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Sharing Some Stuff
« on: June 20, 2015, 07:43:32 AM »
 

BlueToy

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I've done some designs of playing cards over the years. I plan to resume working on them and finally finish them this year. I'm posting samples below, accompanied by short descriptions. I'd appreciate to receive feedback on them.

I'm looking into exploring crowdfunding sites to fund their printing. Would have wanted to use Kickstarter but I'm based in the Philippines, so I can't. A friend said I should try looking for a business partner or something  - and maybe I'll look into that (ever encountered a scenario like this?). At the very least, there's always the Game Crafter to fall back on.

Golden Court



Something I did almost 10 years ago. I wanted it to have a medieval feel, and with a warm glow and color scheme reminiscent of leather-bound books. I didn't finish it because back then i didn't know how to get it printed. And I didn't like how I drew the figures. I also couldn't figure out how to execute the suits back then (I've only added the small suits in the sample image earlier today). I'm planning to revamp the figures and finish the deck. Some other samples of the pips can be found here (albeit without the small suit symbols in the corners yet): http://playingcardcollector.net/2013/02/03/playing-card-art-by-blue-fusion/



Sa Baranggay



The them is Colonial Philippines. I've finished the line art of the courts. The images in the samples show some possible final looks for the deck. I originally intended the pips to have an embroidered look. It works fine with the black suits - I'm just not entirely confident with the red ones (like, should I just do them in red and white?).



Master Graven



I've recently finished a Tarot deck done in the same style and wanted to see if I can adapt it to Lenormand and playing card design. (the figures are actually from the Tarot deck I did. I wanted to get feedback first and then redraw them after). The goal was for the deck to look like rustic woodcuts or rough engravings, or grave rubbings  - something old and medieval. My main problem right now is how to execute the red suits, given the monochromatic color scheme (row 2 shows the results of me toying around with the idea of rendering the initial and suit symbol in black and in white - though I'm leaning towards them being black based on the results). Also, "borderless" seems to be gaining popularity in tarot and Lenormand, so I thought I'd do a borderless sample (King of Spades) and get feedback for it.


PlanarenKarten



I originally intended to adapt/modify Ditha Moser's wonderful planar art designs for her whist deck so that it would be more poker-friendly (move the suits to the corners), but I'm not sure of its copyright status (it was printed over 100 years ago). So I ended up creating this instead.


I enjoy experimenting with a lot of different styles. I've a couple more other sets I've done ,but I'd like to focus on these four first and see if I can get them funded/printed (and learn from the experience!).

-Ly
« Last Edit: June 20, 2015, 07:46:44 AM by BlueToy »
 

Re: Sharing Some Stuff
« Reply #1 on: June 20, 2015, 08:43:39 AM »
 

Worst Bower

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Very good illustrations. Golden Court looks beautiful but the index is somewhat hard to see and is too far from the corner for easy playing. The black border may cause some trouble due to bleeding at the edge. It could still sell if you marketed it purely for its appearance alone.

Is Master Graven based on the Tarot de Marseille? I think the red suits should be white but have a thick outline.
 

Re: Sharing Some Stuff
« Reply #2 on: June 20, 2015, 09:15:59 AM »
 

BlueToy

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Very good illustrations. Golden Court looks beautiful but the index is somewhat hard to see and is too far from the corner for easy playing. The black border may cause some trouble due to bleeding at the edge. It could still sell if you marketed it purely for its appearance alone.

Is Master Graven based on the Tarot de Marseille? I think the red suits should be white but have a thick outline.

Thank you for the feedback! I've noticed that regarding the Golden Court. I'll try to incorporate the indexes into the picture frame-like inner border.

Regarding the Master Graven, yes it's inspired by the Tarot de Marseille.I've just recently finished creating a Marseille-style tarot in this style, called the Tarocchi di Marcelo Inciso, which made me think of applying the same visual style to playing cards. I'll be using the court's tarot counterparts as bases. I'll try the heavy outlining which you suggested. My main concern regarding outlining would be in making it look natural (like it was done in the medieval times as opposed to looking like something trying to look medieval but having obious modern additions).
 

