NFT Card Challenge

The creation of this one was relatively easy. However, my solution for the image hover effect is somewhat questionable in my opinion. I didn't want to add any plus element to html, so I used ::after selector with background-color and background-image to bring in both. But with background-color came the issue where I just could not use my custom variable with lowered opacity. I googled for a solution and I found that wrapping it in rgba should work, but it didn't. I was forced to add a different color with lowered opacity / alpha value. What other solutions could I have used?