Imperial Deck - IN PROGRESS

[alvinhy]

oh wow now thats something I learned from someone with great experience.
I always thought creating something on the computer if its too fine and detailed it will never show up on print.

I guess 400+ DPI is the way to go now! Learning so much just by getting feedback from you guys its great!

[RandyButterfield]

Hey Everyone,

The Fabergé Deck is now renamed the Imperial Deck. Fabergé didn't grant the naming rights. I was ready for it, and without it, there's a lot more leeway to what I can do with the logo treatment. Here's the Ace of Spades! The Gold Kremlin is meant to depict the "surprise" found inside the Imperial Eggs. The AOS, Tuck and Brick Box will also have the Kremlin Spade and IMPERIAL Logo with the Hammer & Sickle icon to really bring out the Russian aspect of the Deck.

thanks, Randy

[sprouts1115]

i liked the way you used the ribbon for your back.  in the past people have used cloth to make the transition; here is an example.     
http://www.wopc.co.uk/france/philibert/le-florentin.html?=header

http://www.wopc.co.uk/france/philibert/casanova.html

I liked don's suggestion of open lid / close lid.  this deck proves you can have two elements and make it work.

texasplayingcards.com

[MrMollusk]

i liked the way you used the ribbon for your back.  in the past people have used cloth to make the transition; here is an example.     
http://www.wopc.co.uk/france/philibert/le-florentin.html?=header

http://www.wopc.co.uk/france/philibert/casanova.html

I liked don's suggestion of open lid / close lid.  this deck proves you can have two elements and make it work.

texasplayingcards.com

Whoa, there.
How about a warning before I open those pages up in public?

I like the idea of an open/closed lid too. It would also make a cool gaff card. Possibly with one of the eggs on the back opened with a reveal.

[RandyButterfield]

Hey Everyone,

I should be finished with the King of Diamonds card in a few days. Here's the newest versions of the AOS and Back Design.
I changed the font for the USPCC copy on the AOS. The Back Design has gone through a minor facelift of fine-tuning type changes:
reduced corners, new "etched enamel" background, centered Eggs, added corner curtains depth...

thanks, Randy

P.S. - I'm still thinking over the idea of having open Eggs on one half for the courts. I think I'm leaning more towards a suggestion Volantangel had via PM. - have Gold "surprise" pieces like the AOS Kremlin in each of the 4 Ace PIPS. I already know what I want to model for each of the remaining 3 Aces and think that will tie in the hidden surprise elements fittingly.

[Don Boyer]

P.S. - I'm still thinking over the idea of having open Eggs on one half for the courts. I think I'm leaning more towards a suggestion Volantangel had via PM. - have Gold "surprise" pieces like the AOS Kremlin in each of the 4 Ace PIPS. I already know what I want to model for each of the remaining 3 Aces and think that will tie in the hidden surprise elements fittingly.

You know my thoughts - I'm the one who suggested using one court "face" to have a reveal.  I'm sure it will be fine either way, but I'd prefer getting to see what's in the court eggs as well as the eggs themselves.

And along those lines, a possible gaff card - a double-backer with one back showing the eggs flipped open and revealing the contents!

[RandyButterfield]

You know my thoughts - I'm the one who suggested using one court "face" to have a reveal.  I'm sure it will be fine either way, but I'd prefer getting to see what's in the court eggs as well as the eggs themselves.

Yeah, the King of Diamonds really made me realize how limiting having an open and closed Egg for each court card would be. To keep things consistent I'm trying to have each Egg at a similar size and the oval Broaches close to the same locations. If I had an open Egg for each court the openings would need to be at the same heights and the surprise elements would need to be close in proportions for it to work. If a surprise element was too vertical it would extend out past the card edge, unless I lowered the entire Egg towards the center but that would get rid of the consistency. For the King of Diamonds I have the opening at the top of the Egg. That would leave about a 1/4" to play around with for the surprise piece. I want to be able to place the Egg openings where they fit organically, not have to force them all to the same spot.

I'll be posting the finished King tonight, after I do some fine-tuning. Just have to watch the Niners kick some buttt before that though!

Thanks, Randy

[Collector]

@Randy,

IMPERIAL (especially in connection with Fabergé eggs) and this

are like Tom & Jerry - very funny but absolutely incompatible

p.s.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/February_Revolution
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hammer_and_sickle

[RandyButterfield]

@Randy,

IMPERIAL (especially in connection with Fabergé eggs) and this

are like Tom & Jerry - very funny but absolutely incompatible

p.s.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/February_Revolution
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hammer_and_sickle

I'm looking at it this way: the Hammer and Sickle emblem was started during the Russian Revolution. The same revolution that stopped production of the Imperial Eggs dead in their tracks. Without the Russian Revolution of the early 1900's who knows if the Imperial Eggs would have the allure they have today. Another connection is the fact that Stalin sold a lot of Imperial Eggs, that were stored at the Kremlin, to help fund the government.

