Is everyone using computers to create decks these days?

It would seem to me that it would mean more and be more intimate if they were done by hand. Probably charge more too...

I'm an artist that's worked in multiple mediums, and even doing something with some nice coloured pencils (everything Prisma makes is amazing). There's a menagerie of artists tools out there and this would seem the place to use them. To me anyway

I was just curious and wanted to hear some feedback.

I'm also very open to being educated in this department. I know how it's done in the tattoo world, but not this one. So, I appreciate anything I can learn from this site.

I know nothing about how people do anything really, but I do know that a lot of decks these days look really computer-generated, like screen shots from video games, and I won't buy those decks since they have no personal feel or meaning to me at all. I think a lot of the decks are also sort of photo-montage where photos get stuff stuck on them to create a painting of sorts. Some of those decks I have, but they just don't feel so real to me either.

Good luck with whatever art projects you are working on--I think a lot of tarot readers love to see unique and yet usable decks.

<smile> Our very own TarotBear's deck seems hand-drawn. I like it for that reason. It's less polished, less charismatic but more touching and human.

I'm not familiar with the tattoo world. Both times I got inked, I went to a local guy, we looked on the net for images something like I wanted, he imported them into a file, then played with them through photoshop until I was completely happy. Then he printed them out onto a stencil-thingie to transfer onto my skin. Is that how they generally do things? I'm never going to be the Painted Woman, but if I have any more work done, I'll go to the same guy. Not even the same business - the same individual.

Neither of my decks were computer drawn. Both hand drawn and hand painted. Rosetta used acrylic paint for the Majors, and a combo of acrylic plus one other media for each suit of the minors: ie colored pencils for wands, watercolor for cups, dry point etching for swords, and oils for disks. The current deck I am doing, Tabula Mundi, is done with a combo of permanent marker and india ink for the majors. All i do is scan and crop them mostly, maybe clean up a dog hair off the scan (or cat, haha, i have pets) or an edge here or there where the crop was off. That is it, as I prefer the look of non-digital art.

donnalee said:

I know nothing about how people do anything really, but I do know that a lot of decks these days look really computer-generated, like screen shots from video games, and I won't buy those decks since they have no personal feel or meaning to me at all. I think a lot of the decks are also sort of photo-montage where photos get stuff stuck on them to create a painting of sorts. Some of those decks I have, but they just don't feel so real to me either.

Good luck with whatever art projects you are working on--I think a lot of tarot readers love to see unique and yet usable decks.

Click to expand...

That's exactly what I mean. Maybe that's why I'm having such a hard time with a deck I was given. I could make that on Gimp on a slow day at the shop. It's all photos with layers over them. I think it's call starseed or something. it feel "plastic". Like the difference between shaking a person's hand and a mannequins.

Thanks so much for the input!

nisaba said:

<smile> Our very own TarotBear's deck seems hand-drawn. I like it for that reason. It's less polished, less charismatic but more touching and human.

I'm not familiar with the tattoo world. Both times I got inked, I went to a local guy, we looked on the net for images something like I wanted, he imported them into a file, then played with them through photoshop until I was completely happy. Then he printed them out onto a stencil-thingie to transfer onto my skin. Is that how they generally do things? I'm never going to be the Painted Woman, but if I have any more work done, I'll go to the same guy. Not even the same business - the same individual.

Click to expand...

I'm talking about the origin of the photos people choose tattoos from. I draw/paint them and then keep the originals and get prints done of the rest to sell. I would imagine it's similar.

Babalon Jones said:

Neither of my decks were computer drawn. Both hand drawn and hand painted. Rosetta used acrylic paint for the Majors, and a combo of acrylic plus one other media for each suit of the minors: ie colored pencils for wands, watercolor for cups, dry point etching for swords, and oils for disks. The current deck I am doing, Tabula Mundi, is done with a combo of permanent marker and india ink for the majors. All i do is scan and crop them mostly, maybe clean up a dog hair off the scan (or cat, haha, i have pets) or an edge here or there where the crop was off. That is it, as I prefer the look of non-digital art.

Click to expand...

It's so reassuring that I'm not the only one working like this. Thanks so much for posting!

I don't think you can lump an entire medium into one category. There's some very fine"authentic looking" art done by computer, although decks like the Starseed tend to give CG a bad name in general. Ciro Marchetti has spoken here in the past, and although he does use a computer in his art, the models aren't simply constructed, he actually draws them by hand, I guess using a Wacom or similar.

nisaba said:

<smile> Our very own TarotBear's deck seems hand-drawn. I like it for that reason. It's less polished, less charismatic but more touching and human.

Click to expand...

My deck was ENTIRELY hand drawn with Flair (nylon) felt-tip markers, on sheets of copy paper, then scanned in and digitized to jpegs to become the illustrations in my book. They are simple and very cartoon-y ... 'cuz I ain't no artist!

I did create a Majors-only deck by entirely drawing it on the computer {with a mouse} - it still came out simple and cartoon-y ... because that is how I draw ...

BTW - Thanks, Nissy .... <waves>

StMary said:

It would seem to me that it would mean more and be more intimate if they were done by hand. Probably charge more too...

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Anyone who is hand-creating multiple tarot decks for sale would be charging far more than anyone might want to pay.

As far as 'charge more' ... anyone who produces a deck (regardless of how they 'did' it) still has to turn it into a digital image to be printed, and the cost ultimately is determined by what the publisher has in printing costs, overhead, and profit for them and royalties for the deck creator. In the final product it is the image that is printed, not the media the artist used or how long it took them to produce their deck. I have a B/W deck and a colorized deck; both sell for the exact same price. It took me 30 days to draw the B/W deck; it took a year to colorize it.