Re: Sharing Some Stuff
« Reply #3 on: June 20, 2015, 10:37:09 AM »
 

Collector

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Oh, I remember you. Nice golden cards. Not very practical, but nice.
http://playingcardcollector.net/2013/02/03/playing-card-art-by-blue-fusion/

By the way, you can find yourself somewhere here
http://www.playingcardforum.com/index.php?topic=4095.0

« Last Edit: June 20, 2015, 10:37:39 AM by Collector »


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Re: Sharing Some Stuff
« Reply #4 on: June 20, 2015, 12:15:05 PM »
 

Don Boyer

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BlueToy!

Hopefully you're aware of our 2nd Annual PCF Deck Design Competition?  It just started Wednesday!

Grand prize is that EPCC (the sponsor) produces your deck and you receive three gross (36 dozen) decks of it.

Last year's winner, the Evil Deck by Giovanni Meroni, is on sale NOW at the Conjuring Arts Research Center store.

http://www.playingcardforum.com/index.php?topic=8328.0
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Re: Sharing Some Stuff
« Reply #5 on: June 20, 2015, 01:11:53 PM »
 

BlueToy

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Oh, I remember you. Nice golden cards. Not very practical, but nice.
http://playingcardcollector.net/2013/02/03/playing-card-art-by-blue-fusion/

By the way, you can find yourself somewhere here
http://www.playingcardforum.com/index.php?topic=4095.0

Thanks! I remember running into your site some time bacl and seeing my works there.:D


Also, was that attachment your suggestion on how I should improve the Planaren deck? I really wanted to stick to only red black and white for this project (as opposed to having some faded areas). Should I remove the decorative background instead?
 

Re: Sharing Some Stuff
« Reply #6 on: June 20, 2015, 01:18:04 PM »
 

BlueToy

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BlueToy!

Hopefully you're aware of our 2nd Annual PCF Deck Design Competition?  It just started Wednesday!

Grand prize is that EPCC (the sponsor) produces your deck and you receive three gross (36 dozen) decks of it.

Last year's winner, the Evil Deck by Giovanni Meroni, is on sale NOW at the Conjuring Arts Research Center store.

http://www.playingcardforum.com/index.php?topic=8328.0

Thanks Don! Will look into it more and consider the possibilities. :) Or maybe I'll try to create a new deck jusg for the competition. :D

Any criticisms and suggestions on the samples I posted, as well as my current predicament?
« Last Edit: June 20, 2015, 01:51:20 PM by BlueToy »
 

Re: Sharing Some Stuff
« Reply #7 on: June 21, 2015, 12:24:25 AM »
 

Don Boyer

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BlueToy!

Hopefully you're aware of our 2nd Annual PCF Deck Design Competition?  It just started Wednesday!

Grand prize is that EPCC (the sponsor) produces your deck and you receive three gross (36 dozen) decks of it.

Last year's winner, the Evil Deck by Giovanni Meroni, is on sale NOW at the Conjuring Arts Research Center store.

http://www.playingcardforum.com/index.php?topic=8328.0

Thanks Don! Will look into it more and consider the possibilities. :) Or maybe I'll try to create a new deck jusg for the competition. :D

Any criticisms and suggestions on the samples I posted, as well as my current predicament?

Predicament?  What predicament?  Until the formal entries begin, you can offer up as many designs as you desire and are physically capable of posting!  Let the membership decide which one they seem to like the most, then make that your official entry.  Old designs, new designs - as long as they're your designs and haven't been previously produced.

My take on your designs...

Golden Court would make a lovely art deck, though the design as it exists now is terribly impractical.  In fact, it would almost work better as a series of art prints than it would as a pack of cards (though that's not necessarily a bad thing).  There are tweaks that could be made to make them more practical, but I think it might actually take away from the artistic value.  There's nothing wrong with an impractical deck if that is the audience you're aiming for - but you should know up front that the audience for artistic but impractical decks isn't as large as the audience for nice, practical ones!

You could actually make those to be completely "old school" by removing the indices and making a one-way court design.  It was popular among wealthy households, before playing cards were printed, to have handmade cards in the home.  Some homes had special sets that were made not on paper but on decorative card-sized slates of silver or gold, with the design engraved into the metal.  They were never played with, just displayed, but they were attractive and functioned as the medieval version of conspicuous consumption!  If you had enough money to have such a deck made and displayed in your home, you had a LOT of money!  You could modify this deck to give the appearance of one of those "conspicuous consumption" decks, but have it printed on paper.  There are companies that will print foil directly onto the card itself - the price is significantly higher, but they would be a lovely way to complement the design you've started with.

