Dinosaur tarot

Kees

Hey everyone! This is an idea I've been sitting on and slowly working at for the past few months, and I feel like I might soon be able to begin properly at last...!

Considering how popular and varied dinosaurs are I was very surprised there wasn't already a deck out there already. I've had a lot of fun so far getting up to date on my dinosaurs and polishing up my tarot interpretations. As an artist, a tarot reader and a dinosaur enthusiast I really want to accomplish a blend between a beautiful deck, a readable deck, and one that is up to date with current dinosaur findings or even a little speculative.

Of course, I don't want to cut off anyone who isn't well-read in current dinosaur information, and many dinosaurs will be difficult to identify just by looking at the card, so I am planning on making sure the card as a whole represents a theme while including an accompanying booklet which will go more in-depth on which dinosaurs I chose specifically. I hope to make something that is educational as well as useful.

I have not as yet finished any cards, because I wanted to make sure I knew what I was doing before jumping in, but at this point I have notes on and thumbnails for nearly all the majors, which are my main focus. I would love to do the minors but I don't want to halfass them, so I want to make sure I have solid ideas for how I'm going to handle the suits etc. first.

One thing I've decided to do is orient the cards landscape rather than portrait, as is traditional. I feel like the shape allows for the shapes of the animals better (since most dinosaurs are longer than they are tall), allows for more widescreen images to incorporate background elements, and when placed in a spread they feel like movie still or part of a story book, which makes reading very interesting.

Anyway, enough yakking--while I have not officially finished any cards, here are a few quick thumbnails (I haven't resized them to my template yet):
http://imgur.com/a/u8xBv

And here is a finished dinosaur painting which is not part of the tarot series but was used to practice the techniques and style I plan on using in the deck:
http://fc09.deviantart.net/fs71/i/2014/329/e/1/down_by_the_river_side_by_etomo-d87ocjh.png
 

HudsonGray

We had one other person two years or so back, who was interested in doing a dinosaur one but she was talking about it more as if it were a set of trading cards, she didn't understand that the pictures needed to represent actual tarot meanings.

If you can come up with something scientifically accurate (more than feathered dinosaurs, the head shapes and muscle masses have been redone over the past 5 years of research now) and readable, that'd be great! If you list the names of them in your book, then also put the continent they come from. I think we'd need that as well.

Good luck to you. It's an interesting project.
 

Kees

Ahh, I think I know what you're talking about. I did some searching on-forum before starting because I wanted to make sure nobody else had one in the works and found her posts. I definitely aim to make a working deck.

I have a lot of research ahead of me! Haha. I'm spending a lot of time researching what the current and most accurate paleoartists are doing with their dinos so I can learn from the best. It's a little harder to find stuff on the less popular species but I'll keep my eyes out in any case. Having the continents they are from is a great idea too.

Thanks for the response. I hope to get my first card started and done here soon.
 

HudsonGray

Have you seen the comic book work by Ricardo Delgado in Age Of Reptiles? He did an excellent job of showing dinosaurs moving and living in their environment. Try googling 'Age of Reptiles' and clicking on 'images' to see a little of his stuff. It can help give you ideas for putting life into the cards you design. Sort of a springboard of ideas.
 

feynrir

Really lovely thumbnails so far! I'm impressed! :D Keep on going. I like this.
 

MagsStardustBlack

OMG seriously, excellent!!!!!

Really enjoy documentaries on dinosaurs and evolution. I saw this and thought my son would love this. He is 2 by the way, i intend this to be his first deck so best of luck ;)

Love your sketches :)
 

Kees

Have you seen the comic book work by Ricardo Delgado in Age Of Reptiles? He did an excellent job of showing dinosaurs moving and living in their environment. Try googling 'Age of Reptiles' and clicking on 'images' to see a little of his stuff. It can help give you ideas for putting life into the cards you design. Sort of a springboard of ideas.
Wow, thank you for the resource! I hadn't heard of this before. I love how full the designs look, I might have to get the kindle version to reference from. :D I have been pulling from my copy of William Stout's The New Dinosaurs for inspiration so far, he has a similar comic book style (even if I want to go more painterly with mine).

Thanks feynrir and Mags! I am just about done with planning things so hopefully I will have some cards to show for it all soon. :)
 

Reyan

Wow, I'm impressed with the quality of your artwork so far! And I love the idea of doing an all-landscape deck - actually, it's incredible that I have never seen one before, now that I think of it.

Personally, I usually find it hard to read with animal decks - of the sort that might be titled "the ferret tarot", "the penguin tarot", this sort of thing - perhaps mostly because I am not familiar enough with the personality of the animals shown to derive a lot of meaning from the image. But then again, dinosaurs are a much broader category than ferrets. And your thumbnails seem to have a lot of color and drama, which I think will help a lot in my case. I'm excited to see what you come up with!
 

sparklingRaven

Oh please please please follow through on this! I hope it works out well for you (for your sake and because I really want it haha). I LOVE dinosaurs. I take free online classes about them just because I enjoy it. They are absolutely amazing and I'm really liking your sketches so far.

maybe for the suits you could try something with the time periods? i.e. the Cretaceous? Or broad types of dinos, like ankylosauridae and hadrosauridae? Or if you have any interest in other prehistoric animals or plant life. Just some ideas for ya.

Keep up the great work!
 

GlitterNova

See if you can rush and publish it around the time the new Jurassic Park movie is released ;)
For real, though, this looks awesome. I'm sure there will be people who call this a 'novelty deck', but I think the fact that you're trying to really incorporate your knowledge about dinosaurs into it will elevate it to something way beyond a 'novelty'. Keep us updated with new images as you create them!