I don't see this deck succeeding on too many levels to even list here...  I'd strip my mental gears even attempting to go over all of them...

Sorry my replies to these posts may have been duplicated, new to this style and format of chat.

Vampire and Zombie Playing

Project: by David T. Pudelwitts-St. Albans
2nd project, $3,000 goal, $20 for 2 decks-1 each Vampire & Zombie + some prints

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I have been running "The Vampyre Society" on my blogs and FB for many years. I was working for another fellow doing illustrations for his New World Order playing card deck. It just came to me that I could produce sets of cards myself. I started with Vampires, because that is my big passion, having published a book about Dracula. I then determined the closest thing to Vampires is of course Zombies. Both Vampires and Zombies are a huge market right now. Also they have become part of American Culture in a big way. I started looking at other card sets that featured these icons. What I noted was that most cards put out today have regular "pips" (Spades, Hearts, Diamonds, Clubs). I determined that if I designed my own pips, people could actually develop entirely new games! When I put the idea past my Vampyre Society membership, they all wanted decks "TODAY!" So I set out designing the card sets 6 months ago and am nearly done.

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The one risk I was aware of was the use of certain "copyrighted images" in the Vampire cards, which have a theme of Vampire Movies. Starting with Noseferatu and ending with Bram Stoker's Dracula. My friend who made his New World Order cards got around this by hiring me to do a digital painting of each copyrighted image! So each card which features say, an old Universal Studios photo is in fact NOT a photo at all! It is a digitally produced painting done by me. It is not a "copy" it is an original. So licensing will not be a problem. The Zombie cards are fully my own copyrighted works.

If you keep going to my project page you'll see more cards. That's what the project page is for, updates, etc. And watch the video. Thanks!

Quote from: SaintAlbans on November 26, 2013, 10:46:39 PM

Quote from: Don Boyer on November 06, 2013, 12:45:44 AM

I don't see this deck succeeding on too many levels to even list here...  I'd strip my mental gears even attempting to go over all of them...

Wow, thanks for this wonderful almost non-functioning "critique" of my work! Sorry you'd have to strip your mental gears to try and explain what is wrong with something you think won't succeed. Very helpful. I worked pretty hard on my project. And I will thank you to stop making spurious non-comments on it. You aren't helping. And as you say, evil and wrong happens when people don't speak up about it. The internet is full of critics. But not so full of creators.

What, the other critiques weren't enough?

Kidding aside, there are several conventions people generally pay heed to when designing custom decks in order to retain a high level of functionality.  You deck lacks quite a few of them.  Now, in design, it's OK to break a "golden rule" or two, but you have to be doing so for a reason, not just for the hell of it, or your design won't be very appealing.

Your "digital art"...  If I break out the Paint software and recreate the Mona Lisa in great and loving detail - it's still the Mona Lisa!  Putting copyright issues aside, I'm doing the same job a computer scanner or photocopier can do, except I'm doing it the hard way.  What's worse is that it doesn't matter how many hours I put into making a copy of someone else's work, people will still dismiss it because of a lack of originality - it's STILL someone else's work.  Man-hours =/= creativity.  You're not even making an effort to transform the art in any significant way as an expression of creativity - you're slavishly trying to mimic it as closely as possible.

Inventing your own pips - this is often a road to disaster.  Not always, but often.  Especially if the pips are NOT iconic and simple.

Pips aside, indices should be quickly and easily readable.  The more elaborate a typeface you use, the more difficult it becomes to identify your cards swiftly.

Your cards - courts are two-headed, aces have pictures like courts and are not two-headed.  I'm scratching my head at this.

You failed to make a proper distinction between the Zombie deck and the Vampire deck in terms of what cards belong to which deck.  So I'm wondering about seeing cards that have shaded indices and cards that don't - I'm presuming they're the two different decks.  So, how far are you into the design phase of this deck?  All we've seen so far are a few cards - no uncut sheet, not even a tuck box, and you're creating TWO completely different decks, not just one.  Lacking any real knowledge of how far you're into this, we have to guess based on the evidence available, which leads us to believe that the March 2014 delivery date is optimistic at best.

Speaking of delivering in March, have you factored in the increase in postal rates scheduled for January?  Even the world's cheapest printer needs to be paid, and short-run decks have the highest per-deck costs.  At your first reward that actually includes a deck, you're taking $20 in exchange for one deck of each card, a signed first-run card...AND a "framable 8x10 print".  The last time I saw a creator offer me such a print, it was printed on office white paper with a basic inkjet printer.  "Framable," sure, but would anyone want to frame that?  But putting that aside, you're looking at a mailer that can accommodate either a tube for your poster or a flat, stiff envelope AND those two decks.  This will not be cheap to deliver on.  You'd need to not only pay for the postage, but you'd have to provide the packing materials and packaging to insure the decks and print arrive intact.  This will leave you with a very tight if not non-existent profit margin.

