One MORE Deck Hits The Table???

[HudsonGray]

You know, I have two friends who did up their own deck & sold it, you'd think I would have seen the hassles they had with the thing & figured it's too much trouble, but I've had requests to do a ferret deck on and off from people for about 3 years now.....

After thinking it over the last few days (thanks to going through my indie comic book collection--thank YOU Donna Barr!), realizing my cartoon/realism animal paper dolls sell regularly, and that I can focus on a theme deck like this pretty easily....I decided to give it a try. (Horrors!) Spent 2 hours looking over framing and font styles last night, then figured sizing & title card illos. It might work, it might not, at the worst I'll have 78 spot illustrations for the local ferret rescue newlsetter!

Actually, it feels 'fun'! Not like work at all, I'm working out really basic meanings for the cards & trying to put a ferret slant on the whole thing (TOTALLY stumped for Temperance though, ferrets do NOT do moderation).

Also not sure if I should stick with more cartoony or go more semi-realistic on the ferrets. Or if they should be strictly furry or wear clothing. And whether to have the name & the basic meaning on the card, or just the card names. I do want to show albino, sable & silver mitt ferrets, and with black & white drawings, the cards can be colored in to be butterscotch & other fur colors pretty easily. But everything in the pictures will be drawn in pen & ink because I have NO clue how to use a computer art program. We have one on the computer, but it's a small program & limited. I'd prefer drawing by hand.

It'll be a fun project, no idea when it'll be finished, but hopefully only a few months (yeah, right!). In looking at the paper dolls I've done, both the cartoon & semi-realism sell very well, the main kicker in HOW well they sell seems to be how much humor is in them. The two far & away best sellers are a Xena parody with a cat & her ferret sidekick (yes, I did put a parody disclaimer on the set), and a set of dwarf Mongolian hamsters titled Hamsters of Doom. So humor definately needs to be worked into the deck to make it most appealing, to ferret owners. It's a niche market, I know, but then I'm not out to flood the market with a new tarot clone. This one will be small edition printed locally. Just something I found that I wanted to try, given how many others are doing decks & that I'm not the only one to think about giving it a shot.

I know it seems frivolous to the standard 'hard core' reader, but I've already realized that distilling a main focus down for each card has helped me look at the standard tarot more sharply (always learning!), forcing me to stay true to the theme for 78 cards without shifting art styles (always learning in art too!) and maybe, possibly, there's a small chance of getting something
that's actually publishable? Hard to tell, but if the Stick Figure tarot & the I Am Me tarot (I think that was the name) & even the Silicon Valley tarot can make it.....there's hope.

Regardless, it's just a nice project to get into & I'll see what kind of results I can get out of it. Even if they DO end up as newlsetter illustrations in the end. It'll probably be titled The Ferret Tarot -- NOT the Dook Deck or Weasel Pack as someone else suggested! (Insider ferret owner joke).

[Cerulean]

Ermine and sables, other ferrets might also appear in historical art work. The only one I found at first glance was Leonardo Di Vinci's painting:

http://www.phespirit.info/pictures/patchwork/p007.htm

The backstory is noted if you hit the information tab.

The images of ferrets in art may not be the place you want to go, but might be fun if you are looking to see how ferrets used to be portrayed. Then you could decide what appeals to you most.

The devil might be a terrier. Sounds like you are definitely having a good time.

Mari H.

[rota]

I truly can't visualize a Ferret Tarot right off the top of my head, but that certainly doesn't mean it shouldn't be done! It should! (And I love the name.)
I wish you the very best of luck in pushing this deck idea to a successful conclusion. There have been many specialty decks, and many that I'm sure no one could imagine would exist until they saw it right before their eyes. For instance, I couldn't believe that anyone would combine baseball and Tarot until I saw the Baseball Tarot and realized that it was a perfectly legitimate and workable Tarot deck.
I think I could see it done as watercolor over ink, much like the Universal Tarot. I think I could also see it done as computer color over scanned line drawings.
(And come to think of it, this might be a good chance to expand your computer skills - get hold of Photoshop 7 and use it to format and color your drawings. It's not all that hard!)

[allibee]

If you get the chance to see the Tarot of the Gnomes, Lo Scarabeo, you'll see the the Knight of Swords ( Cav. di Spade),
riding a fine stoaty, ferrety, weasle creature - I hereby apologise for not knowing the difference - and the other Knights riding such things as rabbits, pidgeons and badgers. This may give you some insight as to which way your own ferret forms may or may not take shape.

Here's some more thoughts on Temperance : Keeping things in proportion, skillful blending of opposites, diplomacy and patience/ self control.

