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Hello all,

We are currently designing the Three Kingdoms Playing Cards!
Our Three Kingdoms deck is inspired by the fiction novel "Romance of the Three Kingdom". We find the story fascinating and extremely interesting.

We appreciate every feedback or comment! Thanks in advance!

Here are the Three Kingdoms Kings!
[UPDATED 04/19/19]

Here are the four Kings of this deck.
[UPDATED 05/05/19]


After adjusting and revising some details, I've finalized the Queen of Spade, Diao Chan. Here are what I've done after the initial draft:

1. I decided to substitute the gold gradient to more of a copper gradient. This includes the collar of the shirt as well as the border of the background pattern and the bigger spade. I plan to apply old foil toward the copper area!

2. I changed the 'Q' a little bit, but I am still not sure if it works. So please let me know!

Thank you!
[UPDATED 06/01/19]

I was a bit busy recently so I haven't posted an update. I've finished the Queen of Diamond, Zhen Ji.
Please let me know what you think!

Oh I love it! Always wished my Chinese was good enough to read that book lol. I’m sure others here will have better design feedback, but I just wanted to ask: would you consider making the background of the King of Hearts more red (maybe purple-y to differentiate it from the KoD?) I feel the blue and the green are better suited to the black suits.

Regardless, looking forward to more updates!

dawn wrote:Oh I love it! Always wished my Chinese was good enough to read that book lol. I’m sure others here will have better design feedback, but I just wanted to ask: would you consider making the background of the King of Hearts more red (maybe purple-y to differentiate it from the KoD?) I feel the blue and the green are better suited to the black suits.

Regardless, looking forward to more updates!

I've updated the hands of the two kings to make them larger and also added the King of Spade. I also changed the King of Heart to make it redder as suggested by @dawn.

This looks awesome!

Depending on the execution, printers, use of foil, this deck may be fantastic or it may be just another Chinese themed deck...

Magic Tapp wrote:Depending on the execution, printers, use of foil, this deck may be fantastic or it may be just another Chinese themed deck...

At this moment, we are deciding between USPCC or LPCC/EPCC. If USPCC, we are also debating between normal or Bicycle. About the use of foil, we are planning to use it on the gold color. Do you have any recommendation? Thank you in advance!

asieplayingcardsco wrote:[At this moment, we are deciding between USPCC or LPCC/EPCC. If USPCC, we are also debating between normal or Bicycle. About the use of foil, we are planning to use it on the gold color. Do you have any recommendation? Thank you in advance!

Thank you for engaging with us - we can be a critical bunch but my feel is that creators who do listen to the comments and suggestions here generally come up with a better deck proposition. In terms of your deck, in my view, I would get rid of the ivory/beige background and do a white one instead. In terms of foil, yes using it on gold elements of art would definitely help but I would also consider adding foil to the back (btw, it would be helpful to see a render of the back and the tuck at some point).

Printer-wise, try and see if you can reach an acceptable price point with USPCC but if not LPCC (their Taiwan printer and not the mainland China one) may be a good fallback option.

These would be my two cents.

I would like to see more of this deck as well. It is hard to make too many suggestions for the amount shown.

I would look into what other color foils would go with your design. This is just my personal tastes, but I would rather pretty much anything over gold foil. Copper>color>silver>gold. I don't like gold color as much as the others and I think it is a little overused. I understand its significance as far as value and luxury, but as we aren't buying real gold I would prefer another color.

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Magic Tapp wrote:

asieplayingcardsco wrote:[At this moment, we are deciding between USPCC or LPCC/EPCC. If USPCC, we are also debating between normal or Bicycle. About the use of foil, we are planning to use it on the gold color. Do you have any recommendation? Thank you in advance!

Thank you for engaging with us - we can be a critical bunch but my feel is that creators who do listen to the comments and suggestions here generally come up with a better deck proposition. In terms of your deck, in my view, I would get rid of the ivory/beige background and do a white one instead. In terms of foil, yes using it on gold elements of art would definitely help but I would also consider adding foil to the back (btw, it would be helpful to see a render of the back and the tuck at some point).

Printer-wise, try and see if you can reach an acceptable price point with USPCC but if not LPCC (their Taiwan printer and not the mainland China one) may be a good fallback option.

These would be my two cents.

I just got in touch with the USPCC, and it is unfortunate that they do not have an option to do any foiling on the front of the card. My other option, if I am still going through with USPCC, is to have my cards printed with metallic ink. However, from my understanding, metallic ink is just sheen, but not shiny. About the background color, I have tried white color and vintage-effect paper, but something doesn't feel right to me, so I ended up with this color. I would like it to kinda resemble the paper that was used back in the time.