You mentioned a stretch goal: If the projected goal goes to $12,000 I will connect with the USPCC and BICYCLE companies to produce branded BICYCLE tm card decks.  Most of us being knowledgable collectors and some of us being experienced deck designers, we know two things.  First, BICYCLE and USPC are NOT two different companies!  Bicycle is a brand name, nothing more.  It's like your breakfast cereal being made by General Mills AND the Cheerios Corp., Ltd.  Second, the minimum for a basic print run with USPC would be $8,000 to $10,000 for 2,500 decks.  This price can increase dramatically the more customized and feature-filled the design becomes.  These would be two separate print runs, so the bare-bones minimum for two decks without even having custom faces, just the backs, would be at least $16,000, probably more, leaving you very, VERY short on funds to complete the project.  These facts tell people you aren't terribly knowledgable yourself about these things and that you haven't done adequate research to make up for your lack of personal experience.

And then there's the timing.  There have been countless decks, both from Kickstarter and from larger companies who self-financed their work, that have covered these themes, and they've mostly done so far better than you have.  The market is oversaturated with these deck themes - any attempt to delve into it again has to be such astounding work as to stand head-and-shoulders above anything that came before it, lest it be completely ignored by the market.  This unfortunately does not describe your deck.

I haven't even begun to touch on all the problems this deck has.  This is merely a sampling.  I consult with playing card designers, helping them make their decks more functional and appealing to the market.  This project, and I don't mean this with so much as a drop of vitriol, is a very amateurish attempt at making playing cards.  This doesn't make you a bad person, and it doesn't mean we hate you.  We're just extremely particular about cards because we're passionate about our hobby.  There are so many breathtakingly beautiful projects out there, some of which have been pointed out to you - it makes it difficult to generate enthusiasm for your work.  The art on your zombie deck is more original and actually has potential, but again, if it's not absolutely fantastic, it could be difficult if not impossible to get it funded.

Well, at least you aren't just trolling and flaming now. I am trying to make a card deck that anyone can have some fun with. Not all players and collectors are looking for something over-the-top. I am going low tech on this so people of every stripe can find the cards useful. I have tried Kickstarter before, and of course failed. As most people do. That is not a fear I have or a concern. I am testing the waters here. We will see what happens. But being told in a lame and desultory manner by a group that my cards basically suck, for no other reason than they have an opinion, is not helpful, neither to the human spirit, the artist or the topic at hand. So, you can back with some very interesting and thought provoking things. I will take them all under consideration. And I thank you for taking some of your time to do this. Believe me, if I can get this funded, the frameable print won't be inkjet on office paper. I am an artist. Not a slacker. I know what  a frameable print is. I can see almost no one here did any research on me as an artist or a pro. You can see my work at http://facebook.com/saintalbans1. Also look at the video. It shows exactly how I did the photos reproduced on the cards. As for Bicycle...OK, I put an "and" where I shouldn't have. Sorry. But yes I know it's the same company. I will correct that. Thanks. I seriously doubt I will raise $17,000 or even the whole $3,000 I need, especially when I've got a passle of snipers out for my blood right now! Haha!  As for the copyrighted materials from like Universal Studios, my method is to build a digital piece of art from the ground up. It is not "photoshopped" or cobbled together. It is a painstaking tribute to iconic photos. Please, again, watch the video on Kickstarter. It explains my method. The first Vampire Deck is a Movie Themed deck. Others will be more me. But I am starting with movies for a reason, because everyone knows movie vampires. Which I thought would appeal to those who do not just want to see wild, gory and phantasmagorical art (as most Vampire cards display.) There is a method to my madness. And you  may be right. I may be crazy for even doing this. But NOBODY better say I have not worked for a huge amount of time to come up with a FUN and playable deck of cards. I am working on the box now. Which is why I gave myself 60 days and not 30. I hope you can see that I am a thoughtful person, with talent, who may need guidance, but who finds abusive trolling comments and flames to be simply evil. I've dealt with it before. Your first comment was so dismissive I thought it came from someone who was braindead and given over to nothing but trolling. Instead you, above all the others commenting, have come up with some really good thoughts. So I salute you.

I'm no critic, I gave my 2 cents, but that being said, you can't "Copy" an existing image and call it your own just because you took pen to hand. Yes, a very good reproduction, but hardly creative.

I am not  "copying an existing image and calling it my own." I am getting past copyright conflicts by reproducing an old photo from the ground up, so it is my work and not simply lifted from the net. According to copyright laws an image is only a "copy" if someone takes the ORIGINAL photograph, at it's original size, etc. and does nothing to change it. I am using photos from the internet which are not high resolution copies of the original, in order to produce a vampire movie "themed" card set. I do not say these are "my images." However I did digitally paint them from the ground up. Please watch to video on Kickstarter to see this process. Thanks.

Zombie cards!

BECAUSE IT HASN'T BEEN DONE BEFORE

That being said, this is definitely one of the worst ones. Cheesy, cobbled together, and generally void of effort.

Cobbled together? Let's see YOUR efforts then. It's taken me six months to do this project. It is far from cobbled. It's critics like you that talk a big game on-line and stunt creativity wherever you go. I'm sorry my work isn't up to your lofty standards... but then again, who are YOU again?

I don't see this deck succeeding on too many levels to even list here...  I'd strip my mental gears even attempting to go over all of them...

Wow, thanks for this wonderful almost non-functioning "critique" of my work! Sorry you'd have to strip your mental gears to try and explain what is wrong with something you think won't succeed. Very helpful. I worked pretty hard on my project. And I will thank you to stop making spurious non-comments on it. You aren't helping. And as you say, evil and wrong happens when people don't speak up about it. The internet is full of critics. But not so full of creators.