My advice to you as a fellow artist is simply not to bother wondering what font or size will be best, but just to get stuck in and fill a sketchbook with ideas. Then let the ferrets flow :)

Good luck

allibee

[HudsonGray]

Ahh, but I had FUN picking them out first! I do that with all the animal paper dolls too & it's one step that I could do late at night before I got the old pencil out for the sketching side.

It also motivated me to get the cover card illo started, and for that I needed a font style to work well with it. So now that's picked & printed I can cut and past the basic frames layout to measure off the 8 1/2 x 11" sheet. Gives me the finished working size right there in front of me. The pictures will be bigger, then reduced down a tad to tighten them up somewhat.

I've located a number of historical scans of ferrets in art (helped my sister when she was doing a medieval report), and most of them are around 1560 or later (earlier is harder to find). Not enough material there to work with unfortunately. It'd be neat making it historical since I AM in the SCA & do sell at Pennsic War (yep, me, a bottom feeding scum sucking merchant & PROUD of it!) but I figured that might be narrowing the niche markets down a bit TOO much. Present day ferret owners are starved for new ferrety things, and keeping it sort of in the present will make it easier for them to like.

I've got a few sketches already. Tracked down a good skeleton picture through some veterinary connections online, and got some good basic poses looking at photos on personal sites, but the final pictures will be all 'mine' when it comes to line drawing. I'm looking forward to doing the Queen of Cups, that mother instinct combined with 5 screaming kits in her arms & that patient mother look..........ok, just one aspect that card could take. I'm going to make a point of doing one with the weasel dance (all ferret owners know what this is) and a box of raisins may find it's way in there too. The Tower could go several ways, as can the Hanged Man (ferret?).

I used to do mail art in the past, had a re-curring cat character and fox who started doing a parody on Xfiles & all sf movies I could think of. My pen pal countered with her Rottweiler as Obi Wan Sarabi in the sand dunes.....we kept it going as a story line for close to 4 months, so the cartoonish aspect won't be hard to keep to.

(Oh, the I Am One tarot wasn't the one I was thinking of, what WAS that black & white drawn deck where the lady has a hand mirror in front of her face & the words "Who Am I" written on it? THAT'S the one I was thinking of.)

Wish I could direct you to a site showing some of my paper doll animals but the one they were on was taken down when the lady went back to college.......she had most of mine up there. They all had people costumes & stood on their back legs, yet looked like animals, not anthropomorphic creatures. Fine line there, I know, but I'm not trained in anime & that style is nice but not exactly what I've gotten into.

I'll try posting some of the pictures up on Picturetrail when I have them, so you can see.

[kayne]

Wow - cool! :D Not really a ferret fan but I can see this as being really funny. I would say, go for 'realistic cartoons' I don't know your style but I think that fairly realistic would be good but with, maybe, humanistic expressions and clothing? Could be a winner. Try out a few different styles and perhaps show the samples to a range of people, tarot lovers, ferret lovers and people who don't know anything about either... See which appeals to them most. But if you are doing it just for fun, do the style that you enjoy most. :D

I hope you get some stuff on the net soon - can't wait to see!

[Laurel]

As a closet ferret fan in denial, I'd love to see this deck. My opinion is there's plenty of room in the world for more tarot decks no matter how many get made- like stories, the knowledge and entertainment tarot provides us is potentially infinite.

Laurel

[HudsonGray]

A closet ferret fan in denial????

I spent 3 hours sketching ideas last night. I'm REAL happy with how a lot of them turned out, but already tossed 5 or 6 sketches. Still, that leaves me with a good start.

Got good images that might need a bit more tweeking, but the rough sketches are there already for:

Empress (though this one turned out a bit more Chuck Jones than I wanted.) The Moon, The Sun, The Devil, The Hanged Ferret (went with 'less is more', he's swinging through the top part of the card, upside down, maybe NOT under his full control--but then ferrets generally aren't, and I'm trying to give this a ferrety slant).

King of Cups, Queen of Cups, 2, 3 & 8 of Cups

King of Coins, Ace, 2 & 4 of Coins, Page of coins

King of Swords, 3, 5 & 9 of Swords (LIKE this one!)

King of Wands, 2 of Wands (I LIKE this one!), 5 of Wands

They're all pretty rough right now, but this seems to be a pretty good start.

[Page]

[QUOTE]Originally posted by HudsonGray

Regardless, it's just a nice project to get into & I'll see what kind of results I can get out of it. Even if they DO end up as newlsetter illustrations in the end.

(((((((Go for it))))))))

It would be totally original and one for the rare collectors.

