What you should know about posting images here

Good points Karen. I should sit down and write a detailed account of what it took to make mine, though I must admit it makes me feel a little uncomfortable to just make that info publicly available.
And I can never really calculate the time I have invested, or even the costs of the original materials for the original paintings.
I know what you mean about people thinking they will make a lot of money on their decks. There are a few I think will, but I have heard from a lot of people too who are planning on investing a lot of money getting a deck published when, frankly, they hardly know what tarot is and I don't think their decks will appeal to very many people. Some ask for criticism then nearly take my head off when I give it LOL. And it usally takes a lot to prod me into critiquing anyway because I don't like to do it.
And there is also the assumption that getting publishing will be easy. And I don't know how many people have looked at my paintings and said 'Man, you are going to get rich off of these!" I take it as a big compliment and then laugh to myself because I know no one gets rich on tarot, including me. Not in money anyway!!
Another angle though is that I have talked to many artists who have created well known decks and I think it is a consensus that their art careers have been affected by their tarot, as in it will be something they will always be known for. This can be good or bad. Consider the case of Martin Cannon from the Witches Tarot. He told me he had approx. 4 months to do all of those paintings. To me that sounds like a nightmare, and it was to him as well because it just isn't natural to do that many full paintings in that amount of time. So he had to take shortcuts like just changing the clothing on the court cards. And now, people always remember him for that, and he doesn't feel it was anywhere near his best work.
So, that is something to think about too when creating a tarot deck, if you try to do it cheaply, or cut corners, or use inferior mediums or techniques to get it done quickly, it just might turn out to be the work people will judge you on for the rest of your artistic life.

I guess that's it for my soapbox! lol

Marie

P.S. My 'U' isn't working well on my keyboard, please forgive all of my typoes, I am trying to catch them, but I'm probably missing a few.

FearfulSymmetry said:

I should sit down and write a detailed account of what it took to make mine, though I must admit it makes me feel a little uncomfortable to just make that info publicly available.

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It sounds like we are very much in agreement, but I didn't mean that we have to make all of our expenses public (a sensitive point right now as I have just - a few minutes ago - put in an order for miniature furniture which will bring our total expenditure on this to more than $1000 - so far. It makes me shake just to type it! But we need incredible detail, and only a few craftsman makers can do it - though I bet a lot of people would think us insane to invest so much. I do not want to detail anything more - it's too exposing and it's the sort of thing I don't want to have to discuss really. But it is yet another unavoidable expense.)

I think what we can do is simply encourage people to do the figures. With spreadsheets (which most people have in some form now) it's very easy. If Tom (who is being wonderful about this and should go down in history as the patron saint of deck creators!) could help us compile a list of things to consider, then it' s up to people to fill in the figures themselves - they vary so much in any case. I don't think any of us need to expose the full personal details of our own expenses.

Publishing? Like you, I find it incredibly hard to say to someone "look, most of the major publishers commission decks now and the statistical chance of getting your deck picked up is low". When I have said it then again - like you - I've sometimes had my head bitten off! (I don't really mind, I understand what a sensitive point it can be).

Your point about art careers being affected is a really good one that I hadn't thought about. I know that we have had some odd reactions here to the fact that we are doing tarot - and even more so to the fact that we are now dressing cats! (highly trained Russians like Alex are NOT expected, in that community, to do such things - not that that bothers him in the slightest )

These are all excellent points Marie. Don;t be afraid to get on that soapbox!

Baba-prague, I just wish more people were willing to sit down and say up front what the chances are, and what it will cost. Just getting an idea of how many, many decks are out there, and how unlikely finding a publisher is got me thinking seriously about doing self-publication RIGHT. Which means, in effect, spending some moderately serious chunks of money up front.

I may never make a huge amount of money on my artwork, but I have to state up front that I think the critical test of a deck, or other artwork, is whether people are willing to spend money on it. And I won't be ashamed of myself, or my artwork, if I can actually make a good living doing it. Or think there's something "wrong" with managing to make money doing something I love.

Sorry, but Marie hit one of my hot buttons with that statement, and having a few days go by since I first read it didn't help at all. I didn't realize it was quite so hot - I've got about six more paragraphs that want to spew out, and they're definitely the kind that would tend to start a flame war, which I seriously do not want to do. Funny, I thought I'd come to terms with this whole issue, but evidently not.

