The Mutation Tarot Kickstarter

Hi all! I hope this an appropriate place to post this.

I worked on illustrating all 78 cards for a year and a half. The Mutation Tarot is a practical tarot deck in the Rider-Waite tradition with a twist of sci-fi, fantastical creatures. Actually, most all of the creatures are straight out of my dreams (yes, I have wacky dreams!).

I've got a printer all lined up (very high quality printing) and am also doing signed prints of the art, mugs, and t-shirts for backers. If this one gets funded, everything should print within a few weeks of funding.

ETA
New Kickstarter link
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/390956389/the-mutation-tarot-part-2

Welcome to Aeclectic, and congrats on finishing your deck!

I wish you well on your kickstarter campaign (and this is the correct place to link to it), but I'm probably going to pass. Watching the video, your deck is a straight up Rider Waite clone that substitutes aliens for the people. It otherwise doesn't bring anything new to the table to make me want to use your deck over the Rider Waite or the Bosch if I want something interesting with alien creatures in it. The double border on the cards with the inner border being so thick chokes off the art. That, even more than being a straight up Rider Waite clone, convinced me that I can do without your deck.

But I hope those who support the deck enjoy it when it gets funded!

Rodney

Welcome mutationtarot!

Hi there!

Wow! The artwork in your deck is lovely! Thank you for posting. I certainly wish you good luck on your campaign

I really love your style. The work is really reminiscent of classic pulp novel art, in both color choice and dynamism of the characters. It does breathe an interesting life into Pamela Colman-Smiths compositions, even if I have to attribute that aspect of the deck to her. The shading is choice too I can dig it!! The back of the cards also looks really, really lovely.

I think that the strength of the deck could be in the alien beings that populate it. Even if it is very close to the original RWS, the many eyes of Judgement's main figure (the trumpet-blower), for instance, could really mean something in a reading. As could the narrow head of the figure in the Two of Swords, etc. Many people absolutely love decks that hearken to the RWS strongly, so though that could be a huge detractor for you, many will like your deck for it as well.

Borders are definitely too thick IMO. One round of border would have been enough, and I think you would actually get the most buzz for your deck if it was borderless. It just screams "borderless" to me with those bold colors and heavy shadows; it would bring out the most in your artwork.

I'm happy to have been introduced to your project! Godspeed!

Thanks for the feedback folks! That was kind of my point ... same symbolism of the RW deck but with creatures.

If it were up to me (and of course, I had unlimited funds) the deck would be borderless. But alas, printing of weird size decks is really, really costly! So, therefore I compromised with the border. If anyone knows of a good printer that does off sizes at a decent rate, I'd love to know about them.

WoW! like your style and coloring!)) imo this humanlooking creatures are best for tarot!^^ btw had to ask are these aliens?x,x lolz )

p.s you print it on your own so there is no reasson to not offer diferent borders and card sizes? personaly i find bit longer cards more tarothish!^^ so I'll go with what you have but thin or no borders!^^

all best!^^
Ciao!^^ )

feynrir said:

Borders are definitely too thick IMO. One round of border would have been enough, and I think you would actually get the most buzz for your deck if it was borderless. It just screams "borderless" to me with those bold colors and heavy shadows; it would bring out the most in your artwork.

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I can live without borderless, especially as - depending on who prints it - images can get cropped - but the borders as they stand are indeed a serious waste of space which could be used to showcase your artwork better.

The creatures are fun but those borders are a serious issue. I would check with the Deck Creation forum here to see about a printer that could take on your deck with just a single border.

A few ideas.

One, I think you really need to reduce the height of the images. Even a small amount would reduce the size issue a lot.

If you can't crop it enough to eliminate the need for the double border then I would suggest the next two ideas.

Two, Don't be afraid to let the border run to the edge on the top and bottom. The border you are using is not a focal point so it's not an issue if it gets blurred a bit. You have seen the deck we are doing, we run the border we are using to the edge.

Third, Change the border. Make it more decorative and have the sides fade. We went to an extreme with this and have changing symbols and designs in the border. You don't have to go that far, but a different border would help.

Why more decorative ? Decorative borders often really annoy me; they can detract and distract considerably from the actual images.

gregory said:

Why more decorative ? Decorative borders often really annoy me; they can detract and distract considerably from the actual images.

Click to expand...

Because the current border is so solid and large it is already distracting and looks like the actual image is being viewed from inside a doorway. If he is going to keep a large border it would be better to a) look and/or function as part of the image and/or b) blend, fade or otherwise allow the eye to be pulled into the center.

That's all still conditional to printing size of the cards and any cropping of the images. Shortening/cropping would allow the border he currently uses but at a thin uniform size around the image going all the way to the edge with out a custom size card.