[HudsonGray]

Boy, pricing around for xerox reproduction on card stock (both black & white and in color laser print) really has a wide variety of prices. Office Depot has the best, so far. 18 cents per 8 1/2 x 11" card stock page, plus 6 cents more if I want to run them through for putting an image on the back of the cards.

But when I looked at paste up on a single page, I can't do 8 cards per page, the machines cut off 1/4" down one long side, so half the border ends up missing. If I shrink it down 5% that eliminates that, but the cards look too small then.

So I'm going to do 6 cards per page, which ends up to be 13 pages per deck.

There's card stock in 11x14" size, but it's only half as thick. NOWHERE near the stiffness I want. I'm also not going to do them on plain paper & laminate, that's over an hour of work for each deck done (I was thinking of printing up 20 or so).

Best paper I could find was at Kinkos on what's called executive card stock, which is thicker than the standard AND has a great subtle speckle to it & comes in a light cream, tan, grey and a darker leather color (that's too dark). BUT it's 30 cents a sheet plus the 7 cents per side for printing, basically 44 cents per page. Costs add up fast when you're looking at 13 pages per deck.

The sketches are coming along great. I think to keep costs down I'll be going with the lower end pricing, and (horrors) adding the basic meanings down the side of the card. Looking at the costs of doing a little white book as well...................... I'll stick with the standard Rider Waite meanings & call it even. This means no box either, but I've seen home made decks that are tied with a thin ribbon & sold that way in zip lock baggies.

I'd love to do a color deck, but Kinkos said I'd need 150 pages to bring it down to about $11 a deck for printing costs. Sure, if I was going to sell them for $50! No chance of that! Naw, black & white it is. Let the buyer color them in if they want to.

The borders are done & I've got a great font that matches the pen & ink style. Yes, HAD to do the borders first so I could see what the final space size is in the card for the illustration.

It's progressing!

Now if I wanted a 'mini-deck' that would be interesting, but the font style for the words is too hard to read that small. (But it would be a SNAP to color in!).

[HudsonGray]

I've been running around pricing the costs of getting 30 decks done up. Office Depot, Office Max & Kinkos all use photocopy techniques, and a deck can be done there between $3 and $4 each IF it's in black & white only. They charge per page, plus the card stock, plus a back design. The deck will fit on 13 pages total.

A color deck done at one of the Xerox places costs between $8.90 and $11 a deck. Rather expensive & not worth the trouble of coloring one in really--they don't have card stock heavier than a 60 lb weight and no thin lamination. All lamination is 3 millimeters, which is quite thick and would need one lamination on each side.

I stopped at two printers shops today. Both use 90 lb cardstock, which is pretty good. The size they can go up to is 11x17" so I can get 9 cards per page instead of 6. But the prices are sky high. With 10 originals (9 for cards & 1 for the back illustration) that's 600 pages for 30 decks. They quoted me $54 do to one deck in color OR black & white (same cost) via a laser process (as opposed to xerox?), and $956 for doing up 30 decks. !!! Jesus!!! She said that they can't do plasticizing, they only have 3milimeter in the lamination, but recommended I check with a Signs & Banners company west of here which can do 1 millimeter on a page.

The second store I stopped at said they can't do color for me very cost effectively, as they have to charge 89 cents a page (for 600 pages) but they CAN do 30 decks in black & white on the thick card stock for $100 total. That's basically the same price as Office Depot, but I get a heavier paper out of it. From the way she talked it looks like it's a xerox process, same as Kinkos uses.

Looks like I need to check at least 2 more places to get some mroe info on costs here.

Just thought I'd post prices here for anyone thinking of doing their own deck. Getting ballpark figures sure helps a person decide how elaborate they want to get with their project! Now I see why the Tarot of the Crone costs $125 retail! It probably cost them $30-$50 per deck to produce!

[HudsonGray]

Update:

Econoprint can do the decks for me at $2.20 for each deck, which is on card stock, printed both sides, and I cut them all out. The card stock isn't bad. The other places I checked varied from $4 to $7 each and didn't offer me much different than Econoprint can.

I like the fact that their machines make a computer image & print that, so there's no pages sluicing through constantly. She said they have state of the art machines and that doing card stock without it shifting around as it's pulled in, isn't a problem. The inking goes on as dark black without fadeout and I can get to within 1/4" from the side of the paper with the cut & paste stage, unlike some of the results I was seeing from the photocopiers at the 7 or 8 other places I checked. The framing will come in clear without any cut off. GOOD!