Right now, the Queen of Spade is in progress. I believe the back and the tuck design will be out after the court cards, the aces, and the Jokers are done.

Thank you for your suggestion nevertheless. I hope you will come back when I post an update about the deck!

Looks like something i'd back

As I said on Reddit, I'm liking what I see. The other ladies and gentlemen here can and will give much better advice and constructive criticism than I can offer.

Currently sketching the Queens. Here is the sketch of the Queen of Club! At this rate, I will probably finish the whole deck in a couple of months. Hopefully, I can launch my Kickstarter project in mid-June, but I will need to make sure to have everything on point and good to go.

Also, after consulting with USPCC and EPCC, I am inclined to go with the EPCC as they have an option to do cold foiling in both the front and the back of the card. I might also consider doing a numbered seal for this. However, I am not so sure if I should go with 1,000 or 2,500 decks.

Anyway, thanks in advance for any feedback or comment!

P.S. I will be posting short stories about the Romance of the Three Kingdoms on my Instagram posts. The stories will include the summary of the period, the summary of the characters that are being used in this collection with the picture of the mock cards, and related information. I hope you will find it enjoyable!

I like the art I see so far.

My own personal suggestion and preference is no seal on the tuck. I understand many do like a seal. I would refer you to the comments section of the current KS campaign for the Parlour deck. There was some passionate discussion there from both sides.

I think TGW and Lorenzo came up with a very good and equitable solution for both parties in the seal debate. A decal that can be numbered and placed ine the bottom of the deck. There are pictures of the seal on the campaign and in the latest update.

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I have finished coloring the Queen of Spade, Diao Chan. Please let me know what you think about her so that I may be able to fix her accordingly!

This is what I have in my mind.

1. The hands. I am not sure if 4 hands is a good idea here.
2. I might put a gold frame around the background pattern so that the space between the spade and the background pattern is reduced.


Thank you everyone in advance!

I like it. I really like the shading and the patterns in the clothing. The line work is fairly simple in detail but it works. The 4 hands didn't really stick out to me.

The only thing I dont really care for is the typeface or the hand drawn looking Q. Kind of looks like a crayon Q and doesn't fit.

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After adjusting and revising some details, I've finalized the Queen of Spade. Here are what I've done after the initial draft:

1. I decided to substitute the gold gradient to more of a copper gradient. This includes the collar of the shirt as well as the border of the background pattern and the bigger spade. I plan to apply old foil toward the copper area!

2. I changed the 'Q' a little bit, but I am still not sure if it works. So please let me know!

Thank you!

STLBluesNut wrote:I like it. I really like the shading and the patterns in the clothing. The line work is fairly simple in detail but it works. The 4 hands didn't really stick out to me.

The only thing I dont really care for is the typeface or the hand drawn looking Q. Kind of looks like a crayon Q and doesn't fit.

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Thank you for your input. I've updated the alphabet Q and not sure if it is better. Please let me know!

I am not an artist, illustrator or graphic designer so I probably cannot put into words what I am thinking very technically or well.

If I look at the K on the kings, it looks like it fits. It has an Asian look or style to it. Even on the new Q, it kind of look Medieval or maybe old English or something. I'm not sure how to describe it or suggest something different.

I still love the art though!

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Something like this maybe: https://lettergenerator.net/domain/lett ... -q.jpg?v=2" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Also not a graphic designer, but I find that all “Asian” calligraphic fonts for Roman alphabet letters tend to remind me of tourist trinkets and cheap takeaway restaurants. I’d almost prefer a plainer (if that’s the right word) font that is less noticeable and doesn’t add anything positive or negative. That said, if @asie wants to use a calligraphic font, I think the original K & Q looked fine. The modification makes them look a bit out of step.

STLBluesNut wrote:I am not an artist, illustrator or graphic designer so I probably cannot put into words what I am thinking very technically or well.

If I look at the K on the kings, it looks like it fits. It has an Asian look or style to it. Even on the new Q, it kind of look Medieval or maybe old English or something. I'm not sure how to describe it or suggest something different.

I still love the art though!

