A Question on Resizing Hand Drawn Images

[MariposAzl]

I have a question about creating a Tarot deck. I was wondering if it is best to do the artwork for the cards directly on a card-sized medium(they will be hand drawn), or make it larger (regular paper size) to be shrunk down to card size by digital capturing. I may want to reproduce the deck later, depending on how it turns out. I just am concerned about the quality of the reprint. Is the artwork usually done large, then shrunk down, or not? I'm not sure what will work best, and I have a limited amount of resources as far as the cards I will be printing on, so I can't afford to make too many mistakes or do too much experimenting for that matter. If anyone with previous experience in this area could help with suggestions, or if there's a previous thread that answers this and I can be pointed in that direction (I tried the search option, but to no avail) I would really appreciate the help.

[FearfulSymmetry]

Hi,
The norm is to do the cards in a larger format and then shrink them down to card size when printing.
My suggestion would be to pay careful attention to the proportions. Some publishers like a standard sized card and if you are self publishing it will affect things like how many you can fit on a page. Even if just for personal use sometimes it is nice to have a more standard size you can fit into pre-made frames and mats.
The plusses of smaller sized originals are that they take up less space, take less material to create, are easier to handle, fit into standard home size scanners, transport easily.
The plusses of larger sized originals is that it usually gives a nicer more professional looking card when shrunken down (there are definitely some exceptions!) They look very dramatic, you can work on small details more easily though too small of details could be lost when shrunken.
I would say that a good place to start would be to measure a few standard sized decks, like the Rider Waite, and calculate a size that is 3X bigger, and go from there.

Marie

[MariposAzl]

Thank you for the advise, Marie. I will go a little bigger (I think 3x may be too much), and see how it works out. I'll do one card and see if that comes out ok.
thanks again

[Yerin]

It's definitely better to start big.. How much bigger really depends on the medium that you're gonna use, or how much detail you want to put in.. I would actually use A4 sized paper for concept sketches for my cards and shrink them down to the right proportion on computer.. and I would print the sketch out into a card sized proportion to see if it will look good.. :)

Yerin

[MariposAzl]

Forgive my ignorance, but what is A4 size paper?

[Yerin]

A4 is 210mm x 297mm, and it's not really Tarot card proportion.. (Tarot cards are "thinner" than A4 sized paper) I just said A4 because I have A4 sketch pad, and that's pretty standard here in New Zealand.. :) I use that for my pencil drawings and concept sketches for paintings and such.. :)

I just looked up Llewellyn, and their standard card size is 70 mm x 117 mm including borders, so working on A4 paper will produce roughly about x2.5 scale of normal cards.. :)

Just work on any paper/surface that's available for you.. As long as it's right proportion, how much bigger doesn't really matter.. :) Once you've done your work, it's not that hard to shrink it down to any size you want using a computer.. :)

Yerin

[rabble]

A4 is what we have instead of Letter, which is a little smaller.

[MariposAzl]

ok, iget it. so A4 is basically standard letter size paper (more or less).
well, here's a rough sketch of the beginings of my Ace of Cups (just the cup).
http://www.geocities.com/mariposazl/pics/acup.jpg
I drew this about 1/2" larger than standard card size, no shrinking. I would appreciate any feedback, espesially regarding uality of detail vs. size.
Thanx,