I've got 3 or 4 cards inked in already, a back figured out & the top face card almost done. I THINK I can have this completed by end of February. IF all goes well. I'll scan what art I have done in when I have about 6 cards or so, enough to make a nice page worth.

[rota]

I can't wait to see the artwork you're building up!

I also hope you're keeping notes on all the ins and outs of the process you're going through. It could prove invaluable. You could even write a short instructional book (once you're finished with the cards in the first place!) on the type of card printing you're doing, and sell it as a separate item to others with similar aspirations.

[HudsonGray]

I should be able to have some cards up shortly, I've got the drawings for 16 cards done now & am making a trip to the copy shop to get some of the borders finalized so I can start the cut & paste up (it's not being done on computer, this is pen & ink line drawing, the hard way). I'm pretty happy with the cards except the face on the Chariot, which may get redone. I might even post a picture of 'here's the basic sketch, there's the reference photo(s), here's the finished card' to show how things got modified.

But the instruction booklet on how to do a deck.....I'll leave that to OTHERS (someone here has one in the works actually!) -- but I AM posting up prices I get quoted & problems I'm running into, so tarot creators can get a handle on stuff that I've run across. It's one thing to hear that 'printing is expensive', it's another to get a breakdown on the what's & why's.

Biggest thing is the card stock. It comes in pound weight--68 pound, 80 pound, 90 pound. HOWEVER that has no indication of STIFFNESS! I've found 68 lb weight that was stiffer by far than the 90# because of the sizing they put on the paper pulp & what the manufacture process is. Since stiffness is essential, the pound numbers are meaningless for me here.

I am torn between a few things though. There's some NICE card stock in white, in a mottled cream color that looks archaeic, and a nice marblized gray/white and blue/white. I'm SO tempted to go with the marblized one in gray to give extra visual texture, as it's subtle enough to not interfere with the pictures, but think the average person would prefer a white background. The cream looks 'old' and also has appeal, but..... it comes down to what does the public like? I have to guess.

There's also the size of the cards. I can get 6 to a page if I go tall & skinny, which saves on the number of pages needed to be printed. OR I can go with the size my Ancestral Tarot is, which gets 5 cards to a page (3 in horizontal position down the one side & 2 in vertical position). If I try the size of a standard Rider deck I only get 4 cards per page. Budget wise, I like the 6 per page, but the shapes are maybe too long to look right? That's 2 1/4 x 4". Makes them look like the older decks from the 1600's, but they would shuffle differently & tend to bend in the middle if people aren't careful. The 5 to a page MIGHT be a tad bit of problem because card stock is stiffer in one direction (the long way) than the other. I'm not sure if that would affect how the cards hold up or not.

Either way, I have options.

I'll post when the cards go up, so I can get feedback. I want to sell them as decks, even budget wise as they are, and know ferret owners will love them (I've gotten a lot of good feedback on the idea from ferret bulletin boards). It's a theme deck with RW meanings. Some might think it's 'fluff' but it's NOWHERE near the kind of fluff I've seen in some decks! There IS a gummy bear tarot deck out ya know!

[HudsonGray]

I'm so pissed! I was all set to do cut & paste up on the first 22 cards, had gotten reductions done at the copy shop, then got home & found out that only the first 5 pages out of 30 were crystal clear, all the rest were fuzzy.

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHH!

So, I need to do another trip (to a DIFFERENT) copy place and redo about 26 pages of reductions before I can scan them in & start posting them up on picturetrail. It was only $3 bucks wasted, but I had planned on having a good amount semi-finalized! I was disappointed. Geez!

After discussing the overall 'look' of the cards with friends, we still couldn't come up with a solid decision on some things. I like the larger format (5 cards per page) with the larger art and the Joker style font, Pam stands by the woodcut style font for a more antiquie look and the smaller format (6 cards per page) as she has smaller hands. I think the pictures are too tiny then, but there's still something going for it. On parchment/sand colored card stock they look neat.

She talked me into doing up two sets of cut & paste on the cards, basically doing it both ways. Only one image got trimmed a tad more (the Hermit) but both look equally nice. I'll post both styles when I get them scanned. The cartoon style is working well & I'm pretty satisfied with how they're turning out. They'll be easily colored in if anyone wants to hand color their set.

[Insomnia Turtle]

Might be a little off topic here, but did you try and get your money back? Usually, most printers will redo prints that don't turn out if it was their fault. All you have to do is bring them your originals, their bad copies and a receipt. Unless, of course, it's one of those that asks you to check it first before you leave with them. Then usually they won't.

[HudsonGray]

I thought about it, but it was $2.80 & I didn't figure it was worth it. I'll just go elsewhere next time, there's 4 other places within a reasonable (under 8 miles) distance that I can get to while doing other things like grocery shopping & supplies runs.

