Deck of the Dreamers 2010

[rwcarter]

Whew!

As others who have shared their in-progress decks have done, I hope you hold back a few images so that there's some surprise (good or bad) in the deck when I get it in my greedy little hands....

Rodney

 

[EthanJamesPetty]

Yes, I'll probably leave out some of the minors to avoid having the full deck online. Watermarks are pretty easy to bypass with photoshop.

 

[SakuraFae]

Thanks for the lengthy additions, Homes. Already pasted them to my file for reference!

SakuraFae - Don't worry, I'll still be putting my unique spin on things. I'll certainly consider all the feedback I receive and work in some ideas that strengthen my own, but I promise I'll still enrage some people by going totally off the wall on some of them

I'm looking forward to it!

 

[HOLMES]

wands notices and recommendations

since this colour is orangish , we can still go with an earth read/rusty read for the pentacles and keep this colour. perhaps throwin a tiny bit more orange/yellow to reflect a flame i dont' know.

there is a debate for some see the swords as fire , and wands as air, and vice versa. i prescribe to the latter where wands are the element of fire, and the swords are element of air. which means for me that wands is about social,and spiritual, and air is about mental strength and dealing with strife.
so you know where I am coming from with some of the advice..

I undersand why you made the sword yellow, it is the mental energy to many energy psychics , and in comics they draw the pyschic powers as yellow. here though in the tarot the colour of air is grey, coloudy white, or think winter.

ok on to the wands.

ace of wands.
I like the imagery here,, except i would put a bright fire in place where the baby is,, otherwise if you going to have a baby here,, you should have one in the other aces as i know you want to represent the beginning.
here is an idea ..put the wands in a blaze of fire,, and have a hand reaching in to grab it ,, like it is a test.

2 of wands
we know the typical image has a person looking at a globe and wondering how to best uterlize their wands.
and here we have two wands , i find the extra orange balls on this card to be slighty confusing at first glances.
I do like the imagery,, perhaps I would have him looking at a holograph of the world as you are not tied down to medevial imagery i think by the time you get to the wands.
i still like the idea of two people useing their wands to get a job done. ehhe.
if you go with your idea of a baby,, we can show a baby with two wands one in each hand sitting on the floor looking at the tv, or a mirror.

3 of wands
I like this imagery but not here,, you could put that in the two of wands except take out a wand and it would work weell.
for a 3 of wands you are looking at a person waiting for his ships to come in,, or for the car to get there, or for the woman to come around the mountain.
you could even show a man anxiously waiting in the waiting room for his child to be born
here is an idea that hasn't been done yet,, have a man walking on a bridge made of three wands to the boat.

4 of wands
again i like your artwork here.
this is a break from spirtual work and social work to have a celebration. even jesus went to parties
you could make four poles and two woman and two guys dancing around them.
you could even stick marshamallows and weiners on four sticks and put them in four hands. that would be something no one has done yet.

5 of wands.
this imagery would work best with 9 of swords i feel.
the five of wands is about 5 people meeting as equals, and testing each other s trengths againt each other.
you problay want five people with their wands walking to a duel.
you know though you could also have 5 people with wands in their hands fighting off others.
or you could take the five wands as they are,, put people holding the wands and they are trying some sort of stick game.

6 of wands
yup nice artowrk,
you could almost feel a victory firework there. so it could wok.
six of wands shows a person rereturning victorious .. you could widen the image to four of july soemthing like that.
as an aside when trying to represent lovers in a the social/spiritual world how is the man returning victorious love ? the people all socially love him,, or if the was a priest spirtually love him.
you could show 3 wands to the side of each ,, as he walk towards his crown perhaps, or his woman. (there is a nice imagery of that in first knight with sean connery)

7 of wands.
you take your wand and hold off 6 other wands in some of fashion,, you are showing that you are not afraid.
you know though,, in any other image of this card,, they alwasys how a man defending or preparing to defend. there is a saying he who makes the first move usually loses,, just look at ben kenobie he made the stab at darth sword in a new hope and he lost, lol.
but i would say why not show a man with his wand charging 6 people with their wands who are appraoching him.