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I actually tried most Qs, but it just doesn't sit right... any of them. Square, round, kinda-round... didn't work. So I think I might be sticking with the first Q until I can actually find the right one, if I can find one. Thank you!

masagin303 wrote:Something like this maybe

I tried that, but it actually looks out of place when being put together I will keep designing the letter Q until I find one that is more synced though. Thank you for your suggestion!

dawn wrote:Also not a graphic designer, but I find that all “Asian” calligraphic fonts for Roman alphabet letters tend to remind me of tourist trinkets and cheap takeaway restaurants. I’d almost prefer a plainer (if that’s the right word) font that is less noticeable and doesn’t add anything positive or negative. That said, if @asie wants to use a calligraphic font, I think the original K & Q looked fine. The modification makes them look a bit out of step.

That's what I'm thinking. I will try to find the right one though. Thank you for your input!

You might consider playing around with seal script when designing the indices. Although relegated to a decorative role, it would still have been in use at the time The Romance of the Three Kingdoms is set, so it's historically and thematically appropriate without looking like you got it off a Chinese takeout container. The radicals (basic shapes) of seal script can give you a general overview of the shapes used. The Chinese Wikipedia page for seal script has a section showing seal forms alongside their modern forms; in particular, I think if you look at the seal form for 止 (middle of the last row on my screen), some ideas for Q might suggest themselves.

Merlebird wrote:You might consider playing around with seal script when designing the indices. Although relegated to a decorative role, it would still have been in use at the time The Romance of the Three Kingdoms is set, so it's historically and thematically appropriate without looking like you got it off a Chinese takeout container. The radicals (basic shapes) of seal script can give you a general overview of the shapes used. The Chinese Wikipedia page for seal script has a section showing seal forms alongside their modern forms; in particular, I think if you look at the seal form for 止 (middle of the last row on my screen), some ideas for Q might suggest themselves.

Hello there,

Thank you for your advice. I actually used the character of water for the K (水) I took the right part of the character to make the K. However, for the Q, the closet is 已, which I've tried to play with, but can't make it fits the whole theme yet. However, if I use the seal script, it would leave the Q out of place as I can't seem to find the fitting script for the K and J. I'd look more into this and see what I can do. Thank you again!

asieplayingcardsco wrote:I actually used the character of water for the K (水) I took the right part of the character to make the K.

Oh, I see it now. The third stroke of my 水 (the top leg of your K) always comes out closer to horizontal so I didn't recognize it. My handwriting is terrible

asieplayingcardsco wrote:However, if I use the seal script, it would leave the Q out of place as I can't seem to find the fitting script for the K and J.

The site I generally use to look up cursive and seal script forms of characters is called Moji Kakudai (jp). It's in Japanese, but I think the interface is straightforward enough that non-speakers can figure it out: just copy-paste the character you want to look up in the bar at the top (検索 = Search). It hasn't shown the seal form for every character I've looked up, but it has enough of them that you can generally use the forms of similar characters it does show to derive the ones it doesn't (by mixing and matching radicals as necessary). The Moji Kakudai entry for 水 shows this seal form:



It's workable, but not ideal, I think. For the K I would probably start with the rightmost portion of the seal script for 林:



One of the characters from the table of seal script radicals I posted earlier (eighth row, seventh from the right) jumps out for the J. It's not a commonly used character in Japanese so Kakudai Moji unfortunately doesn't have much on it, but you can get a better look at a seal script form on the Wiktionary entry for 丂.

For A I think a radical form of 口 would work great. Here it is as seen in 品:



If you think the angle is worth pursuing I can help you look for suitable models for the numbers as well. If you'd still prefer to use brush script, that's understandable - it gives a different aesthetic which you might prefer - but there are basically no highly curved or circular shapes in brush calligraphy so I think the Q and 0, in particular, will cause you problems. Best of luck to you either way!

EDIT: The embedded images seem to like to break for whatever reason, so it's probably better to just go to Kakudai Moji directly, since that's where they're hosted. I fixed them (I think) but they'll probably break again.

I always see the third stroke of 水 as being short and not reaching the top of the first stroke, so I also didn’t notice at first - but I think it’s a clever idea!

Merlebird’s ideas about a seal script are quite interesting, but if you stick to a brush script I think it might look nicer if you use square shapes for the round characters (turning a 0 into a 口, basically). I’ve also seen calligraphic renditions of characters like 见 which could be tolerably manipulated into a Q.

The other thing if you keep the brush font - it might be nice to have them look more brushstroke-like (“streaky” at the ends if you know what I mean”), although I know the indices are pretty small.

Sorry if this all feels like nitpicking, I still like the art and am generally excited for more progress

I was a bit busy recently so I haven't posted an update. I've finished the Queen of Diamond, Zhen Ji.
I've also attached the sketch of Sun Ren (Lady Sun), the Queen of Club!

Please let me know what you think!

I like both of those.

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