A look into the future

OK, I'm sold (death is the CRITICAL card in a deck, for me.)

But now that I'm retired -likely the SECOND edition.... but when will you be publishing prices, so that we can leap onto the preorder list if we can hope to afford it ?

The Queen of Swords is stunning - not how I would ever have envisaged her but totally apt.

Chris. xx

Ciro, I love the feel of the Queen of Swords.

However, there is one tiny thing: her headdress has two small 'hallows' right above her shoulder muscles. Those two light blue 'hallows' make her shoulder/neck muscles, at a first glance, seem exceptionally muscular (did that make sense? Right now my English is failing me a bit). They almost blend with the shoulders. I hope you don't find it offensive that I say this, as obviously a lot of work went into this card.

the owl is a masterpiece

Tesseljoan said:

Ciro, I love the feel of the Queen of Swords.

However, there is one tiny thing: her headdress has two small 'hallows' right above her shoulder muscles. Those two light blue 'hallows' make her shoulder/neck muscles, at a first glance, seem exceptionally muscular (did that make sense? Right now my English is failing me a bit). They almost blend with the shoulders. I hope you don't find it offensive that I say this, as obviously a lot of work went into this card.

Click to expand...

Those two 'hallow' are supposed to be a space between the bottom of her headress and her shoulders, where you can see through to the background. I'll see if any modification will make that more obvious.

Thanks for the contructive critique and observation.

Good Heaven's! You have outdone yourself, again! I can imagine you must be having the time of your life with these wonderful creations! I love every single card, so far! I do prefer the second Fool to the first. I love the way he is balancing on time! I am a huge hourglass freak, anyhow. The Death card is amazing! So perfect. Don't laugh, but I especially love the leaves. I think it is a New England thing. We are so caught up in our seasons. Those leaves feed the earth, and from the earth comes new life, so you have the whole transition/transformation thing going quite nicely. However, I have to agree about the ants on the dead bird. Being a backyard birder that kind of creeps me out. Maybe something else to convey natural death? The Tower is nice, but needs something more...something more destructive to it.

Love the Queen with her owl and her freckles! I am so into white owls since I had a very unexpected sighting of a snowy owl right before a blizzard a few years ago. Now owls grace our Christmas Tree! Beautiful, strong, mystical, but not flawless. She has humanity in her and I like it! I am so thrilled you are sticking to your jewel tones and depth of colour. Your artwork continues to just blow me away. And the Magician...oh he is perfect. Don't touch him!

I am all goosebumps just thinking about this. Thank you, Ciro, for pointing out this thread to me. I am terrible about not looking in this section enough. I had absolutely no idea you were working on another deck and this thrills me to pieces! I have lots of decks and lots of favourites, but to this day, your decks are still my all-time favourites and I have been taroting for 32 years! Keep up the fascination!

gregory said:

OK, I'm sold (death is the CRITICAL card in a deck, for me.)

But now that I'm retired -likely the SECOND edition.... but when will you be publishing prices, so that we can leap onto the preorder list if we can hope to afford it ?

Click to expand...

Its too far into the future to provide pricing, but as I don't intend to self publish this time round (too much collating, packing, admin and trips to the post office involved, truly a awfull amount of work above and beyond the actual production of the images) so assuming I can get one of the major publishers interested, I imaging it would sell at a more typical retail price range. $20 to $30 ???

As for the custom, hand made, self printed version, with hard cover book and all the bells and whistles etc etc etc. Just the material costs will be in the range of $150. Without even considering the time involved. I've even enquired into the possibility of signing and writing the personalized customer dedications in real gold ink, not just gold coloured. It certainly would'nt be a deck that one would read with on a regular basis thats for sure.
So while the option to order one will be there, really I have no commercial expectations. The potential market is miniscule. I doubt if I would sell more than 10 copies. Of which eight will be bought by my parents . But in this day and age of mass production making something in this hands on way will be very satisfying.

I do love that Queen of Swords. I think it's the freckles (says the freckled jackdaw*). It makes her seem a little more human - for me the Queen of Swords is always the least approachable of the Queens.

But yours somehow always seem to become my favourites - as they have in your first two decks. I always feel that you have a very special Queen of Swords in mind!

By the way, thank you all for the comments and feedback. I do take notice and often decide to make changes accordingly (yes maybe the ants will have to go . These images take forever and words of encouragment really help.
As this is a creative forum, I thought some of you would be interested to see a detail now and again that better shows the process. Attached is the eye and cheek section from the Queen's face. Painted with a pen and digital tablet using Photoshop.

jackdaw* said:

I always feel that you have a very special Queen of Swords in mind!

Click to expand...

The Queen of swords I find the most interesting. The whole juxtaposition of swords and the inherent violence they symbolise mixed with a female character is inherantly one of contrasts. Rather than trying to get around this by depicting for example a strong or warrior like female stereotype, I deliberatly went the opposite and depicted a rather young (freckled) fragile looking Queen. Here the strength comes from resolve and character not muscles. Somewhat like Strength from the Major Arcana. Anyway that was the intention. All the retro metalic look and shapes will make more visual sense when you see the Ace of Swords.