8 of wands
i like this imagery, nice and traditonal
about the eights wands in some fashion forming a contraption with a perrson flying in the air away from them as he was propelled by them.

9 of wands
i like this,,
how about have a flag of truce laying on the ground before the fence showing that he has refused to surrender.
also you could have the fence lowered a bit to show him a bit more and his wounds

10 of wands.
i already said in the sword that this imagery would work better for the 8 of swords over there.
the idea of ten of wands is you are able to handle all your burdens. hence it usually shows a person carrying 10 wands in some fashion.
how about having a globe with ten wands in them and a strong man lifting up that globe at the bottom.
ten wands in a perfect bundle being lifted up by a rope by a man with some fish inside.
you could even go to the big route of having jesus and the two men on crosses,, which means 6 wands, and 2 empty crosses behind him ..
he is ready to handle his burden.

page of wands.
i like this imagery,, i would make his whole body fire so he is fire on top of the wood. only for this card though.

queen of wands
I dont' like the face, nor the imagery,,
it doesn't show a social/spiritually noblem woman amoung her peers. or reversed the social political woman who could break you for her own uses.
you could have a woman of fire over the wand, talking to the masses.
you could have the woman on the platform on top of a burning wand like she was on pedestral

king of wands
i like the face,, you should know this would be fire in fire,, or a the most social charismastic man around,, he doens't care about money, but is a martye to his own ideals,,
a king arthur typek perhaps.. so the face fits,, the rest of the imagery doesn't . you could have him hold his wands up like he was that guy in the bible for people to give them strength.
you could have it hold it over his head like the monkey did in lion king before he jumped into battle.

knight of wands, a person usually charging forward into battle with his wand. most cards alwasy show the knights moving. as they were the strength ,, and even now are the strenght of society (and woman )
you could have a female night here, you know ,, you could have it be joan of arch with her banner,as she prefered her banner and was her symbol.
my favourite imagery is lancelot resting in a forest so perhaps you could have him resting behind a big tree which is on fire as it is the wand.

 

[HOLMES]

hello there ethan

before i go onto a look at the majors,,
i just wanted to ask that you spend as much time as the minors as you do the major and your deck will be awesome. also to complete it soon,, i been following this deck since i first heard of it and every time i hear about it,, i hope to hear it will soon be published ehe, and here it is you are still reworking the majors. as the pope said to michelango in the agony and the ecstasy.. "to work my son ". eheh
it might see that i go with the chakra colours,, red for strength, passion, orange for creative, yellow for willpower, green for love, and abuadance.. blue for peace and expression of truth, indigo for psychic, and violet for mystic spirituality.
also " Don't worry, I'll still be putting my unique spin on things. I'll certainly consider all the feedback I receive and work in some ideas that strengthen my own, but I promise I'll still enrage some people by going totally off the wall on some of them"
if you were going to do this,, now is the time in the majors

0. the fool
I would say here that you could let go of the imagery of the medivil and go with the modern interpration of such things.
example you could show the fool cliff driving,,getting ready to jump off a building with a glider. of course that would be a person being foolish enjoying life..
and missing the crazyiness of the fool who does this things because of faith and because he must as the dog drove him to do it. now of course changes have happed so the fool becoms a protector and guide and not a driver.
of course who says it has to be a dog,, it could be a unicorn as it is white and would be a good protector that only a fool could see.
the bag he carries with him could be his parachute as he leeps like he took a running leap.
in a book by dave duncan on the 7 swordmans, you had to take a leap of faith to survive or get killed and tossed over. and if you didn't live well then it wasn't meant to be. in that case,, it wasnt' god but society that made him leap for he was falsey accused.

consider this ..a woman turns her back and leaps back into the water , or into the air bag below which doens't have to be shown..
it is her passion for her art that has her doing this,, she must or in her heart she will feel as if she has died for she isnt' able to do what her hearts says it must.. and in the eyes of the creator it is good.

as is though,,
the dog and the background colour could use work,, is it night when he leaps, or is it day and the sun is shining ? my only other thing is his face. he doens't look crazed, determined or like he has faith. he just looks like he is saying here i go, and even stoic.

i just had an idea,, you could put that rose in his bag in his mouth so he is leaping off to get ready to meet his lover a fool in love is still a fool

1. magican
I like it,, just the background could be redone so it is in a dark room , or detailed medvial alchemey room.
i would look at this card and understand it perfectly as well as i could understand the magican anyways at this time and point.