I'm not trying to make a political deck, at all, but I think the Hammer and Sickle is a large part of the country's history and should be used in a deck like this.

Thanks, Randy

[RandyButterfield]

Here's the finished King of Diamonds!
I call this one the "Dragon Egg". It's inspired heavily by one of my favorite book / tv series - Game of Thrones.

thanks, Randy

[Don Boyer]

Here's the finished King of Diamonds!
I call this one the "Dragon Egg". It's inspired heavily by one of my favorite book / tv series - Game of Thrones.

thanks, Randy

I love the look, but Randy - It reminds me of an artichoke!

Aren't reptilian/aquatic scales more rounded at the edge?  Yours come to a point.

[RandyButterfield]

I love the look, but Randy - It reminds me of an artichoke!

Aren't reptilian/aquatic scales more rounded at the edge?  Yours come to a point.

Don, I hate artichokes so that would've never crossed my mind.

The tips do have slightly rounded corners. They definitely don't come to a sharp point.
Here's a photo of the Dragon Eggs I used as reference.

Thanks, Randy

[Don Boyer]

I love the look, but Randy - It reminds me of an artichoke!

Aren't reptilian/aquatic scales more rounded at the edge?  Yours come to a point.

Don, I hate artichokes so that would've never crossed my mind.

The tips do have slightly rounded corners. They definitely don't come to a sharp point.
Here's a photo of the Dragon Eggs I used as reference.

Thanks, Randy

I think I see what's reinforcing that image in my head - the "flip-top" of the egg is so tiny.  Not that I'm an expert (I'm most certainly not), but the few images I remember seeing of Faberge eggs had larger caps, to conceal and reveal a miniature creation that was almost half as long as the egg itself.

[pause:checkWikipedia][/pause]

OK, so now I know that there's a huge variety of Faberge eggs.  Interesting note: there were 65 eggs in total, but exactly 52 were "Imperial Eggs", sold to the Tsar of Russia to give as a gift to either his wife (in the case of Alexander III) or his mother (in the case of Alexander's son, Nicholas II) - the recipient in both cases being Tsarina/Empress/Dowager Empress Maria Federovna.  And they come in a freakish variety of types!  Some were clocks, some held jewelry, some had miniature portraits - there was even one with a silver mechanical elephant-and-rider toy that was wound with a gold key!  The remaining 13 eggs were sold to wealthy industrialists.  52 Imperial Eggs, 52 cards... 

So I guess an egg like this one wouldn't exactly be out of the ordinary for a Faberge egg.

[RandyButterfield]

Yeah, the wide range of variety with the Imperial Eggs and other pieces from the House of Fabergé is what drew me to this theme in the first place. It dawned on me that the possibilities for new Eggs could be almost endless.

At the Fabergé exhibit we saw, I think, 6 Imperial Eggs in person. There were also a couple hundred smaller pieces as well - lots of picture frames, animals, miniature Egg pendants and even a couple full Chess sets. The 4 Eggs I liked the most were the 4 in the image below. The Red Cross Eggs had a really cool shimmer to them that gave the white enamel a cyan tint that was mesmerizing! The Copper / Bronze Egg was so much more impressive in person. The lighting on it really brought out the shine are reflectiveness.

I came across a cool brand over the weekend while browsing around - Imperial Collection Vodka and Imperial Gold Vodka. I'll definitely have to find some bottles of these to add to my bar. It's like a perfect blend with what I work on during the day (liquor ads and displays) and at night (Imperial Deck)! The Egg-shaped pieces that contain the Decaunter and Shot Glasses are way too pricey though.

http://luxatic.com/ladoga-imperial-collection-vodka-in-faberge-style-eggs/

thanks, Randy

[RandyButterfield]

Here's the next finished court card - the Queen of Clubs! This one will probably be the simplest of all the court eggs.

thanks, Randy

[Don Boyer]

Here's the next finished court card - the Queen of Clubs! This one will probably be the simplest of all the court eggs.

thanks, Randy

Something's been throwing me off when I look at the courts and I think I've finally figured it out - why do the indices and the eggs employ somewhat different-looking typefaces?  Would it be possible to match them?

[RandyButterfield]

Something's been throwing me off when I look at the courts and I think I've finally figured it out - why do the indices and the eggs employ somewhat different-looking typefaces?  Would it be possible to match them?

Yeah, at the beginning I went through a lot of my loaded fonts and even looked through the giant typeface book I have. There wasn't any font that I thought looked good in both instances. The font I ended up with on the Eggs looks great with the Gold effect and inside the narrow oval frames, but looked out-of-place in the corners. Vice versa for the corner font as well. The corner font didn't look good inside the oval frames at all. It's much too horizontal and decreasing the font's horizontal percentage just made it look like something someone threw into Powerpoint and stretched all willy nilly.

