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I've been toying with the idea to make a custom deck for the past few months, as it sits now I've roughs of all the court and the King of Diamond about 80% finished. Stumbling across this site from a KS browsing session I figured I might could post here to get some feedback and, hopefully, encouragement to devote more time to the project.

The is done on 5x7" scratchboard, with a quickie digital flip.

Woah that looks kickass! Nice work!

One thing I would prefer would be much larger horns on the helmet. They look a bit dainty.

Looks awesome I love how the arms work both ways (if you know what I mean), without checking I don't think many custom courts pull that off.

Can you tell us more about the theme you have in mind? I'm guessing viking or medieval.

MagikFingerz wrote:I love how the arms work both ways (if you know what I mean), without checking I don't think many custom courts pull that off.

Coincidence? I think not!

Brilliant work ! Cant wait to see more !

Looks really good! I also like how you did the arm with the axe. Nice work

You made a great job !

Something disturb me a bit. But, for the moment, I am not able to put my finger on the details which disturb me. Perhaps with the whole card I can express this. I feel this is a matter of ratio...

Thanks, all of you

Yeah, Eoghann, that last 20% will probably involve making the horns a bit larger. Not a tremendous amount, most real examples of horned helmets I found had relatively modestly sized horns- If you can use that word to describe a helmet with fricking horns sticking out of it, and, due to the horns projecting forward, physics enters in to the picture if they get too large.

MF, the theme, if it happens, will be "low" fantasy. So anatomies that make sense, weapons of practical size, women wearing armor that protects more than just their nipples, etc. This fella is meant as a dwarf, Spades are elves, Clubs are goblins, and Hearts are orcs. Although I am thinking of giving each suit a sub-suit in the off chance that I make more than one deck in the same series. Diamonds - Anvils, Spades - Leaves/Arrowheads, Clubs - Scales, Hearts - Hearts - wait, what? Maybe that should be Viscera.

The twin suits is part of my original plan, or maybe pipe dream is a better term, to have a series of decks that can be mixed together but still be used to play normal card games. Another goal is to keep all of the details of the French deck that card nicknames are derived from: one eye for the King of Diamonds, for example, and keeping the King of Hearts the Suicide King.

Love the style - and the depth of thought in the design (arms!) is fantastic!

If there's any criticism at all it's that the texture of the shaft of the axe makes the design subtley one-way.

The twin suits is part of my original plan, or maybe pipe dream is a better term, to have a series of decks that can be mixed together but still be used to play normal card games. Another goal is to keep all of the details of the French deck that card nicknames are derived from: one eye for the King of Diamonds, for example, and keeping the King of Hearts the Suicide King.

People will love you for this!

Absolutely adjusted within the realm of reality. I'm not suggesting JRPG style super armor.

I like your theme, hope to see more of it soon. I love how you'll design the characters according to their history.

Thanks, MCJ, for the kind words and the feedback. Thankfully that flatness in the axe haft is just an artifact of the 5 minutes I spent in GIMP mirroring the image, I just made one dominant rather than bending and transitioning the two to give it a sense of depth.

Love me for the nickname preservation or the deck mixing?

Eoghann wrote:Absolutely adjusted within the realm of reality. I'm not suggesting JRPG style super armor.

I like your theme, hope to see more of it soon. I love how you'll design the characters according to their history.

Cool, I'm no fan of that aesthetic, and I think it is fairly well represented already, so no need for me to add my own interpretation to the mix.

Thanks! I get pretty caught up on technical details, which is why I shied away from doing a medieval theme, I'd have to do hundreds of hours of research to get the all of the gear correct. As it is now I spent a day researching and sketching armor, helmets, gauntlets, and axes to get the details down to my satisfaction.

Great work, Patrick!

Emmanuel wrote:Great work, Patrick!

No, Emmanuel, your work is great! I love that tattooed 7 of hearts; is all of your artwork used for the cards done as cut paper?

patrickrobles wrote:Thanks, MCJ, for the kind words and the feedback. Thankfully that flatness in the axe haft is just an artifact of the 5 minutes I spent in GIMP mirroring the image, I just made one dominant rather than bending and transitioning the two to give it a sense of depth.

Love me for the nickname preservation or the deck mixing?

Both, but particularly the preservation of French themes.

patrickrobles wrote:

Emmanuel wrote:Great work, Patrick!

No, Emmanuel, your work is great! I love that tattooed 7 of hearts; is all of your artwork used for the cards done as cut paper?

Thank you! Yes, it's all cut paper.

Intense work Patrick.
Are you keeping it dramatic black and white or will you be adding colour?