2. high priestress
to be truthful I liked the first imagery of the high priestress with her and her stick, and her colours. see the high priestress was supposed to be an anology for pope joan.. but has been transformed for many to not only be the equivlent of the hieorophant but also the embodient of the female aspect of high priest.
that would be druidess, the shamanic witch doctores, the medicine woman, and in today modern world the psychic woman.

as it is,,
since you took off the those things floating above her,, she no longer has any readin got look in that directions with her eyes..
you could have her looking at the moon on the string.
personally since you have the moon in the background and it is beutiful, you can take off the moon on the string.
you could also have the toroh be changed to "CRAFT" or even "tarot" "astrology"
now that you have an understanding of the theme of the high priestress now you can venture forth while keeping the main things about the high priestress with you..
aka she understand black and white and live in the world of grey,, she is highly studied, she understand the cycles of the moon, she knows mysteries like how herbs grow, how to deal with spirits that the christian priest of the past doenst' know.

3. emperess
i liked the first imagery and i like the last as well.
here is what i would do,, take the rocok , and put the wheat and have it moving life like from the second in there,, and have it shown that it is her water that is keeping the fields fertalized.
I liked that you don't have her being pregant so her fact could look a stern mother, or a loving mother. to help you out further.

she is gia,,she is the earth mother,,
and in application, she is the rules of nature that can't be changed so you have to live with them , respect them, it is for this reason that people would leave a hunting area before all the animals were killed, and before all the nutrients in the ground were changed.. til they found out about changing crops and such.
but looking at her as a queen equal to the emperor,,she is about femine rule and not usually about ruling with an ironfisted rule.
if you looked at the alice in the wonderland movie with tim burton,, she would be the white queen, but here of course her colour would be green.

4. the emperor
I like that imagery (it could easily be used for king of swords though ) .

the emperor made the rules, and he was always busy,, that is why most tarot show the emperor as posing for that is the only time he was allowed to rest as he thinks about ruling the kingdom in a fair manner.
i would like the empero moved over so he is the centered in the photo, and the yellow here would represent his will power, so it is good.
on top of his head you could put the helmet of a ram to keep with aries the ram. though i think his armour could colour to show he has the best armour in the kingdoms while keeping the yellowbackground.
perhaps you can show somehow the yellow is coming from his solour plexus ,, i am not sure how that would work..
i do look forward to a further edition though

5. the hierophant
i don't mind the imagery if you are going for a pope image, you could show a kindly old man, crazy old man who has gone senile, or a old man with youngish features as he is still in full control of his faculities and determined.

the heerophant teaches the laws as put forth by the king , but also laws as determined by the group of clergy and in a way their hands are tied by the dogma that has come forth. as a result newer ways are emphasized, while older ways and old history is deemphasized.
you could have him as moses reading the stone tablets, jesus reading the torah,, a channell trying to each the ascended masters.
in a way a person who has become a professor of relgion is a heirophant.

I would say though it is time to mix the colours,, the same colour for a deck worked ok for me in the minors,, but i liked the way you redid the magican and the emperess to show differnt colours so i can't wait til see what you come up with here.

6. lovers

lovers besides being a union of the body, ( which if it was just that,, it could be just sex eheh ) is about choice of love,,
in the old marsilles it shows a person torn between his duty to mother and his love for his lover, or a person choosing between his possible arranged marriage to an older lady for estate and a young mistress.
so it is about the choice to love.
there is an image in my mindi wouldnt' seeing,, lovers embracing so much in love they have tears of joy in their eyes.

