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.
Custom Magic / Master Magic Insert Showoff Thread
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Originally Posted by emolover
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