Thanks, Randy

[Don Boyer]

Something's been throwing me off when I look at the courts and I think I've finally figured it out - why do the indices and the eggs employ somewhat different-looking typefaces?  Would it be possible to match them?

Yeah, at the beginning I went through a lot of my loaded fonts and even looked through the giant typeface book I have. There wasn't any font that I thought looked good in both instances. The font I ended up with on the Eggs looks great with the Gold effect and inside the narrow oval frames, but looked out-of-place in the corners. Vice versa for the corner font as well. The corner font didn't look good inside the oval frames at all. It's much too horizontal and decreasing the font's horizontal percentage just made it look like something someone threw into Powerpoint and stretched all willy nilly.

Thanks, Randy

Then how about a different tack: instead of initializing the court eggs, why not use their icons - the crowns/headgear they wear?  A king's crown is different from a queen's, and the jack's headgear looks more like head protection than a crown.  Make stylized versions of them - you could even tweak them a bit so that each crown is slightly different from the others of the same rank.  If the crowns look too much like each other, you can "rank" them by the metals used to make them: bronze for jacks, silver for queens, gold for kings (or something similar).  If you wanted to really go nuts, you could even toss in the traditional flowers and weapons these courts carry in a traditional deck.

I think the use of icons would lend your deck a bit more familiarity and style than simply placing a monogram letter on the eggs.

[RandyButterfield]

Don, using crowns, flowers or shields as icons in the oval frames is an idea I thought about at the beginning. I figured the Eggs were so far away from the usual court characters that I needed to go with the blunt Gold letters over the more subtle icons. The letters are added over the Renders in Photoshop, so I could easily swap them out with something different if I felt it was right. I'll mull it over and make a decision as I continue to work on the Eggs.

On that note - here's the Jack of Diamonds! The Jacks will be the Warrior/Soldier Eggs for each Suit.

thanks, Randy

[Don Boyer]

Don, using crowns, flowers or shields as icons in the oval frames is an idea I thought about at the beginning. I figured the Eggs were so far away from the usual court characters that I needed to go with the blunt Gold letters over the more subtle icons. The letters are added over the Renders in Photoshop, so I could easily swap them out with something different if I felt it was right. I'll mull it over and make a decision as I continue to work on the Eggs.

On that note - here's the Jack of Diamonds! The Jacks will be the Warrior/Soldier Eggs for each Suit.

thanks, Randy

Nice card.

I just went over a deck with USPC standard faces 'cause I had a hunch.  Sure enough, every single rank has a nearly identical crown to it!  One design for kings, one for queens (similar to kings but angled differently) and one for jacks (similar to kings but in a different color/pattern).

Even so, some might find that a little too obscure.  If I were doing this and wanted to use icons, I'd use the "flat Staunton" king and queen chess icons for those suits, and the flat-topped crown that looks almost like protective headgear for the jacks.  Either that, or perhaps a knight icon, since at one point that's what the jack was.  But whatever icons you chose would matter less since you already have a clearly identifiable index for each card.  You could practically use Monopoly token icons and it would still work!  I just thought seeing it letter-labeled twice in two different typefaces gave me the feeling that something's not quite right with the design.

[RandyButterfield]

Here's the finished Queen of Diamonds, and a look at the first set of Court Cards - the Diamonds!

thanks, Randy

[Don Boyer]

Here's the finished Queen of Diamonds, and a look at the first set of Court Cards - the Diamonds!

thanks, Randy

I really like how you tied the diamond courts (and presumably the other suits as well) together with matching "ribbons" (for lack of a better term for whatever that stuff is surrounding the eggs)!

[RandyButterfield]

I really like how you tied the diamond courts (and presumably the other suits as well) together with matching "ribbons" (for lack of a better term for whatever that stuff is surrounding the eggs)!

Thanks Don!
Yep, each family of Court Cards will have their matching banners. The 3 Eggs for each suit will also share similar colors as well - Blues and Silvers for Clubs, Blacks and Golds for Spades, Reds and Golds for Hearts.

I've had a few people ask about the 2-Headed Eagle. The Russian 2-Headed Eagle will be prominent in the Ace of Hearts, similar to the Ace of Spade's Kremlin. All four Aces will have a unique Gold 'surprise' item within the large PIP.

Thanks, Randy

[nbrock]

wow these look great!!

[RandyButterfield]

Thanks nbrock!

Here's the newest finished card - the Ace of Diamonds.
I've also finished the Number Cards, which means a good look at all of the Diamonds Suit!

thanks, Randy