7. chariot
i like your chariot,, just have to move the horses together side by side,, and perhaps show more speed.
alternatively most tarot show the chariot stopping as if he was trying to decide who to give the message to, or where to go first for efficency purposes.
now if your minors are going to have all 7 doing something active then it stands to reason that your chariot should be ride like the world is going to end if he isnt' going to get there.

 

[HOLMES]

8 the strength card

the old images had hercules killing a lion,, and the new image had a lady taming the lion with her kindness..
so it went from outer to inner strength.
I like this image,, but it would be more suitable to a knight card as i dont' get a sense of strength on this card although there is a lion on the card.

perhaps have the man stick his head in the lion mouth,, or have him pull the lion by the tail as the lion sit lazily,
alternatively they always someone with the lion,, why not just show the lion image over the figure.. aka he would be conan as that was his spirit portorayed in many comics.
"The Man Amra is a Hero, a Warrior, and a Lion.
He is sweet, but can be very edgy and tempermental."
also kull was portrayed having a tiger spirit.

which is something we native american or anisabhe believe that we all have an ammal spirit within us aka it is our clan.. mine is a moose.

so it would take a lot of inner strength and outer strength as obiviously conan the barbian was big and tall and fast and the emodiment of a warrior as seen in his comics.

9. the hermit
this is one of the cards that really attracted me to your deck,
just my friend at the time said why is the hermit scared looking.

so perhaps you change him as calling you forward , as being i don't know serene with his lamp..
for me it is still a powerful image and doesn't a lot of stuff added to it, though now it is 2010 i would love to see how you change it.
i think you could do much to it just don't change the lighting as it really appears hermit to me as he might appear showing up in the middle of the night in the old ways before flashlights.

10. wheel of fortune..

good imagery myself i like it,,
the wheel of fortune represents time,, there is a beginning, a prime, a decline, and a new beginning as it cmes to recairnation.
it of course represnt luck as well and so it was good to have it turned upright , with that in mind..
with the deeper teaching it could also mean that time is on our side,, yes it is. (i just that tune come into my head ).
in a way it shows that societies over time have had their run,, and of course people like boxers..
then you have people like clint eastwood who the wheel of fortune keep turning.

i thin that the forces you have outside the wheel of fortune could change to represent that which affect time aka the wheel to bring us down which are forces beyond our control.
also sometimes no matter what they try,, we can with time on our side and wheel of fortune suceed anywasy using our brians, talents and knowledge.
example the training of seabiscuit gave them the edge to beat the other horse.

11. justice
I like this card,, i would just change her hand to pointing at the person as the things above her head is her mental scales is how i would see it, and perhaps she has the sword above her head in the other hand ready to deal justice.
justice is blind in the sense that it can be corrupt..
but the true ideal is that justice being blind will treat the king relatives as the same as the peasants.
reversed means that it is turns blind to favour those in power and doesn't do its just job.

12. the hanged man..

turn him around, drop the ropes from his feet.
conversely you could have him feeling peace as the light saber can be seen in the snow as he reaches for it,, you could show the light saber coming up of the snow. but since we don't know if we can get star wars right, you can have him using his psychic powers to bring the sword up
but let see here, hanging upside down , he is at peace for the moment,,seeing things upside down.
you could even show a person hanging upside down in those contraptions which they hang from their feet as it has health benefits or something like that.
ohh what would be interesting is as he hangs ,, he dropped his coffe cup, his gold, his cigeretts, his food..
those are the things he sacfrices for his wisdom.
you could even take the gory route , change it to excution, and have people hanging from a tree with a blind fold on..

i am curious where you take this myself when you redo this card.

