything went amazingly and you're done. If not, you can always take it apartand try again.

CONCLUSION:

I hope this guide was helpful. If you succeeded, feel free to post your creation below for all the world to see. If any part of this was hard to understand or worded strangely, please tell me so, and I will get to fixing it up promptly.


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## thackernerd (Apr 15, 2012)

I tried to one time but it was so confusing I gave up...


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## emolover (Apr 15, 2012)

I want to do this now. Time to order some magic strings. 

What is order you have to put it in so it shows up correctly?


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## thackernerd (Apr 15, 2012)

http://cube.garron.us/magic.htm

It's still confusing to me though.


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## gundamslicer (Apr 15, 2012)

I've seen a couple, I believe one of our members made a legend of Zelda one


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## monkeytherat (Apr 15, 2012)

emolover said:


> I want to do this now. Time to order some magic strings.
> 
> What is order you have to put it in so it shows up correctly?


 
Garron has diagrams at the bottom of his page here: http://cube.garron.us/magic.htm, but if that's too confusing or not in-depth enough, I could make a short tutorial.



thackernerd said:


> I tried to one time but it was so confusing I gave up...


 
Don't feel bad! It took me nearly all day to figure out how to do it from scratch, but if you persevere, I think the product is definitely worth the effort.


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## RNewms27 (Apr 15, 2012)

The pictures are so much easier to understand than the wording.


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## thackernerd (Apr 15, 2012)

monkeytherat said:


> Garron has diagrams at the bottom of his page here: http://cube.garron.us/magic.htm, but if that's too confusing or not in-depth enough, I could make a short tutorial.
> 
> 
> 
> Don't feel bad! It took me nearly all day to figure out how to do it from scratch, but if you persevere, I think the product is definitely worth the effort.


 

I don't really understand it, if you could make a tutorial that would be great!


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## Stefan (Apr 15, 2012)

scrambled - solved
master version (unfinished) The five platonic solids with the simplest in the middle, number of face edges increasing to the left, and number of vertex edges increasing to the right.


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## monkeytherat (Apr 15, 2012)

Stefan said:


> scrambled - solved
> master version (unfinished) The five platonic solids with the simplest in the middle, number of face edges increasing to the left, and number of vertex edges increasing to the right.


 
Very artistic, if my opinion is worth anything. I like them


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## HelpCube (Apr 15, 2012)

If you guys still can't figure out how to string the magic, pcwizcube has some awesome tutorials.


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## monkeytherat (Apr 15, 2012)

Added a tutorial to the first post, check the spoiler.


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## thackernerd (Apr 16, 2012)

For the tutorial I understand everything except how to put the pictures in the tiles correctly so you can solve it.


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## monkeytherat (Apr 17, 2012)

thackernerd said:


> For the tutorial I understand everything except how to put the pictures in the tiles correctly so you can solve it.


 
I'm sorry for that, I'll see what I can do about making that clearer.


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## Cheese11 (Apr 17, 2012)

Could you please upload you files for the Pokemon ones? I really like them.


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## monkeytherat (Apr 17, 2012)

Cheese11 said:


> Could you please upload you files for the Pokemon ones? I really like them.


 
Of course! I will do so the moment I return home.


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## Cheese11 (Apr 17, 2012)

monkeytherat said:


> Of course! I will do so the moment I return home.


 
Awesome! (When will that be?)


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## Zyrb (Apr 17, 2012)

Just finished all the cutting and fitting for my custom inserts, just need to string it now, I'll post pics as soon as that is done.


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## Cheese11 (Apr 17, 2012)

Zyrb said:


> Just finished all the cutting and fitting for my custom inserts, just need to string it now, I'll post pics as soon as that is done.


 
I just don't get how to do the solved side. Could someone help with that?


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## Zyrb (Apr 17, 2012)

I'm still not sure if I did mine right, I used the diagram from the website.

Edit: I strung it wrong... I'm too tired to retry now, so I'll do it tomorrow


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## DavidWoner (Apr 18, 2012)




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## emolover (Apr 18, 2012)

That, is, AWESOME!

I can't wait to make mine. It will reflect me well.


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## RNewms27 (Apr 18, 2012)

Loving boondocks.


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## Cheese11 (Apr 18, 2012)

Stuck on the last 4 strings... I got this.


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## monkeytherat (Apr 18, 2012)

Cheese11 said:


> Awesome! (When will that be?)


 Later tonight (April 18) EDIT: They're in the attachments of the main post.



DavidWoner said:


> http://i.imgur.com/NmTkz.jpg[img]
> [img]http://i.imgur.com/BHNTu.jpg[img]
> [img]http://i.imgur.com/QeWSm.jpg[img]
> [img]http://i.imgur.com/3VKYc.png[img][/QUOTE]
> ...


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## Zyrb (Apr 18, 2012)

Here is mine, I think it came out pretty good. At least better than boring old rings.






Edit: Just realized the Solved state picture is the wrong way round... Time to have more fun restringing it a 3rd time! YAY! ( I left scrambled state picture)


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## monkeytherat (Apr 18, 2012)

Zyrb said:


> Here is mine, I think it came out pretty good. At least better than boring old rings.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


 
Nice! I cannot wait to see the solved side. And I feel your pain, I've probaby had to restring my magic 5 times in a day :/


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## Zyrb (Apr 19, 2012)

Ah, I fixed it.


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## monkeytherat (Apr 19, 2012)

Zyrb said:


> Ah, I fixed it.
> 
> http://i43.tinypic.com/34pfhw3.jpg[IMG][/QUOTE]
> 
> :o Really cool. I like it.


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## James Ludlow (May 6, 2012)

A day out down Brighton, the latest incarnation....

http://www.flickr.com/photos/[email protected]/7003168064

http://www.flickr.com/photos/[email protected]/7149258745

The images look cloudy, but unless you have seen my mm, you cannot apprecitate how "used" the tiles are.


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## RNewms27 (May 6, 2012)

Wall-E


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## monkeytherat (May 8, 2012)

RNewms27 said:


> Wall-E



Simply epic.


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