Colouring my deck.

I'm creating my first tarot deck and second deck. I'm not sure how I feel about the colour? What do you guys think?

When I finish the black and white outline of the card I feel great and love looking at it. But I feel like it doesn't have the same wow factor in colour. Should I make the colours more pastel? Or use a smaller palate of colors? Or do you like them this way? http://novatarot.webwitchwhitney.com

They look great! I think you're just experiencing standard artist's dismay. Trust me, I'm an artist: these lines were born to be colored. Course, I love color art. I think it might look nice with a more pastel, limited color scheme though.

Backed your Kickstarter 'cause I NEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEED that Dreamweaver High Priestess card. Seriously. I need it. You have no idea. I have an obsessive compulsion to buy dream themed things as it is, but I have drawn one tarot card... and it was my Dream aligned character as the High Priestess. I would buy a print but I don't have a hundred dollars to back you with to get the print at the moment.

Must have. (twitches) If you don't get funded, seriously, PM me because I'll still buy a print of it off of you.

Anyway colors! Don't worry, your lines definitely want color. The last card there by far works the best. I think the issue you're seeing is that the colors aren't really pulled together. Especially on the Pluto card, the saturation is very severe and I feel like you're angling for a soft, dreamy Art Noveau deck instead. It might look to you like you just dropped colors into the lines, and it stands out too well against the background. I have a cheap and dirty trick for this, using textured overlays to bring everything together as one unified image under the same kind of tone. Another "cheap" trick is to color the lineart a little bit so it meshes better. Softening harsh digital colors and simulating more traditional art look colors is kind of my specialty, so if you want to talk color, just shoot me a private message so we don't clutter up your thread.

I actually think I prefer the black and white ones. But I really like black and white decks, and black and white art in general, like woodcuts and engravings.

I know what Tiana means about "artist's dismay" though, firsthand! That is a good way to describe it. I often agonize over color choices, and then worry that I "ruined it" (I paint the colors for reals, not in digital, so "ruining" something is always possible)

But after I walk away for a few hours, I realize it looks fine. Maybe get some space from it, then look again?

omg! fantastic art!^^
eh colors,,, living nightmare of every designer!^^ lolz
imo its best to decide on color scheme in advance, or work in determined color variants,
that way it wont look to cartoon and more serious like bnw?))
btw if you are good in comicstrip art bnw that would be even better!^^ XD)))

Don't all of us artists know what "artistic dismay" is. Argh. And I work digitally, so I can undo my work. It's SCARY.

I will always be biased towards color, but I'll be honest, I feel like the black and white lineart only looks unfinished, there's black and white that looks finished, and this is nice lineart, but it doesn't look complete like that?

Having stepped back, I'm really feeling like more pastel, textured color would best suit the feel I get from this deck. (shrug)

On the Warrior I'd put some peach color on the body to help tie the skin tone in with the rest of the card, she's so stark white that the bra color is overemphasized. The dragon needs to be a little darker shaded too. Not all of it, just some. You have an art noveau look going, check to see how they do the shading on some of the stylized pieces.

Some lighter shades of purple on the central Pluto figure would make it look less flat on his clothing, too. Just my opinion though.