Fours

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This has been a hell of a week. Some planet probably did double, triple retrogrades because everything just went weird. Anyway, here's the Fours. Too drained (not physically) to say anything more.

Threes

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My pace has noticeably slackened. It's not really that the cards are getting more complicated to do, but two other things. Firstly, the technique is still evolving. I find myself filling whole black areas with colour and then adding the shading again - which goes against the entire point of doing it dark-to-light. Some of these four have been done in this manner, so I still might change them in the future.

Secondly I think I'm getting more fastidious with details. I remember when I started working on the images (and I think they do show with the earlier images from the Majors), I wasn't too particular with getting all of the details exactly like in the original. As I did more images, however, I became more conscious of the fact that this is essentially a Rider-Waite-Smith based project, and, as in most reproductions, runs the risk of things being lost in the process of copying. So there were times (and I'm guessing there will still be times in the future) when I couldn't decide what stuff I should change and what I should retain. Obviously I'll be , since from the very beginning I acknowledged the fact that this is is essentially another RWS clone.

Twos

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Notice the fuller, more solid colours in these four cards. My favourite of these four are the 2 of Swords and the 2 of Cups. Sadly, 2 of Wands still looks a bit CG, so I dunno. Maybe I'll edit it, but after the all the cards have had their turn. I also have to make the images look a little less blotchy; maybe lessen the "effects" I put in them.

The thing is, I get self-conscious about "dirtying" my digital works most of the time, because I'm not too fond of too clean, neat, smooth digital art. Makes it look a bit metallic to me. Don't get me wrong, there are wonderful example of this. I guess it's just the difference between one's preferred personal style and the style one appreciates from others. In poser intellectual mumbo jumbo parlance: a disparity can and oftentimes does exist between one's internal and external aesthetic sensibilities. You can appreciate haute couture, maybe even keep posters of them, but I doubt you'd wear them at work (not unless you're a supermodel and you do wear them at work!).

Aces

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The aces. I was still vacillating between the dark "from the shadows" style and the more painterly one when I was doing these cards, and it shows, especially with the ace of swords. The twos have a more solid look to them, as compared to the aces and most of the majors. You might notice the unreal dramatic cloud formations I've used here as well as in a lot of the Majors. It was something I got around to doing accidentally and was pretty happy with the results so I probably will use more of that in the future cards for the deck. It might be one of the definitive elements in the deck (though some cards - like the 3 of pentacles - have indoor scenes, so that obviously won't feature clouds).

Ironically, I got too lazy doing the foreground clouds (the ones from which the hands appear) so they ended up having the original's swirly things. At least for now. I plan on changing that after I finish the entire series.

I can see the potential of the colouring style as something that I might use in doing Medieval-inspired works in the future, though I still have to develop a cheat that approximates sfumato more. I'm also having trouble making things look less CG, or at least something that doesn't exude a Posing Software feel, since the images weren't made with Poser or something similar! I guess I have to make the smooth dark areas dirtier, and not make light areas too... "glinty." We shall see how things go in the future.

Moon to World

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So that's the last of the majors. I'm really happy with way things are going. AND sorry about the glaring copyright notices. Just being careful about things.

I'll upload the aces and the twos later or tomorrow. hopefully I finish the threes soon.

Hanged Man to Star

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I really like the Death card I made here. Notice that it's the only monochromatic card. Not that there's a deeper thing going, just for aesthetic reasons really. Weirdly enough, the Devil ended up looking like a cross between an ogre and one of Terry Prachett's Nac MacFeegles (ironic considering the scale!).

On a related note, I also made a card for a community project using the technique I'm currently working on. This time, I based it on a Marseilles variant. I did it during the earlier phase of my... experiments, hence the cruder look.

Lovers to Justice

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I realized I don't even have a name for the deck yet! That'll come in time, I hope. Anyway, notice the change of style in the Hermit card here. This is the time I couldn't yet decide which particular style I'll stick to (very shadowy and rough, or a more refined painterly style). I'll probably change the four corner animals in the wheel. I was a bit lazy when I was doing them, which is why they ended up looking like that.

Fool to Hierophant

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I followed the order of the majors when I did the cards, so the Fool was the earliest card done (and perhaps the most experimental-looking) and the World the last of the majors to be finished. Hopefully as I upload the entire majors the change in style, perhaps even the development of subtlety or refinement in the coulouring, can be observed, especially when you compare the Fool and the World.

Truth be told, I originally wanted something similar to the Drogi, which is another deck that has dark-to-light colouring style. I was admittedly too self conscious of this original inspiration that at times I vacillated between doing images with predominantly dark areas, and one that doesn't have as much tenebrism but nonetheless has a quaint, albeit painterly (I hope!) look.

I currently prefer the painterly style (as in the World), so I'm resolving to stick to this for the whole deck. I'll just edit the darker ones I did earlier so that the whole deck gets a unified look. I'm still interested in doing a Drogi-inspired deck, I figure maybe I can still use the flats of this particular deck (since they won't be showing anyway because I put an opaque solid layer - black in this case - between the colouring and the flats) and just colour them differently. Fast as this current project is (I finished the Majors through the Twos in around 2 weeks), the next deck might be faster since all of the flats by then would have been finished already.

For those who've viewed this, please do tell me how you think of the cards.