A Christmas Carol

Designing a deck? Need input? Show us here!
James Johnson
Member
Member
Posts: 98
Joined: Tue Jul 02, 2019 6:26 am
Has thanked: 61 times
Been thanked: 135 times

A Christmas Carol

Unread post by James Johnson »

Because it’s my favorite book of all time, and not sure if there has been A Christmas Carol deck created before (at least I haven’t seen one), I’m thinking about that being my next project for 2021.

I would be creating it in a period art style (either pen and ink with watercolor tinting or soft realism like the piece I created below of Evelyn Nesbit) with

Ace of Clubs ....Ghost of Jacob Marley
Ace of Diamonds.... Ghost of Christmas Past
Ace of Hearts.... Ghost of Christmas Present
Ace of Spades...Ghost of Christmas Yet to come

King of Spades...Scrooge
Queen of Spades...Fan
Jack of a Spades...Fred

King of Clubs...Fezziwig
Queen of Clubs...Belle
Jack of Clubs...Young Jacob Marley

King of Hearts...Bob Crachet
Queen of Hearts...Mrs Crachet
Jack of Hearts...Tiny Tim

King of Diamonds...The Portly Gentlemen
Queen of Diamonds...Mrs. Dilber
Jack of Diamonds...old Joe

Does anyone know if there is A Christmas Carol deck out there already? If not, I will be reaching out to the Charles Dickens Museum in London for their feedback to make this something extra special.
BA3FBC9C-83CE-4A95-BDBB-4F61546AA09D.jpeg
User avatar
BaconWise
Member
Member
Posts: 1542
Joined: Mon Jan 21, 2019 11:58 am
Collector: Yes
Player: Yes
White Whale: Gold Arabesque
Decks Owned: 225
Has thanked: 2607 times
Been thanked: 1303 times

Re: A Christmas Carol

Unread post by BaconWise »

This sounds like a fantastic idea. The only related project I could find is a standard deck on Zazzle: https://www.zazzle.com/ghost_of_christm ... 2376030243
Scrooge Deck.jpg


Regardless, go for it and give us the custom Christmas Carol deck we deserve! Go full-Dickens!
"But why male models?"

Curio Playing Cards

Web: www.curioplayingcards.com
Instagram: @curio_playingcards
Facebook: Curio Playing Cards
User avatar
Plan52
Member
Member
Posts: 71
Joined: Thu Sep 17, 2020 5:16 am
Has thanked: 75 times
Been thanked: 35 times
Contact:

Re: A Christmas Carol

Unread post by Plan52 »

+1
Sounds like a great theme and I woud love to see it.

I think this is the same as the one BaconWise found on zazzle:
https://www.amazon.com/Cartamundi-Chris ... B075TD43L6
User avatar
RichK
Member
Member
Posts: 1797
Joined: Tue Nov 17, 2015 12:06 pm
Collector: Yes
Decks Owned: 250
Has thanked: 791 times
Been thanked: 447 times

Re: A Christmas Carol

Unread post by RichK »

+1 here.
Move on, nothing to see here.
User avatar
QEDPlayingCards
Deck Artist
Deck Artist
Posts: 11
Joined: Sun Sep 01, 2019 2:35 pm
Collector: Yes
Player: Yes
Has thanked: 4 times
Been thanked: 5 times

Re: A Christmas Carol

Unread post by QEDPlayingCards »

Agreed, this sounds awesome!
User avatar
Elettra
Member
Member
Posts: 30
Joined: Sun Jun 28, 2020 10:03 am
Location: Italia
Has thanked: 75 times
Been thanked: 35 times

Re: A Christmas Carol

Unread post by Elettra »

A Christmas Carol would be such an awesome theme! I love this idea so much.
Are you sure about the style? Any draft?
James Johnson
Member
Member
Posts: 98
Joined: Tue Jul 02, 2019 6:26 am
Has thanked: 61 times
Been thanked: 135 times

Re: A Christmas Carol

Unread post by James Johnson »

I have 2 different options to go for, hoping to hear back from the Dickens Museum for any suggestions or guidance to try to make it feel very authentic for the period.

The way I’m leaning at the moment is to make the images look like 1840 photographs of what would be the actual people in the story instead of strictly illustrated images of that look and era, could be fun, lol.
James Johnson
Member
Member
Posts: 98
Joined: Tue Jul 02, 2019 6:26 am
Has thanked: 61 times
Been thanked: 135 times

Re: A Christmas Carol

Unread post by James Johnson »

A quick update.... VERY EXCITED to tell everyone I reached out to the Museum and they will be assisting me when I’m ready to make the cards happen!

Promise, the idea that I have in mind for the cards, tuck case, everything will be something extra special. Truly a dream project for me.