Hello,

I have found what's disturbed me in picture : it's the chest.
From my point of view, when, with your hand, you hide the figure at the buttom, the figure at the top looks good. But when you remove your hand, the figure's chest seems thinner than it would be.

I hope i'm clear : my english vocabulary is limited...

Both, but particularly the preservation of French themes.

Cool, honestly I would feel like I was cheating, or taking a shortcut, if I didn't. If this project happens, and I go on to another, I really want to do a deck inspired by all the games of la brisca I played growing up. Which I think would have to be done in colour to do the Latin deck justice...

Which brings me to Dazzleguts's question: I'll almost certainly be keeping this project B&W, and save colour for a project with a different feel.

Thanks, Lolo, for pointing that out. I remember that bugging me briefly, then that thought getting washed away by how pleased I was with how well the flipped arms worked. I have 3 ideas on how to fix it, but they might end up making the middle area too "noisy" or making him look like he has some beefy love-handles. I'd hoped that offsetting the diamond a bit would help, as it suggests that his torso is rotated and thus not as wide as it would be when viewed from straight on.

Also, looking for a little feedback on the King of Hearts. My original idea was to do away with the sword "through"the head and satisfy the Suicide King monicker by way of the ambiguity of whose heart is being torn out, then, doubting myself, I decided to do a sketch keeping the sword. Thoughts? I welcome feedback on the other details such as his build, face, the "armor" he is wearing (I'm not sure why I gave him skulls, I'm not a fan), etc, but what to put in his hand is the big question.

Great work,

Addressing the torso: I agree with you: you stated "I'd hoped that offsetting the diamond a bit would help, as it suggests that his torso is rotated and thus not as wide as it would be when viewed from straight on."

I think it appears the torso is rotated.

I like the black and white look. Just some advice that I have picked up on the forum. I would suggest that when it comes to designing the corner of the cards that you keep the suits red and black. Some posting that I have read in the past is people like to see the hearts and diamonds red and the clubs and spades black. If magicians use your deck they may have a trick that goes from a king of spades to a king of hearts and the effect of changing from black to red is very apparent. if it is just black and white the effect of changing a card wont pop as much. Just a thought to throw out there for you.

If you did decide to put a little color in the cards maybe make it small. Like put a red for the diamonds on the torso of the card and in the corner and that would be it. It would be cool to see an example just to see if looks good or not.

Pretty intense kings! I would say keep the sword king and use the other troll as the one eyed jack perhaps, with an eyeball in his hand. He already seems squinting with his right eye and his open left eye towards us.

Eoghann wrote:Pretty intense kings! I would say keep the sword king and use the other troll as the one eyed jack perhaps, with an eyeball in his hand. He already seems squinting with his right eye and his open left eye towards us.

This is a brilliant suggestion ! I second this.

volantangel wrote:

Eoghann wrote:Pretty intense kings! I would say keep the sword king and use the other troll as the one eyed jack perhaps, with an eyeball in his hand. He already seems squinting with his right eye and his open left eye towards us.

This is a brilliant suggestion ! I second this.

Interesting, Eoghann. My current idea for the one eyed jack is him holding and scrutinizing a severed elf ear instead of the traditional leaf, but maybe an eyeball would work

While working on a project like this, in an attempt to keep things cohesive, I'll make some sort of backstory or history. Goblins are pretty much pre-technology, orcs are mainly scavengers, humans are in what amounts to the Bronze Age, and dwarves jealously guard the knowledge of iron working and the "magic" of steel. Elves are pretty unconcerned with the entire affair, content to be "children of the forest."So with that in mind, I have a guide for how each race will look, as far as gear is concerned.

I mention this as faced with the dilemma of the King of Hearts/Orcs I decided to side step the choice and work on the Queen for a bit, hoping that would sort of lead me to the answer as I pinned down the overall look of the Hearts/Orcs while working on her. But not wanting to use the tired fantasy fur bikini, or weird straps that just cover naughty bits, presented a challenge. I tried a few different types of armor, but they just didn't fit the look I wanted. Now I think I have it down and I should have her done in the next few days.

Justin, for the suits I had intended on keeping the Hearts and Diamonds red but doing the Spades and Clubs white on a black field. I think I'll play around with nesting a black pip in a larger white icon for the race specific sub-suit or perhaps some sort of banner.

I would think that there's no need to sexualize any of the characters since that's been done ad nauseum on nearly every type of media.

Perhaps modeling the gear after several periods from humanity's existence? Hides and stone from prehistoric era, forest tribes of the amazon or Africa, bronze and steel periods, etc.

You mention five groups. Goblins, orcs, dwarves, humans and elves. I thought it was one per suit, or will the goblins be saved as the jokers for example?