When I first decided to try to make a deck, I started painting pictures for the major arcana. I have children, & a lot of the cards remind me of situations with children, and so I set out to paint the Deck of the Child....for the fool, a young girl leaping off the cliff into the water. The Empress is a child dressing up her kitten & the Emperor is a small boy playing with his tin soldiers. This got old really fast and I haven't finished even the major arcana.
So then, I just sketched. Lots of images of various cards, but, I got bored with that, too. Seventy eight images that I had to really think about? And really, what I wanted was a vintage set & I could never draw things that had a vintage look to them.
So, I started thinking of all the things I wanted in a deck:
(1) Vintage. Real old, like, REALLY old looking.
(2) Beautiful images but simple. Not so simple as like, the Marseille or Tarot Classic, just, not too busy.
(3) Nothing cutesy, no fairies, themes, modern anything, no modern font or border, etc.
(4) Interesting back - it's embarrasing to have a boring or stupid back.
(5) Pips illustrated.
(6) The deck itself had to be able to hold up to a lot of abuse, so, no paper deck....I read in the street, my decks go thru hell.
(7) I really like there to be some sense of mystery about the cards, I don't know how to explain it....something not blatantly obvious. I want to be able to tell the querant all about the card without it saying in big silly letters "I'm the Magician! It's obvious what I'm all about!" I don't know how to explain this.....something cryptic.
There ARE a lot of new artists out there that are just incredible - I was looking at one just tonight - Deviant Moon by Patrick Valenza - what an amazing artist. But I see that deck and the font & border just turn me off & detract from how cool his art is (to me). I think if I just had a numbered deck of his images alone, done well with the right hues & not too "newish" looking, I would use it. Even though he's modern. Sola Busca doesn't exactly look your typical XV century.
There seriously should be a way that everyone could just put together all the elements that they want in their own personal deck - like, a program or something, where you could print it out exactly the way you want it - with lots of water or lots of boobs, specific artists, whatever. Maybe some day in the future some brilliant programmer will come up with that and everyone will have the deck of their dreams. speaking of which.....