Hmm Im stuck, help?

[Saphirei]

So I decided that I would start working on my own tarot deck, the tarot of the animals ^.^ (theres a thread floating around here somewhere), but now I seem to be stuck.

Im definitely making all the major arcana one specific animal that I think represents that card, but Im unsure about what to do for the other cards. Im not sure if I should specify a certain climate, region, animal, object, etc. for each suit, or if I should have a different animal for every card. Finding 78 animals for the cards would be so difficult... I dont know. And if I did do a different animal, they would have to be related by something for each suit. *is confused*

So what do you all think I should do about the minor arcana? ~any ideas appreciated~

[shadowdancer]

well, I wish you luck on this one. It isn't easy at the best of times, let alone when you give yourself a certain theme to follow. Always seems to flow for the Majors, but then you have another 56 to account for :)

I think I know of two animal decks, one which was slated here, the other being Ted Andrews deck.

You could do it according to region/area of world, or you could do it according to type of animal?

i.e one suit being amphibians/reptile, one being mammals, one being associated with water, one being insect etc... you get the idea.

I think what you are trying here is difficult, so wish you all the best with it. If you can pull this off and produce an animal based deck which is different to the others, yet still is recognisable as a valid tarot deck, you will have something special

Davina

[Feretian]

Birds, swords, air

Fish, cups, water

Mammals, wands, fire

Reptiles & amphibians, coins, earth

Just a thought.

And to simplify, choose one species for each suit?

[Hannafate]

You might also want to think about what kind of animals you enjoy drawing. If you don't really like all the legs on spiders, it would not be a good idea to use them as a suit, because you would never finish the deck.

[Saphirei]

You might also want to think about what kind of animals you enjoy drawing. If you don't really like all the legs on spiders, it would not be a good idea to use them as a suit, because you would never finish the deck.

Haha yea that is a good idea. I really dont like spiders >.<

[Saphirei]

Birds, swords, air

Fish, cups, water

Mammals, wands, fire

Reptiles & amphibians, coins, earth

Just a thought.

And to simplify, choose one species for each suit?

Thats a good idea. The fish for the cups would be really quite cute ^.^ and I could still put in some symbols and correct numbers of fish (or whatever other animals) so you could easily tell which card it was.

[blue_fusion]

And why not amphilbians/reptiles for fire? The salamander's long been associated with fire, as well as the reptilian dragon. Though it would also be logical to use mammals for fire, because of their homeothermy. Thing is, it's not so easy just dividing them under "corresponding" classes from Chordata. Though there are salamanders in the thrones of the Wands courts, the queen also has a black panther. Salamanders and flying lizards with red wings (like Draco Volans) and even the infra-red tracking system of vipers sounds more suited for fire, until you realize tortoises have an earthier feel, and sea turtles more water. And what of the electric eel? :D How about jumbling them up instead of being too specific about class-suit association? You can limit them to chordates (fish, reptile, mammal, amphibian, birds. And if you're really nitpicking, include lancelets too!), and if you're worried about one kind of animal having more cards, split them equally beforehand and adjust card assignments as you go along.

A different animal a card sounds good. You can check out a taxonomy list and realize that there are literally tens of thousands of different animals just under these Classes. :)

I hope that helped.

[Atticus Sage]

I think that mammals would be better for Coins just because they seem much more "earthy" to me (i.e. much more connected with the earth) than reptiles do. But that's really up to personal opinion so do whatever feels right to you :) (sorry if this wasn't helpful XD)

[SakuraFae]

So I decided that I would start working on my own tarot deck, the tarot of the animals ^.^ (theres a thread floating around here somewhere), but now I seem to be stuck.

Im definitely making all the major arcana one specific animal that I think represents that card, but Im unsure about what to do for the other cards. Im not sure if I should specify a certain climate, region, animal, object, etc. for each suit, or if I should have a different animal for every card. Finding 78 animals for the cards would be so difficult... I dont know. And if I did do a different animal, they would have to be related by something for each suit. *is confused*

So what do you all think I should do about the minor arcana? ~any ideas appreciated~

I really like the idea of climate or seasons for each suit. Depicting different animals struggling or basking in nature. It's hard.. it's such a personal thing, why not go through the possibilities and visualize and rough sketch a few minors to see what meshes for you. :D

[Saphirei]

I really like the idea of climate or seasons for each suit. Depicting different animals struggling or basking in nature. It's hard.. it's such a personal thing, why not go through the possibilities and visualize and rough sketch a few minors to see what meshes for you. :D

Ahh yea I think I decided that fish would be the cups, I dont know if theres a season underwater... I suppose cups would be springtime, rods would be summer, pentagles would be fall, and swords would be winter. :)

[Feretian]

Yes, oceans have seasons...look here:

http://www.aviso.oceanobs.com/en/applications/ocean/seasons/index.html

..and freshwater streams, rivers and lakes also change with the seasons. Autumn is especially important because dying debris adds nutrients to the waters.