Working Out Final Details

Hello again everyone!

First off, my apologies for taking this long to get an update out! It has been crunch time over here in the Chicken tarot world, and I had a very hard time pausing my work to share what I had so far. The temptation for me is always to finish one last thing before showing folks what I've made.

On the other hand…that does mean I have a lot of updates to share! I am working as hard as I can to get every piece of this deck print ready, so I can send it off before the end of the month. Then I’ll cross my fingers and hope there are minimal printing delays. Nobody undermine my dreams in that regard, please…

SO let’s get into it shall we?

Starting with where I last left off, the card borders. In my last update I shared a sketch for the border design that brought back the illustrated design.

I got back into things by drawing out the final version of that border, which I then inked using a very fine brush on some lovely smooth layout paper. Black sumi ink on a brush is one of my favorite mediums to work with, so this process was very enjoyable.

I proceeded to scan the ink drawing so I could bring it into Illustrator and vectorize it. As I mentioned in my previous post, the goal with this redesign was to be more thoughtful about the density of lines throughout the design, so that it would still look good at a smaller size. Turning the inked illustration into a digital vector also makes sizing the design down possible, as it prevents little details from turning into fuzzy pixels.

All that is to say that I had a new border to work with, and set up my final card file in Photoshop. Everyone does this differently, and I honestly don’t think I know what the professional standard is at this point, but I find working in InDesign to be a little frustrating, and Illustrator is a little overwhelming, but Photoshop is my old familiar friend. So I use Layer Compositions in Photoshop to export finished card decks.

(Very briefly, Layer Comps allow you to make certain layers and features on those layers visible in Photoshop. This is a “composition”. You name the layer comp, in this case I would name each one after the card it makes visible. I have the border, text, and all of the artwork on different layers in one file, and then I toggle each layer’s visibility in the file on or off to create the correct composition for each card. It sounds very tedious when I describe it…and it is, but I also find I this is the method that scrambles my brain the least.)

While building the final card files with their shiny new border, I realized I needed some symbols for the court cards, as there is a gap in the border that is filled by the card’s number, but court cards have titles, and no real number. At least, I don’t think of the king of wands as the fourteenth card…perhaps some people do?

Regardless, I decided to make very simple little symbols that would refer to each suit. So all of the court cards in the swords suit have a little spur, and the cups have an egg, the wands a feather, and the coins a berry.

These are examples of the finished cards so you can see the final border design. I am very happy with how this border turned out, and I think the redesign of the illustration for it justifies the space it takes up of the card.

With the front of the cards complete, I had intended to return to the card back design, but inspiration for the box struck, so that is what I worked on next. This ended up being very lucky I think, because I underestimated how important the experience of pulling a card from the deck would be. This had a strong impact on the decisions I made for the card back, and I was very surprised by what I ended up going with. Before I get too far ahead of myself though, this was my inspiring thought in regards to the box design: Chickens.

I realized that what I wanted was for the box to be as chicken filled on the outside as it would be on the inside. The best way to do this, I figured, was to paint more chickens! I wanted a box that was just covered in them. To make this happen, I broke out my gouache paints once more:

It’s not very clear in this photo of the original painting, but my goal was to turn this into a seamless pattern. That way, I could manipulate the image however I liked it best across the box, and design the necessary text and other design details across it.

This painting was an opportunity to include many of the chickens from the deck all together in one scene. I also included a few sneaky chickens who I would have liked to include, but…dare I say it….there weren’t enough cards in this deck?

Alas, I will have to find new reasons to obsessively paint chickens once this project is complete. Until then, I have this endlessly repeating chicken pattern to play with:

From here I tackled the problem of designing the box. This involved a fair bit of nailbiting, poorly-made printed mock-ups, and sparkling moments of triumph in and amongst thorns of self-doubt.

Here is an inadequate photo to represent that journey:

Finally, I found my way when I broke down and started painting right on top of this thin little mock-up. I know it doesn’t look like much in this photo, but the strawberry on the closing flap really was my light at the end of the tunnel.

This was also the moment that changed my decision about the card back. While folks’ feelings regarding the white border design were quite clear, opinions on the card back have been rather mixed. Before this box design, I thought that because of this uncertainty I would simply return to the feathered backs. They were chicken specific and worked well enough. The difference in medium didn’t seem to bother anyone else.

As I drew in on a final box design, though, I tested it by pulling out an original chicken card and…they did not mesh. At this point I was finally pleased with the direction of the box, and how it looked with the card fronts. The feathered backs seemed to throw everything off again.

Because of this I considered the floral back design once more. None of the color changes quite worked but there was something there that worked for me. Then I tried a color that I had originally written off as…too much. Too bold, too bright, too…pink.

Of course, too much might just be the calling card of this deck at this point. At least when it comes to my color preferences. That said, when I did a very rough test of the floral card back next to the new box design and the new card front….things began to click.

The above is another rough print. I was working out what size the pattern needed to be in order to wrap seamlessly around the box (it does! I’m very proud of this!), but also needed to test different card backs next to the box design.

Of course, making a rough mock up of the pink card back was not the same as actually making a finalized pink version. Because it would need to be more than just pink. I wanted to introduce the same red that I used for the front border design as well. It was also pointed out to me from more than one person that this card back felt less specific to the deck. While I’m not sure I agree entirely, it did tell me that If I could make the back feel more specific, more special, then I should try to do so.

So as I repainted the pattern, I attempted to make it feel a little more intense. I don’t think of this pink color as inherently feminine (though I’m sure many would disagree). When I see this shade of pink, I associate it with being violently alive. This is especially true when I see it next to red. Chickens are perfect examples of violently alive creatures. I suspect that’s one of the reasons I like them so much. So as extra as all of these color choices might be, they all seem to relate back to my own interpretation of chickens and the natural world.

The last change I made to this card back is the addition of a (maybe subtle?) chicken eye at the center of the sunflower. This felt more unique to the deck, and honestly don’t you feel like sunflowers are always staring at you? Why not make it a chicken who’s glowering out at you instead?

With that last little peek inside my brain, let me show you some actually decent mock ups of the final (minus edits) box and cards:

I think I will leave you all with that!

I would share fun details about other things I’ve been up to recently, but honestly this has been kind of a lot all on its own, so I’m not going to bog this post down more than necessary.

I have editing on all of this to do, which for me often means looking at something really hard, leaving it for two days, then looking at it really hard again (while also forcing everyone in my vicinity to look as well).

The guide booklet is also being finalized. It’s almost done. I realized I’d been holding off on this update trying to finish it before deciding that I should stop and get into the guidebook again in my next post, which will arrive much sooner than this one.

Also, if anyone would like to use the chicken pattern I made, I will probably have it posted on Spoonflower by the time I update again. I am not really a pattern designer, but I do think it’s fun. Any other suggested uses for the design would be welcome!

This was an aspect of the project that I hadn’t been looking forward to, but now that I’m working on it, I’ve found it very empowering to design everything in a way that is specific to me. I appreciate all of you for coming along on the ride.

Thank you all once again for your patience!

Sincerely,

Claire