Advice before embarking on minor arcana?

Hello! I've created a separate thread for this enquiry, but will keep posting new cards on my other thread as and when they are completed.

I have to admit, I'm slightly stumped! I would like to continue in the same vein as my major arcana, but am finding it harder to think of new ways to represent the meanings within the minors. Especially so with the kings and queens!

What do folks feel is important about the minors? This isn't very specific, but is there any symbology within any of the cards you find particularly important? How do you like them? I'm not fond of the cards where it only shows, say, ten cups etc, but feel it may be difficult to include ten cups AND a picture? I quite like the decks where it is only a picture, but do realise this doesn't exactly help with ease of reading.

How have the other artists on here approached the minors? Any advice on this subject, no matter how general, is welcome!

Thankyou so much!

For reading purposes, I like things to be quite clear and clean - that means no keywords, astrological symbols and runes floating about all over the place.

Sometimes, it can be nice to give each suit an accent colour so that they really stand out in a throw. Place does that in the Buddha Tarot by giving them different colour borders, which I am not particularly fond of. But it might be nice if there was a dominance of a certain colour in a suit so even though it didn't look strange, it was instantly recognisable that it was a sword card, for example. When I used the Fournier Marseille, it was interesting to instantly see the wash of a certain colour going through the reading, and I would know what the general reading concerned.

LB

In line with what LB said... Colors..... In my SpiroTarot each suit has it's color, and I also used another color representing the numbers withing each suit. Take a look at http://www.draagonstorm.com

All coins are brown (earth) on the bottom of the cards, yet all 5's are blue (used numerology) on the top of the cards.

BB
DraagonStorm

I do really like the idea of having a particular colour to a particular suit! Draagonstorm - your deck illustrates this very well, and I feel it is a very striking effect. Do you think I could get away with having the key colour for a suit without drawing in e.g. nine wands, or is it important for people to see the number as well as suit straight away?

Please feel free to bombard me with as many opinions as possible everybody! I've relied on people's advice for the development of the major arcana, and it is very important to me to create a deck that is readable!

I really can't thank people enough for their advice! Keep it coming! All being well, I'll keep the cards coming

Your deck is Your Creation!

And yes, I think that if you stuck with one color for each suit, and another color for each number, and there was a consistancy of how/where (what ever), there would be no problem not putting 'nine/wands' on the card. I have seen decks that have no writing for majors or minors.... symbology could say it all.

BB
DraagonStorm

That's very useful. Am I right in thinking that each suit is related to either earth, air, fire or water? If so, would it be plausible to use brown for earth, blue for air, red for fire and green for water? Too predictable? I need to go get my book and study the minors more closely methinks!

Hi Sarah,

<Am I right in thinking that each suit is related to either earth, air, fire or water? If so, would it be plausible to use brown for earth, blue for air, red for fire and green for water? Too predictable? >

No, those sound like great colors to me! Very natural.


Marie