Wednesday, July 8, 2015

The Suit of Cups- Pin Ups

So, I'm trying really hard to get this deck done, and it's going fairly quickly because Amanda and I previously went through and picked out the artwork for the deck. However, since then I went on a crazy pinup art collecting spree. Seriously, my pin up board on Pinterest is up over 1000 pins. That stuff is addicting, they're all so pretty!

Anyways, it goes pretty quick except that we are redoing a bunch of the cards with new better pictures I've found, so that slows me down a bit. Some we just found pictures that were a better fit, some I wasn't able to find high enough resolution images of, and few were in an art style that just didn't match or turned out to be cleverly edited photographs of real people when I looked closer, so that wasn't gonna work. But I've finished the cups now. Here they are:















Tuesday, July 7, 2015

Okay, so sometimes I have trouble focusing on one project....

So, I recently got Amanda into reading tarot cards. Because I like to share my obsessions. It makes everything more fun. So we've done a lot of tarot together, and of course she's seen all my decks that I've made. And she has looked around at other decks, and she found one that was done with classic pin up girls. Which she really liked the idea of, but she didn't like the deck itself. So she decided we should make a pin up deck of our own, and do it together. So that's what we've been working on.  I'm working on the Avatar deck too, don't worry, it'll all get done.  But I really loved the idea of a pin up girl deck too, so I got all excited and, well, you know how distractable I am. Anyways, I just finished the major arcana so I'm gonna post them here. Yes, I know there are two High Priestesses right now, that's cuz I haven't decided which to print yet.

First Disclaimer: The usual one. This is not my art, this is for personal use only, DO NOT steal my files and try to sell them. I will be more than happy to give them to you if you are just using them for yourself. I apologize in advance for the lack of artwork sourcing, I found these pictures in all kinds of random places online, sources just became way too difficult.

Second Disclaimer: This is artwork of sexy girls. Sometimes sexy girls don't wear clothing. You have been warned.
























***EDIT***
Because it was bothering me, here is a list of artists whose art I used for my cards. This is probably not a complete list and I don't have it broken down for which artist is which card, but at least I can give some credit.

Alberto Vargas
Gil Elvgren
Bill Randall
Al Buell
Joyce Ballantyne
Peter Driben
Jules Erbit
Rolf Armstrong
Earl Moran
Art Frahm
Baron von Lind
Arthur Sarnoff

Also, the genie girl will be the High Priestess, the other girl, gorgeous as she is, just doesn't seem to match. I am vaguely considering doing a 60s-70s pulp art style deck as a companion to this one though, she'd go very well in there.

Thursday, June 25, 2015

Avatar: The Swords Suit

I tell you what, I am having a hard time with this deck. I cannot find artwork nearly as close as I want for card meanings. Although I am happy with my choices for the royalty, and to emphasize the more positive side of the 10 of swords, for all that that's a picture of Zuko crying. It's leaning more on the worst is over meaning for that card, that I've always preferred. But goddamn, I have spent all day doing the second half of this suit, and it was exhausting. I fought hard for each card, and I'm still not entirely pleased with some of them. Katara doesn't look so much trapped in the 8 as she does just terrifying, even if she is all bound up in vines. Although I stand by my choice for 9, Koh was fucking terrifying and if you disagree you're wrong. I don't know, I hope you can see what I was going for. It mostly makes sense in my head. Mai is the perfect queen, and Asami as king might not make sense to you, but in my mind Asami is the one who has a strong sense of right and wrong, and it works for me.

















Sources



Tuesday, June 23, 2015

At long last, an Avatar: The Last Airbender tarot deck!

well, it finally came around again. I decided to make an Avatar tarot deck. Ordinarily I would only make these posts once the whole deck is done, but I'm at work and I've got like an hour left in my shift, and I'm tired of making cards for the moment. I finished the major arcana, so I'm gonna post it. I guess that way I don't hammer this blog with like five posts at once like I have with my other decks.

First! The card back. I really like this one, even though it's not reversible, so I won't be able to read this deck with reversals without knowing which cards are upside down. Not that that really  matters that much, that's really just me being nitpicky.Which you know I tend to do. ANYWAYS.


The frame came from here: http://moehoshi-ii.deviantart.com/art/Chibi-Older-Gaang-322493997
I removed all characters from the middle and reconstructed the stuff that was covered. I'm pretty happy with how it came out. I needed a new map for the frame then, which I got here: http://tipsycakes.deviantart.com/art/Avatar-the-Last-Airbender-Map-176912223


It may not be reversible like every other deck I've done, but I think it looks good.

The Cards:

First of all, I'd like to point out that I finally figured out how to get Pixlr online to use custom fonts, Turns out Pixlr just pulls it's fonts from whatever's on your computer, so I could have been doing that all along. Which then made me want to go redo all my other decks, because you KNOW I immediately went and downloaded fonts for every fandom I'm in, and several I'm only sort of in. So the font used on these cards is the actual Avatar font.

I debated a while about whether or not to include Korra in this deck, since I wasn't as fond of the Legend of Korra as I was the original stuff, but in the end, I decided she's part of the story. And there are characters in Korra that I love.









































So, there's the majors. I'm pretty happy with them, although some that aren't usually hard for me were difficult to find. I don't think I've ever struggled selecting the star before. And I had trouble not making Katara the moon, but tell me, how do I not make Yue the moon? I mean, how? Really? The girl TURNS INTO THE FREAKING MOON IN THE SHOW. Of course Yue is the moon. It's just that Katara also works for the moon. But I also wanted Katara for the high priestess as well. Apparently I need a deck that's just all Katara all the time. Haha, doesn't that sound like an awesome deck?

Just like every other time, DISCLAIMER: This is NOT MY ART. I do not own these, they are for personal use only. All I did was edit and tweak a bit. If I catch you trying to sell them I will NOT BE HAPPY. And neither will the artists, all of whom will be notified what you're trying to pull. Fair warning. :) 

For anyone who might want to print their own copy of the deck, this is my Mediafire link for the files:

And this is the site where I got them printed:


Sources:

8.jsgut on deviantART
10.unknown
16.screenshot
20.screenshot