Tabula Mundi Tarot: formerly Tarot "M"

Babalon Jones

Well she isn't supposed to be but could be, as in theory she is looking at the Emperor, ready to release the bees, lol.

"It's not nice to fool with Mother Nature!"
 

Cassandra022

Loved reading/seeing your process. Love the Emperor, and I think he looks awesome colored in those colors! This deck is exciting!
 

Mallah

Bj I love your card, and i love the text and images you've given us about the steps you take. As a learning artist this helps me immeasurably.

I have a question; I've not gotten into doing any shading, crosshatching, stippling at the line art stage because I find my color covering all that up too much...so I tend to do my shading with the color it'self (which I notice you do as well as the ink shading stuff). Is this a difference in our two media? Is the india ink you are using just more transparent and so it doesn't obscure your ink as much? Maybe that's why you're using that particular media?

I love the look of the crosshatch/etc but haven't gotten into it myself...nor do I expect to on my current project cause it'd make my later pieces look out of synch with the earlier ones, and i'd have to go back and start over, and I'm a little too far in for that. Maybe next go 'round I'll be working different.

What's your experience in colorizing over ink?
 

daphne

Here in honor of the Vernal Equinox and the new moon in Aries, is the newest card, The Emperor.

I show in this post too how the image is contructed for those of you interested in how the art gets created. The completed image is at the bottom of the post:

http://blog.rosettatarot.com/2012/0...special-feature-the-making-of-an-emperor.aspx

Ah, you changed the head bird from the first sketch.
Why?
I like it more as an eagle eye in the first picture. It had a bigger impact on me.
 

Babalon Jones

For Mallah:

Some of the inks are very transparent, but some not so much. Sometimes, in some areas, I like the softening effect it has over the pen shading, as long as it does not obscure it completely. When it does, or when I don't want that effect, I have to go over it again with the permanent marker. The transparent inks though are so transparent that it is not necessary.

For Daphne:

Yes, I did change the eagle's head shape from the pencil sketch. They are both still eagle eyes/heads, but I changed the shape to be more symmetrical, as the Emperor is all about order and symmetry (symmetry from the Greek for "measure together" as in measure both sides together, and the head of the eagle is the apex of the compass with the square. Plus the compass would have been rendered harder to use with that upward point - I know as I use them all the time for artwork!). It just seemed more balanced that way in the end, and "real" eagles have their head feathers going in that direction rather than the other way which to me is more phoenix like, while I was going for eagle.

I am glad for the feedback though, for future reference, so thank you!
 

sapienza

Absolutely love the Emperor. :)
 

Storm82

Please let us know when you finish this deck

the details on your work is amazin! I love it!
 

daphne

For Daphne:

Yes, I did change the eagle's head shape from the pencil sketch. They are both still eagle eyes/heads, but I changed the shape to be more symmetrical, as the Emperor is all about order and symmetry (symmetry from the Greek for "measure together" as in measure both sides together, and the head of the eagle is the apex of the compass with the square. Plus the compass would have been rendered harder to use with that upward point - I know as I use them all the time for artwork!). It just seemed more balanced that way in the end, and "real" eagles have their head feathers going in that direction rather than the other way which to me is more phoenix like, while I was going for eagle.

I am glad for the feedback though, for future reference, so thank you!

Thank you for taking your time to explain.
I also thought, when I compared the final and the sketch, that you made this choice for symmetry and balance.
 

Babalon Jones

Bj I love your card, and i love the text and images you've given us about the steps you take. As a learning artist this helps me immeasurably.

I have a question; I've not gotten into doing any shading, crosshatching, stippling at the line art stage because I find my color covering all that up too much...so I tend to do my shading with the color it'self (which I notice you do as well as the ink shading stuff). Is this a difference in our two media? Is the india ink you are using just more transparent and so it doesn't obscure your ink as much? Maybe that's why you're using that particular media?

I love the look of the crosshatch/etc but haven't gotten into it myself...nor do I expect to on my current project cause it'd make my later pieces look out of synch with the earlier ones, and i'd have to go back and start over, and I'm a little too far in for that. Maybe next go 'round I'll be working different.

What's your experience in colorizing over ink?

Hi Mallah,

In addition to what I said above about some of the inks being transparent, and some not resulting in sometimes having to do over the black again when and where needed, I realized that I also should have mentioned that I think the surface I am working on has some effect too. Since it is more plastic like than paper like, the ink does not absorb at all, but sits on top. Thus you can push it around to be thinner in areas you want the cross hatching to show, or puddled up really thick where you want rich pure color. Then if needed it can be inked over again with another darker transparent color for more depth, shading or enhancing of color, etc. Like a glaze.