Sa Baranggay will be a popular deck, should you get around to making it - Filipinos love their cards, it seems.  The design with the Queen is most appealing - the background color is more muted and the look is more modern because of the "frameless" appearance.  The frameless courts look is very popular, and for good reason - it really shows off the art to remove the boundaries like that.

With Master Graven, you have a tough row to hoe.  Again, this might be a case where artistic merits are trumping practicality and you need to consider which way to go - make it more of an art project or more of a practical deck.  If you go artistic, stop worrying about being monochrome - there are plenty of monochrome decks out there, yours won't be alone.  If you go practical, yes, you will need something to distinguish the color - and more importantly, you'll need to clean the edges.  If you let your cards print into the bleed in these big broad patterns that look like grave rubbings, you'll in essence be creating a marked deck.  The edge differences from card to card will be visible, and with practice, one could use them to distinguish cards from each other.  The only way to prevent it would be to make them ALL identical in their pattern, at least at the edge where the card's die line is.  Even there, you'd still run the risk of off-center face prints screwing it up for you - not all printers are precise enough when it comes to alignment of backs and faces, and for those that aren't precise enough, they'll focus on making the back centered, to the detriment of the face's centering - the backs are more important to look uniform in appearance.

This could be another design that might look better really old-school - no indices, just a big suit pip and a one-way court image.  You can even square the corners - rounded corners, indices and two-way courts weren't common until sometime well into the latter half of the 19th Century CE, in the antebellum years following the American Civil War.  Even the joker wasn't invented until around that time - originally it was a trump card for the card game euchre - the name "joker" is a bastardized pronunciation of euchre, which I believe has Germanic origins.

Planaren Karten!  This deck would likely have the strongest appeal to a modern audience of all the designs you've displayed.  There's the old-fashioned feel to it in how the Kings look, all simple and blocky like some kind of folk art, but the art style also looks like something right out of an eight-bit video game.  This would be the most commercially viable of them all so far.  You get to combine nostalgia for old card design and nostalgia for old video games of the 1980s and 1990s into a single deck!  What hipster (and too-old-to-be-a-hipster-no-matter-how-hard-they-try) wouldn't want a pack of them?
Card Illusionist, NYC Area
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Deck Tailoring: Custom Alterations for Magicians and Card Mechanics
Services for Hire - http://thedecktailor.com/
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Re: Sharing Some Stuff
« Reply #8 on: June 21, 2015, 10:15:32 AM »
 

BlueToy

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BlueToy!

Hopefully you're aware of our 2nd Annual PCF Deck Design Competition?  It just started Wednesday!

Grand prize is that EPCC (the sponsor) produces your deck and you receive three gross (36 dozen) decks of it.

Last year's winner, the Evil Deck by Giovanni Meroni, is on sale NOW at the Conjuring Arts Research Center store.

http://www.playingcardforum.com/index.php?topic=8328.0

Thanks Don! Will look into it more and consider the possibilities. :) Or maybe I'll try to create a new deck jusg for the competition. :D

Any criticisms and suggestions on the samples I posted, as well as my current predicament?

Predicament?  What predicament?  Until the formal entries begin, you can offer up as many designs as you desire and are physically capable of posting!  Let the membership decide which one they seem to like the most, then make that your official entry.  Old designs, new designs - as long as they're your designs and haven't been previously produced.

My take on your designs...

Golden Court would make a lovely art deck, though the design as it exists now is terribly impractical.  In fact, it would almost work better as a series of art prints than it would as a pack of cards (though that's not necessarily a bad thing).  There are tweaks that could be made to make them more practical, but I think it might actually take away from the artistic value.  There's nothing wrong with an impractical deck if that is the audience you're aiming for - but you should know up front that the audience for artistic but impractical decks isn't as large as the audience for nice, practical ones!

You could actually make those to be completely "old school" by removing the indices and making a one-way court design.  It was popular among wealthy households, before playing cards were printed, to have handmade cards in the home.  Some homes had special sets that were made not on paper but on decorative card-sized slates of silver or gold, with the design engraved into the metal.  They were never played with, just displayed, but they were attractive and functioned as the medieval version of conspicuous consumption!  If you had enough money to have such a deck made and displayed in your home, you had a LOT of money!  You could modify this deck to give the appearance of one of those "conspicuous consumption" decks, but have it printed on paper.  There are companies that will print foil directly onto the card itself - the price is significantly higher, but they would be a lovely way to complement the design you've started with.

