A Fool's Journey

[Imaginary_Friend]

I started my journey a little over 10 months ago as a new year's resolution. I wanted to create a deck that fit with the characters I had created and I found that many of them stood out as excellent representations of the archetype for the cards I chose for them.

I feel like it told more of a story and was excellent in expanding my understanding of art and competency as a whole. I doubt I would be able to publish them, but I thought I would share them, on the off chance that any interested party wanted to see them.

I say this because I'm reworking them (some minor tweaks, some major overhauls) and I wanted to get some advice, maybe not on the art, but on the content of the card to see if the interpretation was right or not.

Here's the link. Thanks for any input.

http://refleximage.deviantart.com/gallery/#Tarot

[AJ]

The faces are lovely and the colors seem like they could step right off the card, very nice dimensional work.

You should imprint your name across them to eliminate some of the "I see it so it's mine" syndrome.

My only minus thoughts would be that it seems to be leaning toward lesbian perhaps, and that most of the characters seem to be too young to teach me which is what I expect from Majors. A wide range of ages copacetic to the figure they represent.

Nice job, your skill and caring show and again, I just love those faces to pieces. Thanks for sharing.

[Ravenswing]

I'm going to have to go over (a few times I'm sure) your work. There's a lot to take in. I didn't really go into your prose, I'm interested to read your version of the Fool's journey--that'll be part of the next go round. All in all, VERY nice work.

High Priestess--interesting body language. I can't recall another with crossed legs. is the 'writing' actually some script or another?

I can't get the image for the Moon...

There's no reason not to consider a majors only deck. You shouldn't feel that you've GOT to produce minors. If they're not there, don't force it.


fly well
raven

[Imaginary_Friend]

Originally Posted by Ravenswing

High Priestess--interesting body language. I can't recall another with crossed legs. is the 'writing' actually some script or another?

It's not. there would probably be more validity to it if there was but I believe I did sneak the word Tarot into it. I was in a humanities course and we were looking at ancient Sumerian writing at the time, but there was little correlation there. I felt like there was something mysterious about the High Priestess and that she should reveal as much as she conceals.

Originally Posted by Ravenswing

I can't get the image for the Moon...

I had to post it as a mature image because the character in it doesn't have clothes on, but you can see a smaller example of it on the one with all the cards on it at the end.

I am relooking mostly at The Fool as a whole and sprucing up many of the background. Other than that, I doubt I'll be doing much more with this set. Still, it's always good to generate interest.

I ended up writing the story after the card was finished, but thinking about it while I was drawing and coloring.

[Imaginary_Friend]

I posted my reworking of the Fool card on another forum where it was pointed out that I did not include the dog into the card. I know each element can be scrutinized and the inclusion or omission of something changes the meaning drastically, but do all the elements of a card *have* to be there?

I'm not saying that I won't consider adding something that might replace the dog, but there are many things that I didn't reproduce faithfully via the Rider-Waite and I was wondering how many people look directly at what's on the card rather than the typical meaning?

Another example is that in my Fool card, the fool is facing away from the cliff and looks rather lost, and in my mind, it is implied that the character might at any minute turn and walk off the cliff. But because she is not altogether oblivious, does that make her any less the Fool?

[truelighth]

I like it. It does have a very manga/anime feel over it, I could easily place this deck between the Asian tarots that I have. I am wondering if maybe you are also into manga/anime?

[Imaginary_Friend]

Originally Posted by truelighth

I like it. It does have a very manga/anime feel over it, I could easily place this deck between the Asian tarots that I have. I am wondering if maybe you are also into manga/anime?

Not as heavily as I once was. It was always comic books and then I got into manga. So I like to think that my style has an East meets West vibe. And you're not the first to notice that there are manga undertones. Thanks for the mention!