13. death card

so the hanged man has hung from the tree long enough..
if he was executed now he is in death arms ..
but more spiritual loook at the tarot says the hanged man (and going with this motiff, the hanged man shows the image from a man called horse where the man is hung by his breasts on two ropes ) hangs to let go of his old self.
and now the death card has come there is a saying to be a shaman you have to die once and live twice.

there are many ways to look at death,, it is nice and gradual and natural. or it is sudden.
it is symbolic like if i loss a job,, i faced a symbolic death,, or more literal but still symbolic,, i lost friends but they didnt' die..
to more literal one could loose freinds in life,,
but in death they would be still be our freinds.
to old ben kenobie "you can strike me down but i will become more powerful then you could possibly imagine "

with the cross on his back, and the way he looks , i think you went for a crufixation ablieft a non jesus one so the guy actually died and didn't come back..
or you did go for a jesus look and he did croack but because death is rebirth,, he is due to come back.

one thing that people forget is most show various people ,, which means death come for us all , kings, peasants, innocents, guilty.
and all that we can do is embrace death in our own way, like some worship death, some try to deny it, some embrace it, and some say big deal .

the white rose usually symbolises that it has no evil intention, the book incarnation of fate tries to show through its book that it is just a person doing it job. so when it comes for the young and old, it just going where it is sent.
the angel of death therefore wants no one to die, and no one to live, but only focuses on its order, and at any given time that order can be change.
these orders for the most part are set forth according to soul contracts.
the green mile can be longer for some then others (the idea from the green mile movie )

no one ever shows a spirit when it is released from the body as least right now if memory serves.. and that in itself could be many things a spirit can look at the body and say oh no, oh crap,, or what is that music as it is called upwards.
well i hope this part helps you in your redoing of this card.

14. temperance
interesting archtype image here.
if you are going ot keep this imagery i would change the purple gloves to look more like various planets..
you could show ghostly godly hands changes cosmos around , aka those clams looking things could be changed into galaxies . and the message would be
to create life in the galaxy took perfect balancing of all the elements,, and such a balance could be duplicated elsehwere..
we don't know it is done,, we can only marvel as we watch it being done.

to be more surreal,, temperance is about temperering the sword to get it prepared..
and to get the potion just right by mixing the elements,, accordingly the five element which is the center element.

looking at this a difffernt level after we die and suppodely when we go into the light we review our lives, and measure how we did.
i am bringing this up for we are tempering ourselves for the next card.
the devil, or facing our own egos.

 

[HOLMES]

15. the devil

this one can be redone,, the wings are too big, he looks more like a gargolyle then an christian evil figure.
now there are many teachings behind the devil.
it is a fear card,, that which holds us back is fear,, and people fear going to hell, or displeasing god.
it is an addictiong card,, we are addicted to sex, to power, to money
it is time to break the chains but only we can do it,, only we have perhaps with the power of the light or the almighty which ever the personal case may be , to break the chain which hold us back.
the devil for me is the ego,, the little voice that tries to destroy us , to make us prideful, to hunger for more for we might not get no more.

you don't have to put the symbols of saturn in there, or even hellfire.
some make him as puckish, he might be a normal man just trying to offer you a little deal which compromises your morals and next thing you know you are compromising a lot more.
no one i think makes the devil a woman, but he was portrayed that way in the 1999 jesus movie becoming a woman or man at will.

i don't think people deal with the aspect of the fallen angel, or if he was sent or truly rebelled against god.
and perhaps the deepest hidden meaning of the devil is we are in some rebelling against god.
of course,, in the course in miracles, it is said we are dreaming and we created crazily for the creator created perfectly,, so we tried to be like it.
perhaps lucifer is that little thing within all us .

16. the tower

good imagery just take out one person,, and make them more symbolicaly perahps turn them into walstreet people a rich man and woman, and set the tower on fire.

that is what the tower is about,, sudden disaster, however the disaster is, the foundation was weak in the tower past a certain point so it has to be rebuilt. that is why most towers show the top only on fire, or being broken ..

we can embrace the tower and help knocked it down so we can rebuilt ,, or we can fight it all we can though the tower will fall upon us.

