Which are the Trickiest Cards? (Or, not the trumps first?)

I was just thinking about someone's discussion about their deck idea, and it occurred to me that often the Trumps are the ones we think about first. But really, because the trumps have such dense symbolism and powerful, mythical qualities, in many ways these could be considered the easiest.

I wonder which cards are the hardest? Which cards are really going to trip you up or be the weakest in your deck? To me, these are the things you want to consider tackling FIRST. Before you've committed to a particular way of doing something.

Too often the trumps are magical, the courts personable and the rest of the deck mundane. Which is a great pity.

Is there a particular card or cards that you find challenging?

Yes, while not an artist, that sounds like a good approach. I would think that the hardest card for an artist though would be the one where the meaning of that card is most vague in their own minds. For example, though I more or less understand the 2 vs. the 3 of wands, I might have trouble illustrating it.

For me the cards that I had to bang my head against the wall the most for were the Courts. The final results came out pretty well, but I kept putting them off again and again until I [em]had[/em] to do them because they were pretty much all that was left.

I think it worked out, though. If I'd tried to start off with the toughest ones I don't think I'd be sitting on a deck now. It's easy to abandon a big project when you're a tiny way in and those first few bits have been like pulling teeth. Better to do some intro pieces that you know will be totally awesome and will also be easy to start to set the overall artistic approach, and to build up a big pile of commitment to the project: "Oh, man, I've been trying to figure out the King of Wands for a WEEK and I'm tired of him but I've already done SIXTY cards, I can't quit now."

I did, however, start the whole thing by sitting there with my sketchbook and doodling out the Trumps in sequence. Not all those sketches made it into the final work; a couple of the Trumps didn't work out until the very end.

Egypt Urnash said:

It's easy to abandon a big project when you're a tiny way in and those first few bits have been like pulling teeth. Better to do some intro pieces that you know will be totally awesome and will also be easy to start to set the overall artistic approach, and to build up a big pile of commitment to the project: "Oh, man, I've been trying to figure out the King of Wands for a WEEK and I'm tired of him but I've already done SIXTY cards, I can't quit now."

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Oh that's a very good point.

The sketching thing is a good one: having at least a bit of an idea for a card, some notes in place. To have at least given a bit of consideration to those difficult cards before a vast amount of effort has been expended on all the rest.