How to Print Flesh and Blood Proxy Cards
Everything that goes into a proxy that feels right in hand: paper weight, print settings, cutting, sleeving and DIY foils. The specific products below are what has worked well for me in practice — your mileage may vary depending on your printer. If you have suggestions or tips, please let me know and I can update this guide.
The short version
- Print on satin / semi-gloss 250gsm (92lb) cardstock
- Print at 100% scale — never "fit to page"
- Use your printer's Best / High Quality mode
- Cut with a guillotine trimmer, round corners at 4mm
- Sleeve them — an opaque-backed sleeve hides any paper difference
Paper and cardstock
Satin / semi-gloss 250gsm (92lb) is the sweet spot. It matches the weight and feel of real FAB cards closely. Gloss is too shiny and causes glare under game store lighting. Matte won't print fine text details clearly and card text and numbers come out fuzzy.
What gsm means: grams per square metre — higher is thicker and stiffer. Standard copy paper is around 80gsm, which is far too floppy. Real trading cards land near 300gsm but achieve their opacity with a black core layer that home cardstock does not have, so matching the number exactly matters less than matching the feel. Much above 250gsm and many home printers struggle to pull the sheet through at all.
Match the paper to your printer. Inkjet-coated glossy stock is designed to absorb liquid ink; running it through a laser printer can leave toner sitting on the surface where it scuffs or flakes off. If you have a laser printer, buy stock rated for laser. If the pack does not say, it is almost certainly meant for inkjet.
Recommended paper (US Letter):
Print settings
Scale is the setting that ruins the most proxies. Print dialogs default to "fit to page" or "shrink oversized pages", which quietly resizes the sheet by a few percent — enough that finished cards no longer match a real one and stand out in a sleeved deck.
- Always print at 100% scale (also labelled "Actual size"). Turn off any fit-to-page option.
- Use landscape orientation for the default 2×4 grid
- Set your printer to "Best" or "High Quality" mode — Draft mode visibly degrades small card text
- Select the correct paper type in the driver (e.g. "Photo paper, semi-gloss"). This changes how much ink is laid down; the wrong setting is a common cause of smudging and colour shifts.
- Use the white border override in FabForge's Print Settings to save ink
- Let prints dry for a minute before stacking to avoid smudging — dye-based inks stay tacky noticeably longer than pigment inks
FabForge generates at full card resolution, so there is no need to adjust DPI yourself. If you are importing your own images in Studio, aim for at least 300 DPI at final card size — roughly 750×1050 pixels — or the print will look soft.
Cutting and corners
A guillotine paper cutter with a framing guide makes a huge difference. The guide rail keeps the paper straight and level while cutting, so your cards come out even and consistent. Scissors work in a pinch but you'll see wobbly edges.
A 4mm corner rounder finishes the cards off nicely. FAB cards actually have 3mm rounded corners, but 4mm is the closest standard size available and still looks great.
Flesh and Blood uses the standard trading card size, 63 × 88mm (2.5 × 3.5 inches) — the same as Magic, so any sleeve or trimmer sold for standard-size cards fits. Cut just inside the guide lines rather than straddling them; leaving half a line behind reads as a crooked edge even when the cut was straight.
Sleeving
Sleeve your proxies. Beyond protecting them, an opaque-backed sleeve means the back of a proxy is indistinguishable from the back of a real card, so a deck containing both shuffles and presents consistently — which matters if anything in the deck is genuine.
Home cardstock is usually a touch thinner than a real card. If your proxies feel light inside a sleeve, backing each one with a spare common — or a scrap of cardstock — brings the thickness back up and stops the sleeve from bowing. Double-sleeving achieves the same and adds durability, at the cost of deck box space.
Rainbow foils
DIY foils are surprisingly easy. Apply a holographic foil sticker onto your choice of colored paper (black or gold work great as a card backing), then print your proxy on top. Cut to size, sleeve it up, and you've got a custom cold foil.
The effect depends on ink coverage: the holographic layer shows through the lighter, thinner areas of the artwork and disappears under heavy dark ink. Cards with bright or open art foil far more dramatically than dark ones, which is worth keeping in mind when choosing what to foil.
Troubleshooting
| Symptom | Likely cause | Fix |
|---|---|---|
| Cards slightly too small | Fit-to-page scaling | Reprint at 100% / "Actual size" |
| Fuzzy text and numbers | Matte paper, or Draft mode | Satin/semi-gloss stock, Best quality |
| Ink smudges when handled | Wrong paper type in driver; too little drying time | Set the matching paper type; let sheets dry before stacking |
| Toner scuffs or flakes off | Inkjet-coated paper in a laser printer | Use laser-rated stock |
| Colours look washed out or dark | Paper type mismatch, or low ink | Correct the paper setting, run a nozzle check |
| Sheet jams or misfeeds | Cardstock too heavy for the tray | Use the rear/straight-through feed, one sheet at a time |
| Cards feel thin in a sleeve | Cardstock thinner than a real card | Back with a spare common, or double-sleeve |
Where proxies are and aren't okay
Proxies are for playtesting, deck development and casual games among people who know they are proxies. They are not legal in sanctioned play, and they are not a substitute for buying cards you intend to keep. Printing them to sell, or passing them off as genuine, is not what this tool is for.
More on this, and what FabForge is, in the FAQ.