Thanks Fess   And guys, a quick thanks for the campaign support.  Ticking along, fingers crossed.  You can see the second deck there - https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/rickdavidson/origins-shadows-of-history-playing-cards

I will never be as good as Erdnase...

Well that's encouraging on the full body, thanks guys.  Really interesting thoughts on the extra cards Don, might be worth looking into.  I'll check out the Phoenix cheers.  Also exploring foil / luxe backs and how the original decks were packaged which is pretty exciting. Chatting with manufacturers now on possibilities

Hey thanks Don, Fess.  I'd aim for a deck that handles and plays well first up, but foil backs and gilding might be options for a limited run.  Yet to handle a foil back or inspect the quality, but should have one shortly. 

I'm really tempted to do the full body courts, perhaps more faithful to the originals.  Not sure how easy that would be to fund alone, but could possibly make a nice supplement to this deck.

Hey everyone.  Well wow!  I'm just back from the hols - and a 'digital break' - and this is such a great surprise.  Thank you very much for the votes - and the support in 2014.  Very nice to be sharing the Best Overall with Ade   Thank you very much.  What a list of out of the park decks and incredibly talented artists.  An amazing year for card design, really looking forward to 2015.

Hope to spend more time on the forums now life has settled down a little   Thanks again, really means a lot.

Hey thanks guys.  I'll work something out for you Don, thanks for your early advice.

True Bama, I guess you could call the historic decks smooth.  Pretty sure they didn't have an air cushion magic finish for sure     Thanks Aldazar, yes the pearl stock was a bit of an unknown with the emboss, but in the end it pressed better than the midnight blue did.  Pretty happy with the end result.

Hard to keep up with developments in the industry over the last year.  This is great, congratulations Jackson.  After tasting the hell that is Kickstarter I can totally see your angle.

Sparkz   Hey awesome website you have!

Just dropping in to say thanks to everyone for the feedback and support during the campaign.  It was a long 35 days and isn't over yet but really great to see names I know well.  Thanks for the great feedback and backing, I truly appreciate it.  Will have a fair bit to sort over the next couple of weeks but glad to be into the production side of things.  Have a real appreciation for the huge amount of work involved in a campaign.  You guys have been awesome from day one.  A very big thanks.

Haha that's great, that's my favourite actor right there.  Thanks for the smile Magic.  I'm still tossing and turning over the borders.  Never happy

Tom, hello!  Very nice to hear from you.  Small world!  And thank you.  Yes the Discourse is a great bunch of people

Thanks for the support guys.  Here are some updated concept shots

Yes cost is my main concern at the moment, even UPSCC talked me down on the colours.  But I'm about set to run after that little experiment.  Thanks again for the feedback, always good points

Thanks again guys.  I've been turning this over the last couple of days.  In the end converting everything to full colour will be a task, and will increase the price of the decks again, which are already sky high.  And yes the production process changes.  It a minor thing but keeping the colors to a minimum will keep the line work sharp.  The borders, as much as I like it without I think will have to stay.  I've been working with a historian and it would be hard at the last to make such a switch.  I'd also feel like I'd bombed on working to the standard.  I've made a little compromise by thinning it out.  Good to work this through though

Thanks for your feedback Leif.  And humbled you'll brave kickstarter for the first time, thank you

Yes the battle I had early on was how close do I try to stay to the originals, and I found it was going to make for some pretty clunky art.  Probably followed some of the feedback on the early posts.  So while I have tried to retain the same elements and details as the originals, I'm careful to say the deck is 'inspired' by.  The goal was always a modern deck and a modern take.   My thought process was that the artists of the 16th century were working with wood, stencils and brushes, which limited what they could create.  If they had our tools, what might they produce. 

Hopefully I won't get trouble for showing these images but you can see some of my workings.



You're right on the colours, the originals were bright.  I decided to keep the colour monotone originally to tie in with the tuck and keep the focus on the detail.  Also didn't want to open a gold foil tuck, and be hit with fluro red cards.  Artistic license

The color fade or gradient is something I'm revisiting.   I think monotone it adds depth.  With extra colour perhaps it doesn't need it so much, and more importantly from a production stand point, if you use a gradient, you can't use metallics. Which would kill my options to an extent.

The borders, if you look at the historic art they are just inside the edge, no squeezers of course, so they don't feel as dominant as modern cards and the art basically uses the entire card.  So I think there is some play there.  All of my art is stand alone like this, so not a lot of work to remove borders, but it is another step away from the cropping of the originals.  Too far?  Undecided

Just need to get this out of my system.  What do you think of these variations?