17. the star
change the sun looking star to a more star image..
the star can be looked up for guidance,, it gives hopes , it is a sun or something like that up there in the dark blinking for us.

i would like to see the imagery change a little so the lady is looking at the sun. also usually it shows a person with one foot in the earth and one in the water.. the reason for that i think or believe is that the person is ready physically and emotionally to recieve the guidance of the star.
yet no one looks at the star but at the star reflection in the water which makes me think that perhaps they get lost in false hopes or littlest of hopes instead of seeing the stars and "all that heavenly glory " (think bruce lee and how he slaps that guy head for he looks at hte finger )

the star was a hope for people in the underground railraod besides the star of bethelehem.
oh wouldn't it be cool to show a female alien coming out of her space ship to look at the star in the water as she puts healing waters into the earth and water. ?

18 the moon

i Like the moon imagery just make the moon more natural looking , (heck throw a cow jumping over it eheh ).

for me the moon is about the choices we have to make in the mysery of night, shall we go drink or shall we stay home and be good husbands.
it is about magic,, it is night and perhaps i can go hug her ,,or will i rebuff.(the dark end of the street song here )
you notice two towers int he moon oridarny,, they are the extreme good or extreme bad tower,, and the man walks the grey road down the middle.
you would think he would want the good road right ? the thing is ,, there can't be too much of a good thing, or it leads to the extreme negative tower.
example too much socializing can lead to too much partying,, and to much lovemaking can lead to lust.
also the moon cycles affect people a great deal, the moontime for woman,, the changing to wolfman..

i am not sure about the bird across the moon face.
if you could figure how to incoprate that mystery, and magic of choice here of taking the high road or low road that into this card while finetuning your imagery it would be cool.

19 the sun.
this imagery has to be changed.
i can't for the life of me see this as the sun not even if it was a dried out corpse in the sun. if i was reading with this card and saw it ,, i would only think that you were going for the stay out of the sun message or too much sun can create skin cancer.
alternatively i think you were going for a wood man who loves the sun for it brings him life.

the sun is about the love of the creator being reflected in the sun.. if the s un is above you,, you are blessed and those who are not afraid of the creator goes into the sun.
that is why you see the innocent child on the horse for it shows a time when we were innocent and the l ove of the creator can make us innocent again.
the horse allow an child to ride him could be a time of myth where animals did the bidding of man in the garden of eden. "fear no darkness " especially within yourself

20. judgement.

I love that imagery,, you could take out the hell aspect and make the angel bigger and the souls closer up as they go to the light.
it would depend on your belief though ethan as a tarot artist.

the teaching many of us is, there is no hell, there is an underworld where many are lost until they recieve the call of judgement here so they can let go of their fear and their past desires and go into the light.
that is why the horn has the healing symbol of it, as every soul is healed , murders, rapists. that is why mediums today ask all spirits to go into the light.

in a way it is the ultimate forgival of sins and karma for it happens after the spirit is freed from the body and realizes it was all just a dream , which they can go into again to do better.

 

[HOLMES]

the world and last advice

21. the world

I love this card,, it shows how tiny it is among the cosmos.
the spiralling around the world i think shows the spirits as they ascended to their creator selves.
the only thing i would add in here if you could figure a way is incarnation,and recarination.

in the inner child cards they showed a big baby besides the world but that woldn't work here.

how about a brunc of souls heading to earth as lights to various places from the aura of spirits around earth. while keeping the big colours mass of souls.

-----

i was going to suggest to leave the majors around for now, as for the most part they are good.

you know the minors need the most work and i think if you started here and got halfway done here,, you would be happy and feel more easier to get into finishing the deck.

although i like the black and colour imagery,,
if you are going to add fine detail ,, it would ask that they equal your work on the magican.otherwise your deck won't be harmonized.

 

[EthanJamesPetty]

I've uploaded the work-in-progress Emperor. Not too much has changed, but obviously the hands and the staff are still "to do." Does anyone think working in an eagle theme would be overkill here? I was thinking about either adding it to the staff or some sort of faint image in the yellow background:

http://deckofthedreamers.com/

 

[rwcarter]

Depending on how you do a background image, the eagle may just become "a bird." Perched on the Emperor's right shoulder might work. (I say right because to place it on his left shoulder would make that side of the card really heavy. I think it would also get lost on the staff.

Rodney