Fascinating process! I remember when discussing the majors deck I commented on its dark, bold colors. I had no idea that boldness was achieved through so many layers, it truly is a labor of love! The many layers give the art a more "finished" look that is quite pleasing.
And you're right, the actual card is far superior to the scan. Do you do color corrections after scanning? In cards like the Four of Cups is the wave a duplicate of the one in the Chariot or is it redrawn? It looks very similar but more greenish in the Major. Plus, your "exploration" of the color blue, as you mention as a luxury, is beautiful. I probably wouldn't have noticed if you hadn't mentioned it but looking at all the different hues is amazing.
Some great questions! No, I don't do color corrections after I scan. That is to say, I do not do them on the computer. If the scan looks bad, I repaint the problem area and rescan it. The scanner's superior electronic eye reveals issues the human eye might miss at first. If it does not look good scanned, then I have made a bad choice of adjacent colors, or not used enough opacity. For example, in the 3, the first time I scanned it, I realized the Moons had no light to them. Their surface was pitted and grey (grey being one of the colors of the scale) and they looked like the Moon but radiated no glow. So I took it off the scanner and added highlights of white and lighter grey, which was a huge improvement that I thought was just fine initially.
The only thing I do with the computer is clean up dust particles, or dog hairs or paintbrush hairs that show up under magnification, clean up rough edges if the cropping is pixels off (as I left very little "bleed" in the original images). Plus add the borders and titles.
The wave in the 4 was redrawn. I lightly traced the exact curve of the shape so the eye is fooled into thinking it is the same, but all the details were freehanded in. If you put them side by side, at first you think they are exactly the same but if you examine closer the colors are all placed differently in each mosiac piece of the water, and the "pieces" are similar but unique. The 4 also has more blues and less greens than the Chariot, as blues are such an important part of the color scale for the four, as the Queen Scale for Chesed is Blue, and the colors of the Moon are all various blues so I got to emphasize that rather than using it as artistic license in the Chariot.
The 4 was the most fun to paint. None of the difficult transition areas like the rippled water or large expanses of flat sky or shaded sky. Just the pure joy of using every blue I had, plus the greenish brown of the scale for depth.
I just realized I forgot to put in what the color scales are for the last two cards. I will probably go back and add that info to the post, and clean up my typos. I was tired when I put this up. I am trying to complete one sign (3 cards or decans) a week, both complete the art and the scanning and posting. Which means, being tired a lot, as it takes all weekend day and evening, and lots of weeknights.
I couldn't do it if I didn't Love it!
I appreciate everyones comments and questions!