I did get a couple more cards inked in tonight--but I'm running out of the 'good' sketches & need to work up some better ones for the rest of the cards. I have to remember to take in a 50 cent piece to photocopy, I want it as part of my Ace of Pentacles. (It's legal, so long as you photocopy at least at a 20% reduction or enlargement. It's a coin, I only heard trouble about bills being photocopied, so I'm in the clear. I also got a handful of Canadian coins from a pen pal in Montreal & want to add the dime & nickle to the 2 of Coins being juggled by the ferret on the card. Make it multi-national in a rather low key way.)

[HudsonGray]

The scanner's working & now I've got some pictures up online so people can see how the deck's coming. 31 cards done so far. Let me know what you think!

http://www.picturetrail.com/gallery/view?p=999&gid=1243650&uid=728989

If you can't get in that way, go to the main URL www.picturetrail.com and type in FalconsMew in the album selection. It'll be the first album that comes up.

I've got both sizes up - and two font styles. Let me know which looks better. People have been liking the smaller size over the large, but the larger will be easier to color in.

[Cerulean]

I did a quick look-see and did not find anything wrong with either design. If you do a line drawing of Leonardo Da Vinci's painting of a woman hugging an ermine, you'd be following the Brian William's school of hand-drawn graphics that remind one of the original, but it would be your own.

Tracing the ermine itself and it's snuggly, questing attitude might be interesting for the Lovers.

I like the minors quite a bit. Reminds me of the Merlin Tarot.

Mari H.

[HudsonGray]

Thanks!

The Lovers I've been wanting to go with a couple doing the tango (working in partnership, male/female-plus it's visually different). But it's not finalized yet so anything goes. The Judgement card is giving me problems though (people were suggesting a ferret show winners ring) as well as Justice. Wish I could have posted the Moon card, but it was still in the process of being cut & pasted.

I'd be open to 10 of Swords ideas too. Didn't want to do the traditional one.

[Cerulean]

The tortured character with the hunting weasal on the leash, lower right:

http://www.tarotpassages.com/filipas8.htm

May help...


For Justice
By the way, I've seen a pair of fish painted, each curled around and chasing a circle, as a balanced yin-yang symbol in an artistic pattern...
@
( )
@

so maybe Justice is two perfectly balanced ferrets checking out a circle symbol at each end...hope this type above stays aligned.

Mari H.

[HudsonGray]

I talked to someone who had some cards done up previously. His were black & white too, and he said that waterproof ink was necessary if someone was going to be using watercolor to color in the images. Straight xerox isn't going to be smear proof--the waterproof ink is used on business cards & such, so I need to check with the copy places again on this.

He suggested PIP Printing (not sure if they're national, but they are a franchise, individually owned). The guy there walked him through the process a few years ago & the cards he did came out fine for coloring, no matter what media was used (color pencil, watercolor, acrylic, gel pens, metallic markers, etc.).

I hadn't thought of that--this is just a notice to others who are thinking about black & white printing.

[Ravenswing]

Hudson--

Many moons ago my first wife and I published a small zine. I'm based in Phila, and we used PIP printing and found them to give us excellent results. They always made good on anything that didn't come out the way we wanted. No hassles, no questions.

I love your ferrets. Keep it up-- the idea of color your own deck is a great one.

Raven

[HudsonGray]

Thanks, that's good feedback on PIP. I hope their quotes will be affordable, we're checking them tomorrow.

I'm going to have to redo the borders, the one I picked doesn't reproduce right, it blurs. But that should be no problem putting in a new one.

OMG! I posted the picturetrail URL with the pictures on over at 3 Yahoo ferret lists--the feedback in the last 48 hours has been phenominal! NO bad comments. I've got people wanting over 50 decks so far (yeah, I know all of them never come through, but hey!). And this has just been in 2 days.

One lady wanted to know if she can pass the info on to other ferret owners, one already linked her page to it, one says their friend has a pagan store in NY who wants to carry it, and (get this!) one lady asked if she could use the Hermit card as a tatoo on her, that she's been looking for the right card & this is it.

?????

I am SO pleased with the response! Gawd, now I have to finish the deck!

[HudsonGray]

Ok, time to design the card back--I was thinking of doing curled ferrets randomly placed, so there's no up or down clearly marked, and no framing that needs to be worried about, but someone else asked for a central figure similar to a reversible Jester.

My mind immediately went to the image of the King of Swords in a regular deck of cards where the sword is stuck through the guy's head (gee, missed the brain!) then thought why not the Fool instead where the ferret has his jester stick stuck through his ears, the dangles on the end of the stick swinging away.

