No one should see this.: June 2014

Monday, June 16, 2014

Tarot Deck Boxes!

Now, I can order custom printed boxes from the same place where I got the decks printed, but they don't account for the fact that I am sleeving my decks. (Of COURSE I'm sleeving them. I worked way too hard on these to not protect them.) And I desperately needed boxes. I was unable to find a good source to get them professionally printed because companies that print custom boxes are usually doing it for commercial purposes, where they expect you to be a business owner who's ordering hundreds of these at a time. Where I needed only one of each, that was not really practical. At best I would pay around $180 for them. That's a little more than I wanted to spend for four boxes. So in the end, I made up my designs, and had them printed on cardstock at Office Depot, then cut and glued them together myself. I gave them a coat of clear spray paint to protect them too. I think it turned out pretty good. I just used the card backs for the design and then added the series logo edited to match the rest on the side. Here they are:

And look! I made one for my Shadowscapes deck too! I just scanned in the back of the card. The logo was harder though, because there is no clean PNG of the logo anywhere on the internet, so I had to make my own. Spent quite a bit of time cleaning out the background and then adjusting the color to match.

Friday, June 13, 2014

And the last Zelda tarot post.

And here's the card back. The frame I straight up took from someone who made it specifically for the purpose of making Zelda tarot cards. I tried to make my own frame, but it just wasn't going well. I was so glad when I found this one. The card back I designed with various bits and pieces of things. I love the way it turned out.

Sources:
Frame: http://www.pixiv.net/member_illust.php?mode=medium&illust_id=36708576#_=_
texture background on card back: http://www.deviantart.com/art/Texture-1-323648509
Hyrule Crest: http://blueamnesiac.deviantart.com/art/Stone-Hylian-Crest-311885905
OOT Medallions: http://blueamnesiac.deviantart.com/art/OOT-Water-Medallion-375360146
Rupee Symbol: http://doctor-g.deviantart.com/art/ALttP-Rupees-361772399
Sword Symbol: http://doctor-g.deviantart.com/art/OOT-Master-Sword-298238597
Bottle Symbol: http://blueamnesiac.deviantart.com/art/OOT-Bottle-Milk-408166400
Boss Key Symbol: http://blueamnesiac.deviantart.com/art/OOT-Boss-Key-410421752

Swords

The Swords! It's the first time I haven't had a huge problem doing the swords suit. It went pretty well. The Spirit medallion in the corners, and the Master Sword, of course. And Fi and Ghirahim probably should have been king and queen, but I just couldn't stand for Ganondorf to not be king.

Pentacles

The Pentacles! Forest medallion, and a green Rupee for the symbol. I had a surprisingly hard time giving Navi her own card, because while she's certainly important enough for it, she's just not that interesting to look at.

Wands

The Wands! As I said before, I used the Fire medallion for the corners of this frame, and a Boss key for the little symbol.

ace. http://eternalegend.deviantart.com/art/Majora-s-Mask-The-Clockworks-346565290
2. http://www.pixiv.net/member_illust.php?mode=medium&illust_id=40934866
3. http://3wizardsofhtml.tumblr.com/post/20058752020/skyward-sword-was-such-a-sweet-game-compiled-all
4. http://ry-spirit.deviantart.com/art/I-now-call-you-Brother-177243738
5. http://txikimorin.deviantart.com/art/Link-vs-Morpha-345896094
6. http://society6.com/RebekahHolder/Legend-of-Zelda-The-Knighting-of-Link#1=45
7. http://ry-spirit.deviantart.com/art/Majora-Must-Die-184199019
8. http://www.pixiv.net/member_illust.php?mode=medium&illust_id=19919005#_=_
9. http://onisuu.deviantart.com/art/twilight-princess-ashei-306351187
10. http://www.inprnt.com/gallery/lulles/onward-peasant/
page. http://www.pixiv.com/works/42054298#_=_
knight. http://emeraldus.deviantart.com/art/Sheik-373857431
queen. http://stellab.deviantart.com/art/Twilight-Roses-188939543
king. http://vegacolors.deviantart.com/art/The-Hero-in-Green-404493904

Cups

So, like I said previously, there's no theme for the suits, but I did mark the frames so the suits would be a little different. If you noticed, in the Majors I had the Medallion of Shadow in the corners of the frame. It went well with the less down to earth meanings of the cards. Or, to be perfectly frank, it was the one left over after I used Light for the card back and assigned the others to suits... Spirit would have seemed appropriate for the Majors, but I felt like it matched up elementally better with Swords than Shadow would have. And those were the only choices, because obviously Wands are the Fire medallion, Pentacles are the Forest medallion and of course Cups are the Water medallion. The choices were not arbitrary, they were practically made for me. But there is no Air medallion, so I felt that Spirit was closest. Anyways, point is, the Cups suit is using the Water medallion, with a bottle of Lon Lon Milk at the top for extra Cups-iness. I liked it.

also, I don't want to put the artist down, because I think its a beautiful piece, and I love it, but if you look at the original source for the 8, you'll notice I actually widened her waist by a not insignificant amount. I mean, I love the picture, and the artist is very talented, but be reasonable, man! The original looks like the weight of her upper body is going to snap her spine! Seriously!

