My first ATC
I recently discovered the ArtistTradingCards format and idea. This is my first watercolor attempt at making one! I hope there gets to be a lemmy community for such cards at some point
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14 replies
This is cool.
I'd never heard of these for some reason - at least by this name and specific format.
I found a bit of an "intro" on here:
www.tinteddy.com/introduction-to-atcs-what-are-artist-trading-cards
Cool idea and thank you for bringing it to my attention (and I like your one too).
So basically a "Hi, i'm of this style"?
I think more "I am making work which fits in this format" - the actual style of the artwork itself is down to whatever the artist does.
Nice, this guide looks super cool, thanks! I saw two others before, they seem more or less saying the same: https://jenivievedesign.substack.com/p/artist-trading-cards-etiquette-101 via reddit faq, and a cool zine at: https://www.betty-draws.de/2026/07/15/atc-zine-07-2026
This is lovely! A good place to find trading partners is on swap-bot(at least until the future ATC lemmy community gets some steam).
Please elaborate on this format.
The explanation in a sibling comment looks great: https://www.tinteddy.com/introduction-to-atcs-what-are-artist-trading-cards
Another one I saw before, kinda official FAQ of the relevant subreddit, is at: https://jenivievedesign.substack.com/p/artist-trading-cards-etiquette-101
Another cool one I saw is the zine about ATCs: https://www.betty-draws.de/2026/07/15/atc-zine-07-2026
In shortest words, it's hand-made cards you do in 2.5x3.5in size (6.4x8.9cm) in any medium you like. (It's a standard "trading cards" size, like Pokemon or MTG or baseball cards in the USA, so you can easily store them in plastic sleeved catalogs.) You can then swap them with other artists, in person or over the internet, or just keep them for yourself. They are not to be sold (if you want to sell, you mark them as ACEO rather than ATC, it's the same size but a different, adjacent community and idea). There are online (and I think also offline) communities for swapping or just showing your collection.
I hadn't heard of artist trading cards before, but that seems really cool! the watercolor is so pretty I want to take a bite out of it
Thank you so much for the kind words! <3
Beautiful! Always love the lightness of aquarell. ATC sounds cool!
Thank you! <3
Great!
Is there an ATC community on lemmy?
Thanks!
None that I'm aware of. I'd love to learn also if there is! I wonder now, could it make sense to try and create one? I have absolutely zero experience how this works 🤔 I'm totally new at Lemmy first of all... Should there be some minimal group of people interested in a topic to make it sensible to create a community? From the looks of it, even the artshare one doesn't appear too crowded, so I'm not very sure there would be even anyone to take part in an ATC one? Maybe for starters it could be enough to just share any ATCs here on artshare? 🤔 Do you have some thoughts or experience on this?
I don't know either. I only just discovered ATCs when I saw your post. Apparently, you need at least four people for a 3-for-3 swap, so I imagine it's doable. What worries me more is the postal service!