Anybody think it might be a good idea to see what a separate thread on the subject could do? I'd like to think out loud on this, but I don't know whether the topic could be kept neutral enough.

Sorry Astra,
My statement wasn't meant to offend, only to express my personal observation of the relative lack of commercialism in tarot, and how *I* don't necessarily find that a negative state of things.


Marie

Fearful Symmetry,

No apology necessary, really - but what you made me realize, nonetheless, is that I have an overemotional reaction in this area, which I thought I'd taken care of several years ago.

It bothers me that it's still there, because the one thing I know is that if I let it skew my reactions, and my plans, things will almost necessarily NOT go as well as they might, because I won't have done the work that needs to be done from a clear perspective. (or, as clear a perspective as I can get, all things considered)

Astra said:

And I won't be ashamed of myself, or my artwork, if I can actually make a good living doing it. Or think there's something "wrong" with managing to make money doing something I love.

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I certainly don't think there is anything wrong with it either. Not a bit. For years I have lived as a professional designer - and I love that life, even if it is a bit insecure at times.

The only thing I am saying is that some people get into this without doing the figures and without realising that doing a deck is a big investment of time and energy (and emotional energy too I think) and it won't necessarily reap any financial rewards. Now for some people that's fine, and for others it isn't (and I'm not making any judgements - it depends on circumstances as much as anything). But I can't help wincing when people talk glibly about finding a publisher based on a few cards - and you just know it probably isn't going to happen. How many promising decks have we seen here that have just vanished once the artist realises that they can't get it published? It seems such a waste sometimes. It would be better to begin with more realistic expectations (I don't mean more pessimistic, I really do mean more realistic), and then we might actually see some of these decks emerge as planned self-publications, rather than just get dropped.

But maybe we should take this into a different thread? I don't think it needs to get heated. Well, for me personally this isn't an emotive issue, more a matter of practicality.

Have you thought about publishing on the web?

I've written books and gone through the exhausting drain of trying to get a publisher in the past (odds of getting a publisher to even LOOK at an unsolicited manuscript are pretty low these days) - then I thought.. well, if what I wanted was to get it out there, rather than to make money from it, why not put it on the web? So I've done that, eg: http://kattyb.com - (kids books I've written/illustrated).

I started Golden Tarot along the same lines, although when it was pirated from my site and commercially published without my consent I was a bit miffed. But then in the long run, even that had positive consequences as it demonstrated demand. Then the long story that most of you probably know - I developed a following for the deck based on the website, then a fan started a campaign to get it published with US Games, and it worked - they contacted me and offered me a contract.

Corny though it sounds, perhaps getting published is a bit like love - much harder to find if you're looking.

Even if I hadn't got the offer from USGS, I was glad I'd made my original deck and was happy just to have it "published" on the web. Sice I work in digital, it's also a lot less work to make a low resolution screen-based version - so I didn't have to put in the huge, hard slog of making a high-res version until I already had a publication offer

Just a thought... it's another approach that many people don't think of. And making a site isn't too hard if you're willing to learn and reasonably computer-literate (as most people here are). I'm developing a site to teach people to make their own site: http://retrokat.com/rescue/ - It's also a LOT cheaper than self-publishing "for real" (ie, print based).

And then back onto the topic...

Embedding watermarks in Photoshop, or any other digital format, has pretty limited use, as anything that can be dispayed on a screen can be "grabbed" with print-screen, which will contain NO information (such as watermarks) beyond what was visible on the screen when the grab was taken.

Legal protection is indeed possible, eg by registering your copyright etc - but can you afford to sue in the country in which the infringement was made? I may well have had a case against the German publishing company who stole my Major Arcana cards a few years back (before my USGS deal) but could I afford to sue them in Germany? Nope! All I can hope for is that they get what they deserve karmically

Baba-prague - I'm starting a separate thread on this, and hoping your calm good sense will keep me as neutral as possible. I don't have much hope for spinoff threads - somehow, they normally peter out awfully fast, but what the heck.

I thought I'd bump this thread up so it doesn't get totally lost, and add a bit to it.

Images posted here that are taken from other people's, or studios' work, are just across the dividing line between "personal use" and copyright violation unless they come with a legitimate "used with permission" statement from the original artist or business, accompanying each image.

It's one of those fine lines that gets crossed a lot without any major problems, but it does open the door for problems to occur.