The Bohemian Gothic Tarot

Oh, ours is much more fae - he reminds me a little of someone from the film Company of Wolves somehow. But he needs a lot of work before we show him.

However, it's likely there will be some satyrs in the deck.

baba-prague said:

Yes, here she is - beautiful but rather poor quality print which is why so much had to be redrawn. We've also made her rather harder looking - more ageless and less of a straightforwardly sweet girl.

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Okay, am I the only one not picking up sweetness from her? Her hair is very long and worn down, which is unusual for the Victorians. Her face looks very serious and the dress she is wearing is quite unusual that I can't even place the decade, which I usually can from a picture. She looks very mysterious to me, already! What book is she reading from? What is that large ring on her finger? What sort of dress is that? I like her. She gives me the creeps! lol

baba-prague said:

However, it's likely there will be some satyrs in the deck.

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oh I can't wait to see them!!!

And just looking at the Nine of Swords I hear eerie strains of Saint-Saëns "Danse Macabre"...it's PERFECT!

HearthCricket said:

Okay, am I the only one not picking up sweetness from her? Her hair is very long and worn down, which is unusual for the Victorians. Her face looks very serious and the dress she is wearing is quite unusual that I can't even place the decade, which I usually can from a picture. She looks very mysterious to me, already! What book is she reading from? What is that large ring on her finger? What sort of dress is that? I like her. She gives me the creeps! lol

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i feel a severe case of nostalgia and secrecy with her, something she did out of natural instinct /urge. What kind of dark history this sweet innocent girl might hide - she makes me think of a young widow perhaps only been married a few months before death did them part (perhaps by her own hands )

I see a melancholy sweetness (if that makes any sense) in the completed card. But from the original picture? No, I just get the melancholy.

That's interesting (no really, I need to think about this), because I see far more shades of the beautiful young vampiric Carmilla in the final card:
http://www.sff.net/people/DoyleMacdonald/l_carmil.htm

"She was above the middle height of women. I shall begin by describing her. She was slender, and wonderfully graceful. Except that her movements were languid-very languid- indeed, there was nothing in her appearance to indicate an invalid. Her complexion was rich and brilliant; her features were small and beautifully formed; her eyes large, dark, and lustrous; her hair was quite wonderful, I never saw hair so magnificently thick and long when it was down about her shoulders...There was a coldness, it seemed to me, beyond her years, in her smiling melancholy persistent refusal to afford me the least ray of light. "

Of course, it's only shades. We don't intend any of the cards to explicitly illustrate any particular story, but we do want them to be reminiscent of many.

Not to sidetrack from the Queen of Swords discussion (the original picture is lovely, and its transformation into the card is quite perfect), but I've been thinking about the Tower.

(Thank you for sharing it!)

I can see where it being too dark may be an issue, though that didn't bother me. However, it does appear too static, and the Tower is one of least static cards.

I was really thinking of something along the lines of the end tableau in "Fall of the House of Usher," and to see it without even a crack surprised me.

Not that there has to be a crack, I suppose, but there's such brooding intensity to the card, it becomes almost introspective, like it relies too much on the reader's reaction to get the point of the Tower across.

Am I making sense? I feel like I'm meanering around what I'm trying to say.

Apocalipstick said:

Not to sidetrack from the Queen of Swords discussion (the original picture is lovely, and its transformation into the card is quite perfect), but I've been thinking about the Tower.

(Thank you for sharing it!)

I can see where it being too dark may be an issue, though that didn't bother me. However, it does appear too static, and the Tower is one of least static cards.

I was really thinking of something along the lines of the end tableau in "Fall of the House of Usher," and to see it without even a crack surprised me.

Not that there has to be a crack, I suppose, but there's such brooding intensity to the card, it becomes almost introspective, like it relies too much on the reader's reaction to get the point of the Tower across.

Am I making sense? I feel like I'm meanering around what I'm trying to say.

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Yes, I know what you mean - thanks for the input - and the depiction may change in the next months of course (it is our second Tower as it is, and when we begin to change things it often seems to indicate that a card is still not "right"). I think now it's like the moment just before something shocking happens (you know that moment in Gothic film?) but I can't decide if that's really approporate for this card. But there will be a lot of small changes (perhpas some large ones) as the deck takes form. Sometimes you struggle with the content and symbolism of a card, and later go back to deal with the visuals better, other times you struggle and focus on the visuals, and later see better symbolism that could be incorporated. I think we'll be working in both "directions" in the coming months.

baba-prague said:

I think right now it's like the moment just before something shocking happens (you know that moment in Gothic film?)

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Exactly!

It has suspense, and it has atmosphere, and there's plenty of tension, but there's still the pinprick of hope that things could still be okay.

That if you just close your eyes and stop staring at the gargoyles and the moon from such a vertiginous angle, then maybe nothing will happen.

At least, that's how I read it.

It's so calm. Ominous, but calm.

The Tower should shake you to the very core, alter your world view, tear asunder your beliefs.

I think my fondness for the card is showing.

I'll stop now. I can't wait to see how this deck develops!

Don't know if you missed it, Karen, but was wondering what you thought about my feelings for the '9'. I hope I didn't offend.

LB