Sa Baranggay will be a popular deck, should you get around to making it - Filipinos love their cards, it seems.  The design with the Queen is most appealing - the background color is more muted and the look is more modern because of the "frameless" appearance.  The frameless courts look is very popular, and for good reason - it really shows off the art to remove the boundaries like that.

With Master Graven, you have a tough row to hoe.  Again, this might be a case where artistic merits are trumping practicality and you need to consider which way to go - make it more of an art project or more of a practical deck.  If you go artistic, stop worrying about being monochrome - there are plenty of monochrome decks out there, yours won't be alone.  If you go practical, yes, you will need something to distinguish the color - and more importantly, you'll need to clean the edges.  If you let your cards print into the bleed in these big broad patterns that look like grave rubbings, you'll in essence be creating a marked deck.  The edge differences from card to card will be visible, and with practice, one could use them to distinguish cards from each other.  The only way to prevent it would be to make them ALL identical in their pattern, at least at the edge where the card's die line is.  Even there, you'd still run the risk of off-center face prints screwing it up for you - not all printers are precise enough when it comes to alignment of backs and faces, and for those that aren't precise enough, they'll focus on making the back centered, to the detriment of the face's centering - the backs are more important to look uniform in appearance.

This could be another design that might look better really old-school - no indices, just a big suit pip and a one-way court image.  You can even square the corners - rounded corners, indices and two-way courts weren't common until sometime well into the latter half of the 19th Century CE, in the antebellum years following the American Civil War.  Even the joker wasn't invented until around that time - originally it was a trump card for the card game euchre - the name "joker" is a bastardized pronunciation of euchre, which I believe has Germanic origins.

Planaren Karten!  This deck would likely have the strongest appeal to a modern audience of all the designs you've displayed.  There's the old-fashioned feel to it in how the Kings look, all simple and blocky like some kind of folk art, but the art style also looks like something right out of an eight-bit video game.  This would be the most commercially viable of them all so far.  You get to combine nostalgia for old card design and nostalgia for old video games of the 1980s and 1990s into a single deck!  What hipster (and too-old-to-be-a-hipster-no-matter-how-hard-they-try) wouldn't want a pack of them?

Thanks for the feedback, Don! Sorry for being vague. By predicament, I meant this situation: I wana try to get my decks backed via Kickstarter but it's not available in the Philippines. Someone suggested I seek a partner to do the crowdfunding side (though I'm willing to do my share of that kind of work too). Have there been any successful partnerships like that in the past? Here or elsewhere?

I'm getting  a better feel of the vibe in the playing card world thanks to your comments. Like how important bleed is (heck, it's the first time I encountered the term marked decks being usedd to refer to bleed! I used to think they were only applicable to card backs). Thanks forbthe inputs on the designs too. Bit of hard choices I'll have to make on them. I really want to make the Golden and Graveb decks playable, so I'll do the changes some of you guys suggested and see if it looks OK.

I'm still reading through the contest rules (I wrongly got the impression that an artist can only sumbit one deck design),but I hope to join it.
 

Re: Sharing Some Stuff
« Reply #9 on: June 21, 2015, 06:06:25 PM »
 

Don Boyer

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Thanks for the feedback, Don! Sorry for being vague. By predicament, I meant this situation: I wana try to get my decks backed via Kickstarter but it's not available in the Philippines. Someone suggested I seek a partner to do the crowdfunding side (though I'm willing to do my share of that kind of work too). Have there been any successful partnerships like that in the past? Here or elsewhere?

I'm getting  a better feel of the vibe in the playing card world thanks to your comments. Like how important bleed is (heck, it's the first time I encountered the term marked decks being usedd to refer to bleed! I used to think they were only applicable to card backs). Thanks forbthe inputs on the designs too. Bit of hard choices I'll have to make on them. I really want to make the Golden and Graveb decks playable, so I'll do the changes some of you guys suggested and see if it looks OK.

I'm still reading through the contest rules (I wrongly got the impression that an artist can only sumbit one deck design),but I hope to join it.

It's a common situation.  You should get in touch with me via PM - there are possible solutions, but you have to choose wisely.

It is indeed true that you can only submit one design - but that's during the submission phase of the contest.  Here's the contest in a nutshell:

First four weeks: create new topics at Design/Dev board, one for each entry, marked with the tag (2DDC) in the title.  Give members here a chance to look over your work and offer their comments.  Submit as many as you like.
Week five: choose ONE design among the ones you created to submit the submissions topic in the Playing Card Plethora board (presently that topic is locked).
This is followed by the voting phase, at which point the submissions topic is locked and a poll is added, allowing people to vote on their favorite design overall.