I sorta like it! BUT need input--should both ferrets be sable marked (brown & tan) or should one be albino? Should both be albino? Should they be more cartoony or realistic? The cover card for the deck has a realistic ferret laying out the cards in a spread and looking up at the viewer. But half the deck is more cartoonish. Would that be too great a difference between the backs and the cover card?

Here's some of the images--the FOOL in the first picture is what I'd be basing the back design on from the arm up, but in a new position: http://www.picturetrail.com/gallery/view?p=999&gid=1243650&uid=728989

Comments invited! I didn't want the back to be just plain, or the speckled generic backing I was originally going to go with.

Need Feedback!

[Cerulean]

and I see they will be on the Major Tom-produced/Aeclectic & Other Artists' calendar. I look forward to reading your text as well.

[Chronata]

hee!
I never owned a ferret myself, but I was fairy godmother and part time baby sitter for several of my friends ferrets...

I adore your deck! I think it's wonderfully executed, and not the kind of "cutesy" thing that I was expecting from the title!

keep up the good work! I can't wait to see when it's finished!

BTW, the black and white deck with the Who Am I is called the Morgan Tarot...and is not actually a tarot at all. It's my favorite "drug trippy" deck. It's the one with the card that says "Pigs and fishes surround you!"

[Trogon]

Feeback HudsonGray? Here's some feedback; I LOVE THIS DECK!! Please, please, please be sure to let us know when its done and how much the per-deck cost will be... You've done a great job here of conveying the meanings of the cards combined with your love of ferrets. Great work!

[HudsonGray]

Aww shucks, LOL.

You're gonna die when you see the 10 of Swords. I'm real happy when I came up with that one, everyone looking at the pages of art done so far stop dead on that one & start laughing.

The 5 of Pentacles is still hanging me up, as is the 10 of Cups, but this HAS to be done this month, for an event I want to be at in August, so it's getting done!

[Alissa]

Originally posted by HudsonGray
The 5 of Pentacles is still hanging me up, as is the 10 of Cups, ....

Hudson, you KNOW I'm waiting for one of your ferret decks ....

my giggly ideas ;)
5 Pentacles ... a ferret sitting forlornly, looking at an empty food bowl?
10 cups ... several ferrets eating happily out of overflowing food bowl?

[rota]

I love ferrets! And it's great to see another deck nearing the finish line!

[HudsonGray]

Got 2 more pictures posted, this time with the official framing & font style we're going to use.

Just wanted to let people see 2 more cards--the 10 of Swords & the Hierophant:

http://www.picturetrail.com/gallery/view?p=999&gid=1243650&uid=728989&members=1

[dolphingirl]

Congratulations on the deck all comming together :) I love the 10 of swords, poor fella looks pretty frazzled. Please put me on the list for when there printed :)

Isn't it amazing how many tiny little things there are to do when creating a deck! I swore after my first one that I was going to take some time off and there I went doing another one right away. It always amazes me when I can finally see the final result of all those hours of work!

Happy day for you!

[Ruby Red Slippers]

Oh my Gawd...these are so cool!!!!

I'm here so late on this thread.....I LOVE THEM!!!

I love ferrets, never had one, but love to watch them in the store, and have friends who have them and love them more than I do my dogs, although I don't know how that is possible! :D

Please let us know when they are done, can't wait to see the rest of them!

Pretty clever putting up the 10 of Swords next to the Hieophant!

Ruby Red Slippers

[HudsonGray]

Everyone stops on the 10 of Swords and laughs, sort of takes the sting out of the 'nastiest card in the deck' don't you think?

I looked over my notes....I put in 17 hours of just clean up on the white/black images once they were scanned in. That was a long weekend! Transferring them to the frames only took an hour but I had to rescan one that didn't scan properly so that added some time. Yeah, the computer part is a lot more time than I thought it would be. But we're getting there.

[lunalafey]

What a wonderfully amusing deck! The joker font is so appropriate! I love the King of coin with his bundle of socks.

[daffyart]

LOL!!! Oh my GOD I love that 5 of Swords!! Ferrets and Swords should not mix!...Very awesome!

Sorry if I'm repeating a question, but are you planning on coloring the tarot or leaving it black and white?

daffyart

[HudsonGray]

The printer quotes I got for a colored deck being reproduced either using a color laser print or by doing a color separation would cost me $34 per deck.....not feasable on my budget! But I see now why so many artist-produced color decks cost $50-$125 each!

