Nine Lives Illustrated Playing Cards - a new self-published deck

frejasphere

Hello all :)

Thank you blue_fusion for pointing me to this corner of AT :)

I'd like to share my new playing cards here ...

After finishing my first deck (Nine Lives Tarot), I was inspired to delve a little further and stay a while longer with the characters from a deck that took me over 3 years to complete (you make friends, you don't want hasty good-byes)...

The artwork features the Kings, Queens and Knights from Nine Lives Tarot, where I have redrawn (and reversed) the court characters to match their corresponding playing card suit ... while subtly retaining some of their tarot persona.

The 4 Aces have larger illustrations, combining tarot and playing card suit symbols ... whereas the pips follow a more traditional style with the suit symbols I designed for this deck.

The suits are combined as follows:

  • Hearts (cups)
  • Clubs (rods / wands)
  • Diamonds (pentacles)
  • Spades (swords)

Find out more at:
http://www.ninelivestarot.com.au/ninelives-playing-cards.php

Some images of the cards below:

ninelives-royal-hearts_aa.jpg

ninelives-royal-clubs_aa.jpg

ninelives-royal-diamonds_aa.jpg

ninelives-royal-spades.jpg

ninelives-back-ace-joker_aa.jpg

ninelives-pips_aa.jpg


My love of tarot and playing cards inspired the artwork ... My hope is that it will bring joy and inspiration to all who use it :)

Thank you for reading
*wave* :)
 

celticnoodle

Beautiful artwork! So colorful too. You did a great job with it, thanks for sharing them.
 

frejasphere

Beautiful artwork! So colorful too. You did a great job with it, thanks for sharing them.

Thank you so much celticnoodle - I'm glad you like them :)

*wave* :)
 

frejasphere

It's been a busy time in the world of cards (which is good) - I'm thrilled with the support for my playing cards :)

This quick update is to let playing card enthusiasts & readers here on AT know that I have just created a poker size version of this deck...

I entered the new design in the PCF Deck Design Contest over on playingcardforum.com, which is currently in voting stage (ends 19 Aug).

:) *wave*
 

daphne

I like your tarot deck and I was happy to hear about a playing card deck of yours. But, if I may say, although the courts are nice, taken from your tarot deck, the pips are just boring standard playing card design. For me, it does not add anything new (except the courts, but it is not enough to use it).

There is another thread here I just post it about colored playing cards, I will copy some text here, maybe to suggest a more vibrant and personalized variant of your playing card deck.

What if you try to color the background of the pips? I do not mean that the writings/symbols are colored, but the background itself. Not solid colors, but a gradual coloring, darker on margins and lighter in the middle (sort of diamond shape), gentle to the eye, not intrusive with the card symbols, but definitely obvious in a layout. (here is the link with pictures of the cards: https://arabesquez.wordpress.com/2015/09/08/fortune-telling-with-playing-cards-by-sophia/)

Now I have a deck like this from a set with a book "Fortune telling with Playing Cards" by Sophia. It is beautifully colored, the symbols are standard colored, black or red, but the background is different for each suit (clubs are dark purple, hearts are red, spades are yellow and diamonds cards are green). Oh, and also the borders are different colored.

You can try new colors, like sky-blue for hearts and red for clubs. I think your colored deck can look great in a layout. Then I would want a pocket size and a mini for big layouts. :)

I hope you do not mind my suggestion. If so, I apologize, I just want more colored playing cards and I am not good with Photoshop coloring to make one myself. Most I could do is to maybe to paint one...
 

frejasphere

Thank you Daphne - there's nothing wrong in wanting more colour in this world :) I'm glad you like my tarot deck and happy to hear your feedback.

The suit colours you describe are similar to one of my old playing card decks where the courts are clad in accentuated colours of: Hearts/red, Clubs/purple, Diamonds/blue & Spades/green... Though I associate the tarot suits with slightly different colours (Cups/red, Wands/yellow, Pentacles/green & Swords/indigo), which sort of brings home how many ways there really are to interpret the symbolism of colour in cards :) While I do tend to favour reading tarot cards, I also like the simplicity of reading playing cards, especially for those informal readings - in between a game of cards :)

EXCITING NEWS
The voting stage of the contest on Playing Card Forum is now done and dusted and I am really excited to announce that my humble little deck WON :)

At this stage, the formalities haven't yet been ironed out, so I don't have any details on when this baby will be on the shelves, though I will post as soon as I know more... :)

*wave*
 

daphne

Congratulations for your winning deck!!
Where is this Playing card forum, it is here?

The suit colors indeed vary a lot, of course, there are different takes on it.
 

frejasphere

Oh thank you :) :)

The forum is at **** MOD NOTE BELOW ***** & has lots of interesting threads about playing cards: history, design, collecting & more :)

Mod Note: Spam, affiliate links, email addresses, and links to other forums will be removed from posts, threads, or signatures without notice.
 

blue_fusion

Congrats frejasphere! Your beutiful deck deserves that win! Any news on its production timetable? Will it be KS-ed?

As for color in cards, I'm all for that too! A number of other considerations have to be thought of - like the deck's playability, etc. Been reading stuff on playing cards lately, and have noticed a number of differences in terms of preferences between folks in the tarot-oracle world and the playing card world. It's actually quite interesting stuff.
 

celticnoodle

frejasphere, Congratulations on winning! :thumbsup: so exciting.