More to come on this front...
User avatar
Harvonsgard
Member
Member
Posts: 9764
Joined: Fri Mar 01, 2019 6:53 am
Cardist: Yes
Player: Yes
White Whale: Your Mami
Decks Owned: 420
Location: Paro
Has thanked: 1792 times
Been thanked: 4575 times

Re: A Christmas Carol

Unread post by Harvonsgard »

Awesome news indeed. Your level of execution is top notch, can't wait to see that deck to happen.
You want to reclaim your mind and get it out of the hands of the cultural engineers who want to turn you into a half-baked moron consuming all this trash that’s being manufactured out of the bones of a dying world.

avatar credit: 𝔗𝔥𝔢 𝔄𝔰𝔱𝔯𝔬𝔪𝔞𝔫𝔠𝔢𝔯 by Gands the Scholar @g_a_n_d_s_

rousselle wrote: Mon Jun 14, 2021 4:52 pmI very much want this in my collection, but at long last... I have to stop the insanity.
James Johnson
Member
Member
Posts: 98
Joined: Tue Jul 02, 2019 6:26 am
Has thanked: 61 times
Been thanked: 135 times

Re: A Christmas Carol

Unread post by James Johnson »

As some of you know, I have 3 different card decks in different states of production... (1) Broken Unicycle is complete and launching soon on Kickstarter, (2) The elegant but different fantasy card style deck I’ve spent 2 years on so far and am making quite a bit of progress on to hopefully launch late summer, and... (3) This dream project, A Christmas Carol themed deck that is being supported by the Charles Dickens Museum for help with images and suggestions to make this a very authentic deck.

Thought I would get you caught up a little on the behind the scenes...

I’ve sketched out a few roughs on the direction I plan on going, the look and style that I think is the best approach to what I want this to be. The characters must look 1843 London, literally have over 200 books of Victorian clothing, photography, furniture, interior design, housing and street scenes as well as reprints of newspapers in the earlier 1800’s to get a mental sense of not only how the society was at the time, but clues to events that can help me piece together what was happening during that part of Dickens life, for example, the burial courtyard in Edinburg where Dickens found the gravestone of “Ebenezer Lennox Scroggie” and was inspired to create the name of one of his most famous characters. The actual gravestone was removed in the 1930’s and no actual image of the real tombstone exists I can find, but studying the lettering and designs of similar gravemarkers, I can come up with as close to an approximation of what the original tombstone might look like.

Overkill? You bet, and I’ll love everything about working on this😊

Oh, and as a little side note, I have something extremely crazy planned for this project! I have done this before for a “prove to myself project” and how weird my brain is wired, should be able to do for the deck.

Don’t want to give too much away right now, but the image attached should give you an idea what I want to do.

Each time I create a deck of cards, I hope I can make something that doesn’t exist before for the card lovers and for those that just enjoy something different. I could be wrong but I dont think this idea of mine exists yet so very excited to bring it to life!
D988001F-61D6-4CC5-8C50-32CB0A39F5A2.jpeg
D988001F-61D6-4CC5-8C50-32CB0A39F5A2.jpeg (12.26 KiB) Viewed 1642 times
nur1988
Member
Member
Posts: 142
Joined: Fri Jan 04, 2013 5:42 pm
Has thanked: 23 times
Been thanked: 25 times

Re: A Christmas Carol

Unread post by nur1988 »

This is looking awesome. Love the detail in the work
It is probably worth mentioning, however, that Jackson Robinson of KWP will be doing a Christmas Carol deck for December subscription he has
James Johnson
Member
Member
Posts: 98
Joined: Tue Jul 02, 2019 6:26 am
Has thanked: 61 times
Been thanked: 135 times

Re: A Christmas Carol

Unread post by James Johnson »

nur1988 wrote: Sun Jan 24, 2021 11:39 am This is looking awesome. Love the detail in the work
It is probably worth mentioning, however, that Jackson Robinson of KWP will be doing a Christmas Carol deck for December subscription he has
That should be fun to see what Jackson has planned, love the style he has going with the scratch board ink look like the LOTR and Sherlock. To me, it only makes sense that with his company he’s building a series of decks based off of famous literature and their characters that A Christmas Carol should be one of the decks to make. Very excited to see what he comes up with. And with Jackson creating it on his own, I can’t wait to see what his take on the subject will be.

Only thing I’ll have to make sure of is to not buy too many of them when he publishes them!😊

With what I have planned, it probably will take me 1 year plus to make ( so there won’t be a competing launch date happening, glad about that).There will end up being, offhand guess, 76 cards in the deck... a VERY special deck for sure. I do have plans to show off both the finished Scrooge and Marley cards during the fall to start getting people excited about my version of the cards, and as I am tied to the Dickens Museum in a way with the project, I want to have their blessings as well as some of the Dickens direct descendants as the project progresses, so that will also slow things down a tad bit if I need to change things or what not, but if things go to plan, the Museum will be carrying the deck to sell and with their support behind it, the publicity will help promote the deck to the general public, fingers crossed.
Post Reply

Who is online

Users browsing this forum: No registered users and 1 guest