So for now, you can submit all four designs on the Design/Dev board to be considered for entry, but eventually, you'll have to pick the one you think will have the best chance for success.

I also mentioned that - for those designers preferring to keep their designs a secret until the last possible moment - setting up Design/Dev topics is optional, but it does put you at a competitive disadvantage in that it's the members here who are voting for your design, and they will not have had any time to look over your project and offer suggestions for potential improvements.  For some, though, keeping their designs secret is more important - heck, it would not surprise me at all if a few designers with deck concepts in their heads submit nothing because they have a design they want produced but want no one to see it until it's released.
« Last Edit: June 21, 2015, 06:06:57 PM by Don Boyer »
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Services for Hire - http://thedecktailor.com/
Pre-Made Decks for Sale - http://donboyermagic.com/
 

Re: Sharing Some Stuff
« Reply #10 on: June 24, 2015, 11:57:33 PM »
 

NineLives

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Hello :)

Great so see your designs here  :D and nice to see the extension of your Tarocchi di Marcelo Inciso deck - Master Graven, cool name :)
To me, the King of Spades without the border line works the best... as the eye is drawn to the figure. I like the artwork, so my comments are just ideas on making the art 'pop' :)
Maybe tone down the 'rusticness' in the background to add more contrast between figure and background...? The design reminds me of old copper graphic prints (etchings) - you could see it as a balance between cleaning up the 'plate' and having enough ink in the etched lines to achieve the desired effect :)

I also like the earlier suggestions to make the background 2-way and move the indices a bit closer to the edge, as it would add to the 'playability' of the deck ;)

The King in your Planaren Karten deck looks as though he is sitting on a chair (sideways effect) - looking forward to seeing the other courts and where you end up taking this deck :)

Thanks for sharing - and *wave* :)
 

Re: Sharing Some Stuff
« Reply #11 on: June 25, 2015, 11:46:14 AM »
 

BlueToy

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Hello :)

Great so see your designs here  :D and nice to see the extension of your Tarocchi di Marcelo Inciso deck - Master Graven, cool name :)
To me, the King of Spades without the border line works the best... as the eye is drawn to the figure. I like the artwork, so my comments are just ideas on making the art 'pop' :)
Maybe tone down the 'rusticness' in the background to add more contrast between figure and background...? The design reminds me of old copper graphic prints (etchings) - you could see it as a balance between cleaning up the 'plate' and having enough ink in the etched lines to achieve the desired effect :)

I also like the earlier suggestions to make the background 2-way and move the indices a bit closer to the edge, as it would add to the 'playability' of the deck ;)

The King in your Planaren Karten deck looks as though he is sitting on a chair (sideways effect) - looking forward to seeing the other courts and where you end up taking this deck :)

Thanks for sharing - and *wave* :)

Thanks for the inputs! I'm figuring out a way to make the Master Graven's colors not to bleed to the edge of the card. I think it can still work as it is - superficially reversible until you notice the little discrepancies in the texture. But definitely no colors bleeding to the edge. It's a bit of an adjustment in outlook since bleed wasn't too big an issue with Tarot.

I've finished the queens of the the PlanarenKarten - though they seem a bit more elaborate than the kings (whose bold forms I like), so I might do a couple of tweaks or maybe change their entire design. Will post them n new threads dedicated to each series design, as was suggested earlier.

-Ly
 

Re: Sharing Some Stuff
« Reply #12 on: June 25, 2015, 01:12:19 PM »
 

NineLives

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I will look out for your Queens :)

I think your 'superficially reversible' solution could work, either way I'm sure you will make Master Graven shine :) It's amazing how many decisions you end up having to make along the way (of any artwork really, but absolutely when it comes to cards) - it's part of the enjoyment. As you say - there are things that matter in tarot that don't in playing cards and vice versa... enough to keep you up at night (or was it knight.. or was it Jack?) :)

*wave*
 

Re: Sharing Some Stuff
« Reply #13 on: July 11, 2015, 07:52:42 AM »
 

Collector

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Also, was that attachment your suggestion on how I should improve the Planaren deck?..

As one of possible variants to improve functionality of the design for real games.


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"Life consists not in holding good cards, but in collecting beautiful ones" ~ PlayingCardCollector.net