Took me long enough I know - I ended up running off on other projects for years and finally came back to this and finished it up!  Thanks to everyone who gave me much needed feedback in the Design and Development forum many moons ago.  Please take a look if you're interested!

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/maggock/strigiformes-a-deck-of-owls

And I appear, almost a year later to the day to say all the face art is finished!  I was distracted by a few other projects (my comic and some novels) and put this away for a while.  I will most likely not be doing anything with this project for a few months as I still need to fulfill rewards on another Kickstarter, and I'll probably be moving in July.  I'll also be redoing the card back - I want something in color to contrast all the black and white on the faces.  When I DO get this printed, I'll also definitely be going with one of the big companies - Legends or EPCC, or even MPC.  The printer I used for the parrot deck was just blegh. 

Another limited edition tuck box 

I get that Bicycle branding, gold foiling, and embossing cost more, but not $10 more.
Nice way to get a 2500 deck run made, and pad the profit. 

Pass!

Yeah, it's a nice deck, but too rich for my blood at the moment.

The back is still in progress and I'm open to suggestions on it.  Let me see what I can do with it!

Hey Don, I've sent you a bit of money to help out - I'd like to send some decks from my parrot deck as well.  I don't know if they're the kind of quality you're used to (they're from Quality Playing Cards) but I think the kids would get a kick out of them since they're so colorful.  I should be getting them fairly soon, and I'll have to see how much I can spare after I fulfill all my kickstarter pledges.

Good luck with your project! 

Ok, funny thing, I'm editing to change my card, because just as I posted my original pick (was Jack of Clubs), maggock literally posted that card...it's like...i knew it was going to be drawn.

anyways, my new pick is actually..5 of hearts!

Sorry dude!  I swear, something like that happens once in every contest out there. 

Thanks for doing this!  It's very generous of you.

I would pull from a Jackson deck if I had one but I don't yet.    So I'm pulling from my deck that no one's probably ever seen or heard of before!  Jack of Clubs for me.

Painted deck's been unlocked early, for those who were holding off!  I for one am a very happy camper. 

Okay, I've given it a little thought, and this is what I would do if I was given the art assets to this project.

• Dump the barbed wire borders and the big pips.  It looks all right in some places on the court cards but otherwise feels like a barbed wire OD to me.
• Redo the big pips completely, and make them 100% symmetrical.  I think a big problem with them at the moment is they're neither asymmetrical enough nor symmetrical enough, so they look oddly misshapen and lumpy in a displeasing way.  They have to veer more strongly in one direction or another, and my personal preference for pips is symmetry.
• Redo the backgrounds of the court cards to look more like wanted posters.  Add text to the background, make it look like a poster the courts are popping out of, make the big pips look like they were printed on paper.  Instead of the barbed wire border, make it look like old and torn paper.  IF this was done, I think the use of the paper texture would be fine, as it has a purpose in the design, rather than feeling just thrown in there for the sake of having texture.
• I think I would also lower the contrast and saturation on that paper to make the courts pop more from the background.
• I would also use the torn edge border on the number cards, for the sake of continuity.

Like I said, this is just what I would do with the assets - feel free to take those suggestions or leave them!  Aside from a few problems, I think you have a good potential deck on your hands and I hope you can work out the kinks.

ETA: Also, when you relaunch the kickstarter project, I would consider making the Rusted Tin deck a stretch goal.  a $25k goal for a first project is very ambitious, and it would have better chances if the goal was around $15-18k, with the extra design a stretch goal.

Things will get very confusing here Don - the artist is in Canada, Conan Doyle Estate is in the UK, and Kickstarter is based in the USA.  I think USA copyright laws might still apply (especially if the artist is using characters from the 1923 stories) because the project is being hosted in the USA, but I'm not certain of that. (and I just said DMCA because I don't know what terminology would apply here... but it's whatever took down that Pokedek!) 

Regardless, I don't think it will matter if the Conan Doyle Estate doesn't have a leg to stand on, they could still pursue litigation - they need to defend the potential trademark and would be taking a pretty safe bet that the artist doesn't have money to deal with a lawsuit.  It's a matter of David vs. Goliath, in this case.   Anyways, like I said, I hope either that doesn't happen or the artist and the Estate can work something out that would suit the art far better, like a TCG or even just collectible art cards.  The art is very nice and I would like to have some form of it.

It's finally up, wooooo!  I'm in for two decks - I wish I could get an uncut sheet but I simply don't have the room for it right now (it's going to be bad enough with 500+ of my own decks filtering through the house.)

Quote from: maggock on March 18, 2014, 05:56:44 PM

Got a few more cards done - I'm finding the number cards to be more of a challenge than the courts!  Still not sure how the 3 of spades is going to look but I'll do some sketching and figure it out.

I'm curious to see how you plan to do the red cards!

BTW: current index is improved.  You can shorten the white field, now that you have less flourish on the spades pip - it'll make more room to show off the art.

How I do the red cards is a mystery to me too, at the moment!  And I did scale down room for the indices, but I wanted to give them a little room to breathe.  I'll see about experimenting with shortening the space further.

Thanks for the comments, everyone!

+1 for me, and I'm probably going to be the only person who votes for purple.    There are so few purple decks out there though and it's my favorite color!