One MORE Deck Hits The Table???

HudsonGray

I've been running around pricing the costs of getting 30 decks done up. Office Depot, Office Max & Kinkos all use photocopy techniques, and a deck can be done there between $3 and $4 each IF it's in black & white only. They charge per page, plus the card stock, plus a back design. The deck will fit on 13 pages total.

A color deck done at one of the Xerox places costs between $8.90 and $11 a deck. Rather expensive & not worth the trouble of coloring one in really--they don't have card stock heavier than a 60 lb weight and no thin lamination. All lamination is 3 millimeters, which is quite thick and would need one lamination on each side.

I stopped at two printers shops today. Both use 90 lb cardstock, which is pretty good. The size they can go up to is 11x17" so I can get 9 cards per page instead of 6. But the prices are sky high. With 10 originals (9 for cards & 1 for the back illustration) that's 600 pages for 30 decks. They quoted me $54 do to one deck in color OR black & white (same cost) via a laser process (as opposed to xerox?), and $956 for doing up 30 decks. !!! Jesus!!! She said that they can't do plasticizing, they only have 3milimeter in the lamination, but recommended I check with a Signs & Banners company west of here which can do 1 millimeter on a page.

The second store I stopped at said they can't do color for me very cost effectively, as they have to charge 89 cents a page (for 600 pages) but they CAN do 30 decks in black & white on the thick card stock for $100 total. That's basically the same price as Office Depot, but I get a heavier paper out of it. From the way she talked it looks like it's a xerox process, same as Kinkos uses.

Looks like I need to check at least 2 more places to get some mroe info on costs here.

Just thought I'd post prices here for anyone thinking of doing their own deck. Getting ballpark figures sure helps a person decide how elaborate they want to get with their project! Now I see why the Tarot of the Crone costs $125 retail! It probably cost them $30-$50 per deck to produce!
 

HudsonGray

Update:

Econoprint can do the decks for me at $2.20 for each deck, which is on card stock, printed both sides, and I cut them all out. The card stock isn't bad. The other places I checked varied from $4 to $7 each and didn't offer me much different than Econoprint can.

I like the fact that their machines make a computer image & print that, so there's no pages sluicing through constantly. She said they have state of the art machines and that doing card stock without it shifting around as it's pulled in, isn't a problem. The inking goes on as dark black without fadeout and I can get to within 1/4" from the side of the paper with the cut & paste stage, unlike some of the results I was seeing from the photocopiers at the 7 or 8 other places I checked. The framing will come in clear without any cut off. GOOD!

I've got 3 or 4 cards inked in already, a back figured out & the top face card almost done. I THINK I can have this completed by end of February. IF all goes well. I'll scan what art I have done in when I have about 6 cards or so, enough to make a nice page worth.
 

rota

I can't wait to see the artwork you're building up!

I also hope you're keeping notes on all the ins and outs of the process you're going through. It could prove invaluable. You could even write a short instructional book (once you're finished with the cards in the first place!) on the type of card printing you're doing, and sell it as a separate item to others with similar aspirations.
 

HudsonGray

I should be able to have some cards up shortly, I've got the drawings for 16 cards done now & am making a trip to the copy shop to get some of the borders finalized so I can start the cut & paste up (it's not being done on computer, this is pen & ink line drawing, the hard way). I'm pretty happy with the cards except the face on the Chariot, which may get redone. I might even post a picture of 'here's the basic sketch, there's the reference photo(s), here's the finished card' to show how things got modified.

But the instruction booklet on how to do a deck.....I'll leave that to OTHERS (someone here has one in the works actually!) -- but I AM posting up prices I get quoted & problems I'm running into, so tarot creators can get a handle on stuff that I've run across. It's one thing to hear that 'printing is expensive', it's another to get a breakdown on the what's & why's.

Biggest thing is the card stock. It comes in pound weight--68 pound, 80 pound, 90 pound. HOWEVER that has no indication of STIFFNESS! I've found 68 lb weight that was stiffer by far than the 90# because of the sizing they put on the paper pulp & what the manufacture process is. Since stiffness is essential, the pound numbers are meaningless for me here.

I am torn between a few things though. There's some NICE card stock in white, in a mottled cream color that looks archaeic, and a nice marblized gray/white and blue/white. I'm SO tempted to go with the marblized one in gray to give extra visual texture, as it's subtle enough to not interfere with the pictures, but think the average person would prefer a white background. The cream looks 'old' and also has appeal, but..... it comes down to what does the public like? I have to guess.

