It's ya boy Warp here. Up until recently, everything I've ever doodled with, sketch cards included, were all created using whatever markers, pens, pencils I could find lying around. A LOT OF SHARPIE (to be honest some of them are truly great) LOL. I just purchased a 160-set of Ohuhu Alcohol Markers. I'm loving them! They were a bit intimidating at first, but I'm slowly learning proper blending techniques while just "going for it." I found a gorgeous series on YouTube that almost feels made for me. It touches upon a lot of techniques that I need to tighten my grip on, and I'm incredibly stoked to begin the courses. I've never been a huge sketchbook guy in the past - they've never been of interest to me personally but I've always loved watching sketchbook tours and looking into my peer's books back in school. I always would just grab some random A4, standard cardstock, a post-it, whatever. Nowadays, I totally get it!! I'm looking into the best-but-cheapest hardcover option I can find. Suggestions are heavily appreciated and welcomed - I know paper does matter gang!!! You can dm me on my instagram, or drop me an email at derek@staywarped.art. I've fallen in love with sketch cards & ATCs but it's time for me to go back to drawing "full works", and a bit bigger again, from time to time lol. 

Alongside this, I grabbed these cards from Amazon on a whim. The reviews were pretty solid, and I loved the 320 GSM. They are damn-near perfect!! The bleed is not terrible when it happens, and they are far less flexible than the round cornered ones I was using before. I'm going to be uploading a few more sketch cards today and this weekend that I did on these cards so look out for those.

Lastly, I took the suggestions of a few reddit posters (a scary sentence to even conceptualize.) I was looking through the GPK subreddit as well as some others, and did some reading into various artist's sketch card processes. I was ultimately, like mentioned in my last post, looking for somewhere to be able to print me some nice cards with a blank front, and printed back. Well, a lot of my research ultimately lead to nowhere in that department, aside from one website called 4Over4 that seems to have the absolute perfect thing I need... But then it hit me: Don't go too big too quickly. I can always get some nice, custom back-printed cards down the line when I establish myself and grow a bit more. So with that in mind, I did some more digging on ways to get a custom back consistently on multiple cards. For a while, nothing, but then I did however find a really neat 2024 post from artist Aaron Uglum on Threads. He had used a custom-made stamp to stamp the backs of his sketch cards. So....I ordered one for myself LOL. I loved this perspective - as you can generally just change your ink color to indicate rarity/series/whatever (I made the mistake of putting Series 1 on mine, so I'll have to either carve off that bit myself or throw some letters after them thangs. I'm looking forward to seeing how the stamp came out - I should have it some time in mid-September.

Anyhow gang, that's all from me for now. Looking forward to posting more art soon. Stay curious. Stay weird. Stay Warped.

Blog post 1: welcome to the website! + What's to come

Wednesday August 26th, 2026

Warp here. Greetings & welcome to the website! I'm currently working on trying to get the custom domain working, but so far I think things are looking pretty good. I'm excited to finally have a place where I can upload my art so I'm not fairweather posting on Discord. As of right now, I'm relying on Google Workspace/Sites builder to build the website, as I'm not fluent by any means in HTML, CSS or coding in general. In time, the website will evolve and grow with visual changes, feature additions, a store, and more. As of right now, I'm just damn happy I was able to get something together at all.

 Ya boy Warp has been having an absolute blast drawing lately - probably the most fun I've had in a number of years. It brings me a lot of calm and helps me align my brain when it's very loud. I want to give shoutout to Mama Warp for inspiring me & gifting me the blank sketch cards. Sketch cards and ATC's are probably the reason I can't seem to stop drawing lately. I'm not sure where she acquired the cards / what brand they are / the specs of the cardstock but they are a nice 2.5 x 3.5 rounded corner cardstock and have been my main stock as of beginning my sketch card journey. I've been looking into exploring other sketch card blanks, notably I found a few including these ones by EON which look incredible in quality and are super afforable, as well as these branded and back-printed ones by GeePeeKay. There's a ton of other great looking options on sites like Amazon but I'm looking for a thicker card stock at the time, as I tend to bleed a bit when filling and shading. Eventually I'm going to want to get some high-quality printed Stay Warped branded sketch cards with a glossy back and an uncoated/matte front for drawing. I made an example for a card back as seen below. This is one of the times I've made something digitally that I'm not going to end up scrapping over time for a new idea. I really dig that card back design. I just need to do a bit more research and find the right place & process to getting something like that printed. Until then, I'll draw on anything, and the cards I have now are superb!!! It's just nice to explore, have options, and look a bit more professional.

Right now, you'll see that I have a few sets of sketch cards posted. Every set is currently a work in progress, and when I complete them I plan to make a page displaying my full sets in a single image-per-set to make viewing & documenting easier. Right now, just for a recap: we have Warped Series 0, GPK Fan Art Series 0, and the Hershey's Kiss PKMN series, & yes, I used the foil from the kisses for these! ( a decoupage shoutout to Mama Warp while I'm at it (: ) Keep your eyes peeled for the neat Mewtwo card I'm working on, the entire card was covered in the Team Rocket wrappers before I started painting! I'm using the term "Series 0" for my sets at the present time as I'm going to be moving forward with my Warp moniker on my art starting with anything "Series 1." and everything is currently Hancocked with my government. I look forward to the lay down on my bed, youtube video at a dull hum, trying to figure out my new signature session. 

Why am I calling myself Warp these days? Why and what is "Stay Warped" ?

To be honest with you, I've loved this word all my life. If gives me the same magical tickle that words like: stellar, galactic, neon, machete?, static for example, give me. I have no idea why those words do that but they just do! It resparked into my brain around the decade of my life where space, the universe & existence caught my wonder & I started watching Star Trek: TNG. I also think the word is beautiful in it's various applications. Warped could mean askew, uneven, via an unorthodox perspective. It could mean oversaturated or undersaturated. It could give off wacky. It speaks to imbalance while also granting a unique view. It feels like me. It feels like all of us, really. I just want to embrace it. (It's also cool to have a short, one-word artist name, it's sick as fuck.) With that being said, I encourage others, creative or not to embrace those descriptions. Allow yourselves to rid anything blocking the prospect of yourselves & grant yourselves more than a peek into your feelings - and be proud of it. Stay curious. Stay weird. Stay Warped.