Black & white is the way to go. The images are small enough to use color pencil on & get a good color card with, and we're going to have waterproof ink used (like the kind on business cards) so a light watercolor can be tried too, if a person wants. So long as they don't overlog the cardstock with too much water and make it warp. Gel pens, chalks, there are a lot of ways to add color, and a spray fixative, or even light spraying with clear hair spray (I learned that with rubber stamps) will protect the colored surface after you're finished.

(Yeah, ferrets & swords don't mix at all!)

[daffyart]

I don't think you could find a more fitting way to print your deck. Something as fun as ferrets should have a creative, personal touch to it! Let us know how it goes. I know I'll want one:)...

daffyart

[M-Press]

Hi!
I've never seen this animal "live", because in Greece, where I grew up, there weren't any!!!!!

i really like it?and I'm very picky with "Theme" tarot...
What I like ablout it is that there is somethething very primitive-authentic in the line... especially the Hierophant, for example... There is something there that is very immediate from you... so I think that would say i like more the realistic ones vs the comic? maybe...

On the same note, because of theis "personal' quality in them, I donn't feel crazy for the jumpy-joker font. I feel I've seen this one too much, and it makes the whole thing as if it's for children, and it's not... There is so much more to it, it's a gut creation... maybe it needs hand written lettering? Just a thought...

As for B/W printing, i think they would look great in B/W... there will be no feeling of missiong color. I thought of stamps-maybe you can cut a good deal if you do so many... then you have a little of an investment, but then you can print them yourself, on nice paper... Of course this is lots of work too, but it could give an interesting outcome.
If you are interested I will go and dig a couple of places that do custom made stamps. They can reach a surprisingly great amount of detail!

And I would like to see a little book with it... To learn more about this animal...But i understand this dilemma...I'm stuck with mine too!

Anyway, very inspiring, original work!
Good luck with it!
I wish you some "finihing karma" for it!
:-)

[Cerulean]

http://www.doctorbeer.com/joyce/ferrets/frhistpg.htm

I just found this site!

If you ever want to do a book, maybe some of these interesting historical paintings might be a fun companion search for people. with your deck.

Best wishes,

Mari Hoshizaki

P.S. If you get a contract for your deck, it might be useful to compare with historical examples or tarot-based art. It wasn't until I started looking at the Mantegna cards, Leonardo Da Vinci's painting of the Lady with Ermine, that I became more aware of people and ferrets.

[Nevada]

Originally posted by HudsonGray
Got 2 more pictures posted, this time with the official framing & font style we're going to use.[/url]

Those are so cute! I love them.

I came to this folder today, because I'm thinking of making my own deck, and wondered about the feasibility. These really raised my spirits. You created such great images.

[Crowley]

[QUOTE]Originally posted by kayne
Not really a ferret fan but I can see this as being really funny. I would say, go for 'realistic cartoons' I don't know your style but I think that fairly realistic would be good.....

[HudsonGray]

I went to the main publishers' sites and checked their 'artist submissions list' and FAQ where they have a list of what they want and don't want. One doesn't do theme decks. One doesn't like black & white decks because color sells better. A lot prefer serious ones with historic style of art, etc. I sort of had mine eliminated from the big three pretty much in their submissions guidelines.

That's ok though, I sort of expected it to be a self published type of deck mostly because it's not artsy or professionally done in color--I draw, I don't paint or do computer art.

Networking has been pretty easy. I talked to the guy via email who does the Hello Kitty deck, got feedback from him (I think I posted that on another thread), and with a few others in the past who did their own (one of the ladies from the Ancestral Path Tarot was at a spirit fair here & we talked for 20 minutes). I'm ok with knowing mine may never be carried at Barnes & Noble *sigh*. Not all of us can make it to the bigtime.

But then again, I'll be in the front line selling them with no middleman, too. I was part of the production of a home done board game called The Con Game (based on science fiction convention goers) back in the late 1980's, and helped coalate someone else's self published tarot deck, and talked to a couple of people who do their own comic book (the artist of Sheba just this last August, and Donna Barr with her Stintz comic, via email). The hill isn't insurmountable. And there won't be a middleman. It's amazing how far word of mouth can get. A few decks offered up on ebay will help, too.

[HudsonGray]

Well, it's been a year since the Ferret Tarot was printed. Out of the original printing of 500 decks I've sold 375 of them and given away 16 more (for various reasons). That's exceeding expectations, I'm happy! You never know what kind of market there is out there for anything until you give it a try, you know?