Sources:

ace. http://www.pixiv.net/member_illust.php?mode=medium&illust_id=25551704#_=_

2. http://linksheik123.deviantart.com/art/Grusi-y-Cocu-288767135

3. http://www.pixiv.net/member_illust.php?mode=medium&illust_id=32614664

4. http://eternalegend.deviantart.com/art/Skull-Kid-s-Tears-177132441

5. http://queen-zelda.deviantart.com/art/Remember-me-418843606

6. http://finni.deviantart.com/art/LoZ-One-Last-Song-348137414

7. http://www.pixiv.net/member_illust.php?mode=medium&illust_id=34633064#_=_

8. http://wictorian-art.deviantart.com/art/Nabooru-of-the-desert-121929172

9. http://johnnycago.deviantart.com/art/Guru-Guru-102622455

10. http://maiyue.deviantart.com/art/Zelda-Sun-and-Moon-82555079

page. http://lulles.storenvy.com/products/1593405-i-waited

knight. http://zalohero.deviantart.com/art/Princess-Ruto-321921958

queen. http://www.pixiv.net/member_illust.php?mode=medium&illust_id=41179936

king. http://siga4bdn.deviantart.com/art/Ocarina-of-time-ending-overpaint-456563552

The Legend of Zelda Tarot deck

What? TWO sets of posts in one month? This is crazy talk!

But I love making nerdy tarot decks! And since I wasn't worried about theme, this one was much easier than the others. The main restriction I had was just try to get as many characters in there as possible. Obviously it was going to be very Link/Zelda heavy, but that's okay. At one point for the suits I thought about making the king and queen of each suit different incarnations of Link and Zelda, but that made it REALLY Link/Zelda heavy, and made it difficult to get a few others in, so I scrapped that idea. And this is what we got.

For anyone who might want to print their own copy of the deck, this is my Mediafire link for the files:
https://www.mediafire.com/folder/a5p59m3h71k7v/ztarot

And this is the site where I got them printed:
http://www.makeplayingcards.com/design/design-your-own-tarot-cards.html

Please remember, this artwork isn't mine, so it isn't yours either, and you may not print these decks for commercial use, personal use only! If I find that happening I will notify every artist who's art I used and we will stop you.

Tuesday, June 3, 2014

Last Final Fantasy Tarot post

And last of all, here's the card back.

Source:
card background: http://zueuk.deviantart.com/art/Daedric-34178140
frame: http://diza-74.deviantart.com/art/Silver-frames-255490608

That thing looks really cool printed. And is perfectly reversible, like my Sailor Moon back. I had some problems making a base for this deck, I made like two other versions, and when I started putting artwork in the frames, I really hated it for some reason. Turned out I needed a more neutral color scheme. One was orange and flame-y, the other was gold and teal and burgundy and it was just a mess. This was perfect. And I don't know if you noticed, but the Roman numerals in the major arcana were done using the same font used for the Final Fantasy logos. It was actually cut from one of the logos. I'd have liked to use a Final Fantasy font for all the card titles too, but I was using free browser based photo editing, so I couldn't really download a custom font to it.

I'm very pleased with both my decks. And just so you know, I am doing a Zelda deck. But after how hard it was to match up artwork to each suit's Final Fantasy for this one, there's no theme for the suits. I'm choosing whatever art I feel works best. My only rule is trying to balance out character appearances, and no in game screenshots. I straight up took the card base from another artist that was giving it away for people to make Zelda tarot cards with, although I did make a few modifications. I can't wait to show you the card back I created though, I'm super proud of it. The only hesitation I have is that I'm about to play Wind Waker for the first time, and I feel like I should slow down in case that makes me decide I want to add Wind Waker art to the deck. I don't think I really will, because it was the art style for that game that's kept me from playing it until now. I don't like it. But you never know. I might get really attached to some of the characters, or find some really pretty art. I have a few pieces already, and I haven't even played yet.

I guess we'll see. I'll post again when that's done...

Swords

The Swords suit. I had difficulty getting Quina and Amarant in here. I never had much use for either character, and while there is little fanart for Amarant, there's almost none for Quina. I almost skipped him/her altogether, but I felt bad so I fixed it.

This was the suit where my main couple just didn't fit in the king and queen slots. So they got to be knight and page. I wasn't too disappointed though, cuz I really like the ones I did pick. Steiner is the perfect king of swords, and Beatrix is perfect for queen, plus she's my favorite character in IX, so I was glad to give her a good spot.