There's also the size of the cards. I can get 6 to a page if I go tall & skinny, which saves on the number of pages needed to be printed. OR I can go with the size my Ancestral Tarot is, which gets 5 cards to a page (3 in horizontal position down the one side & 2 in vertical position). If I try the size of a standard Rider deck I only get 4 cards per page. Budget wise, I like the 6 per page, but the shapes are maybe too long to look right? That's 2 1/4 x 4". Makes them look like the older decks from the 1600's, but they would shuffle differently & tend to bend in the middle if people aren't careful. The 5 to a page MIGHT be a tad bit of problem because card stock is stiffer in one direction (the long way) than the other. I'm not sure if that would affect how the cards hold up or not.

Either way, I have options.

I'll post when the cards go up, so I can get feedback. I want to sell them as decks, even budget wise as they are, and know ferret owners will love them (I've gotten a lot of good feedback on the idea from ferret bulletin boards). It's a theme deck with RW meanings. Some might think it's 'fluff' but it's NOWHERE near the kind of fluff I've seen in some decks! There IS a gummy bear tarot deck out ya know!
 

HudsonGray

I'm so pissed! I was all set to do cut & paste up on the first 22 cards, had gotten reductions done at the copy shop, then got home & found out that only the first 5 pages out of 30 were crystal clear, all the rest were fuzzy.

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHH!

So, I need to do another trip (to a DIFFERENT) copy place and redo about 26 pages of reductions before I can scan them in & start posting them up on picturetrail. It was only $3 bucks wasted, but I had planned on having a good amount semi-finalized! I was disappointed. Geez!

After discussing the overall 'look' of the cards with friends, we still couldn't come up with a solid decision on some things. I like the larger format (5 cards per page) with the larger art and the Joker style font, Pam stands by the woodcut style font for a more antiquie look and the smaller format (6 cards per page) as she has smaller hands. I think the pictures are too tiny then, but there's still something going for it. On parchment/sand colored card stock they look neat.

She talked me into doing up two sets of cut & paste on the cards, basically doing it both ways. Only one image got trimmed a tad more (the Hermit) but both look equally nice. I'll post both styles when I get them scanned. The cartoon style is working well & I'm pretty satisfied with how they're turning out. They'll be easily colored in if anyone wants to hand color their set.
 

Insomnia Turtle

Might be a little off topic here, but did you try and get your money back? Usually, most printers will redo prints that don't turn out if it was their fault. All you have to do is bring them your originals, their bad copies and a receipt. Unless, of course, it's one of those that asks you to check it first before you leave with them. Then usually they won't.
 

HudsonGray

I thought about it, but it was $2.80 & I didn't figure it was worth it. I'll just go elsewhere next time, there's 4 other places within a reasonable (under 8 miles) distance that I can get to while doing other things like grocery shopping & supplies runs.

I did get a couple more cards inked in tonight--but I'm running out of the 'good' sketches & need to work up some better ones for the rest of the cards. I have to remember to take in a 50 cent piece to photocopy, I want it as part of my Ace of Pentacles. (It's legal, so long as you photocopy at least at a 20% reduction or enlargement. It's a coin, I only heard trouble about bills being photocopied, so I'm in the clear. I also got a handful of Canadian coins from a pen pal in Montreal & want to add the dime & nickle to the 2 of Coins being juggled by the ferret on the card. Make it multi-national in a rather low key way.)
 

HudsonGray

The scanner's working & now I've got some pictures up online so people can see how the deck's coming. 31 cards done so far. Let me know what you think!

http://www.picturetrail.com/gallery/view?p=999&gid=1243650&uid=728989

If you can't get in that way, go to the main URL www.picturetrail.com and type in FalconsMew in the album selection. It'll be the first album that comes up.

I've got both sizes up - and two font styles. Let me know which looks better. People have been liking the smaller size over the large, but the larger will be easier to color in.
 

Cerulean

I did a quick look-see and did not find anything wrong with either design. If you do a line drawing of Leonardo Da Vinci's painting of a woman hugging an ermine, you'd be following the Brian William's school of hand-drawn graphics that remind one of the original, but it would be your own.

Tracing the ermine itself and it's snuggly, questing attitude might be interesting for the Lovers.

I like the minors quite a bit. Reminds me of the Merlin Tarot.

Mari H.
 

HudsonGray

Thanks!

The Lovers I've been wanting to go with a couple doing the tango (working in partnership, male/female-plus it's visually different). But it's not finalized yet so anything goes. The Judgement card is giving me problems though (people were suggesting a ferret show winners ring) as well as Justice. Wish I could have posted the Moon card, but it was still in the process of being cut & pasted.

I'd be open to 10 of Swords ideas too. Didn't want to do the traditional one.