[M-Press]

Hudson...
as a continuation to the other post regarding the Chat du Marseille/Cat of the Marseilles Tarot, I again must say that the way you handle the business part of this, is really impressive.
yes, not all decks need to be biggers, not all of them need to show up in Barnes and Nobles, and not all of them need to cost a fortune (to the buyer and creator as well).

I think this is something taht many tarot creators should be aware of. There are many ways to do it, and to me Hudson sure shows a great example, and a very sensible one!
It's what I call "dig a hole that you can fit in". And then you can choose to make it deper, or dig another one!!! this is the most important thing!!! ;)

[HudsonGray]

This is it! The first printing of the Ferret Tarot has sold out.

The last deck out of 500 sold on August 17 of last month at Pennsic War, I'd taken the last few with us to sell at our merchant tent. So from a start date of Oct. 22, 2003 to middle of last month, that's all the time it took to sell them out completely.

Not to worry -- I was at the printer this past week, since I have orders now for 23 more decks from people, and will be picking up the SECOND printing of the deck on Monday, in two days. Finances weren't high enough right now to do a full 500 printing again, but 300 should be ok for a while. Same printer, same card stock, so they'll be identical but not numbered or signed this time. They still get a pouch, cheat sheet and LWB.

I did a breakdown on where they all sold, and almost 30 decks went to countries outside the US. A whopping 30% sold at wholesale in groups of 10 or more, and the rest were retail. That's a different breakout than I thought it would be, I didn't think wholesale would be that large of an amount. I totaled up the numbers going out and it seems the printer printed 516 decks for us, but I stopped numbering them at 500, to be fair.

The second printing decks will be available soon as I pick them up next week.

Thanks, thanks, thanks for all the interest folks!

[magpie9]

Great News, Hudson Grey! How much will you be selling them for?

[M-Press]

Great news Hudson!
I'm always amazed how you do it "your way"...!

Do you think you'll ever make a run of colored ones? That would be SO nice...
Maybe print a whole big "poster" in digital printing and then cut them? Would that be too expensive? I think that some of this technology has gotten better AND cheaper lately...

Anyway, I'm sure you'll figure it out... Color your own is still great fun!

Best Wishes for your second printing!
It's quite an achievement! :)

[HudsonGray]

Thanks!

Well, with the lower number they're 65 cents more per deck to print, but I'm not changing the price on them, so they're still the $14.95 plus shipping. I'm not going to quibble over stuff that's under a dollar.

Color would be nice, I've been looking at different mediums, but there's such a color difference between scanned stuff and how it ends up on CD (I'm a technologically uninformed artist when it comes to the computer part).

[M-Press]

Hudson,
let me know when/if you decide to do color. I'll help you figure it out. It might be worth to color it in the computer and not by hand. That way you only have to scan the b/w part and that can come out perfect. Figure out the logistics first... and how you'll print them ;)

[magpie9]

How wonderfull! Affordable! Please sign me up for a deck when they're ready to go out into the world. I've been wanting one since I saw my first scan of them..but I never dreamed I'd actually end up with one. :D thanks for reprinting. Actully, I might have one already if I'd known you were the Creator. that's what I get for not keeping track of who's Who on ATF. :D


signed,
Adoring Fan

[Eco74]

Thats GREAT news HudsonGray!
You definately deserve it too since it really is a magnificent deck.
With the second printrun available I'm actually tempted to get a second deck to color it in, leaving the first numbered deck as is.

And I agree with M-press, coloring the cards digitally would save you lots of hassle with differences between originals, scans etc. I've not been working with things in that way artwise, but am familiar enough with the technology of scanning and resolution-differences to know that it's very difficult to get a colored original to display right on screen and then after that in the printouts.
Having only one step to have to fidget with (being from digital format to printouts) would make it so much easier for you.

[HudsonGray]

The computer at work was down so I was doing an idle search on 'ferret tarot' to see what was connected lately. Found several blog mentions, two more reviews, two ferret sites selling them, and - Holy Cow! - I've got my own page for the deck that's up on a Korean site.

It's got a pleasant look to the page, but I can't read anything on it. My deck is listed as 'rare' http://www.tarotkorea.co.kr/gallery/gallery1_show.php?card=Theferrettarot

Their main site actually has a ton of decks listed. It's a little slow to load, but might be worth perusing. The url is http://www.tarotkorea.co.kr/gallery/list.php

[OakDragon]

Hudson, from what I've seen of scans of the Ferret Tarot, I love it! It's on my long "one of these days" purchase list. I hope it doesn't go "out of print" too soon! ;)

[atomicgypsy]

these cards are so great! they are so intuitive and you've captured the feel of each card so nicely.. :) i've seen them online and liked them a lot! you did a great job! :)