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Playing Card Chat ♠ ♥ ♣ ♦ => Design & Development => Topic started by: Cipher Kai on July 05, 2012, 05:07:07 PM
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My name is Kai Nesbit, I'm the owner of Cipher Studios, a game company that has been producing high quality games for 6 years. I love all types of playing cards and have worked on several collectible card games at previous companies. Our primary artist we use for our main game, Wen Yu Li, is phenomenal so I asked him to work with me on doing a playing card deck to showcase his talent and to go crazy on his vision of a poker deck.
I have great respect of the people on these forums and would appreciate feedback on the deck hope you enjoy it.
Displayed are the Back, Ace of Spades, Queen of Hearts, King of Clubs. As we finish up more of the cards I'll add them here.
If you'd like to see more of the artists work please check out his Deviant art page: wen-m.deviantart.com
*THIS IS UPDATED WITH NEW ART VERSIONS*
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It looks cool for sure, the arist is really skilled and I like the ace of spades a lot. The AoS kind of reminds me of the guardians but the medusa one makes me feel happy for some reason.
The red background looks better than the green one for sure but I think a better color can be chosen. Did Wen try experimenting other colors? I don't have any color suggestions at the moment because I'm awful at imagining colors.
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The back design is very nicely designed but the colors aren't my style. As for the rest of the cards shown, the artwork is incredible and unlike any other cards! I am definitely interested in these! Also, I think this deck would look great with thin borders.
Were you planning on getting these printed by the USPCC?
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@DeckReview: We can experiment with other colors for sure. If there are suggestions let me know. I suppose the Ace of Spades being compared to the Guardian deck can't be that bad since that deck is great.
I'm glad the Medusa makes you feel happy! That's certainly not the response she gets from most people in mythology hehe.
@Evan: Yes, the current plan is to print them with USPCC and do a Kickstarter Campaign. Please feel free to suggest colors. I was thinking of trying a blue. Do you have a deck you could reference for the kind of borders you're thinking of?
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@DeckReview: We can experiment with other colors for sure. If there are suggestions let me know. I suppose the Ace of Spades being compared to the Guardian deck can't be that bad since that deck is great.
I'm glad the Medusa makes you feel happy! That's certainly not the response she gets from most people in mythology hehe.
@Evan: Yes, the current plan is to print them with USPCC and do a Kickstarter Campaign. Please feel free to suggest colors. I was thinking of trying a blue. Do you have a deck you could reference for the kind of borders you're thinking of?
I was thinking blue as well. Maybe even a navy blue?
Here is an example of the size borders I was thinking: http://img163.imageshack.us/img163/5922/dd1t.jpg
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So do you just mean enlarging the image on the back or bringing the letter and icon inside the border on the faces as well?
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Please don't try blue. That colours has already been overdone. Try a bright colour. Wathever, but something light. Decks nowadays very often have that heavy look, cause of the colour being dark. I think it would be 'original' to have a light colour, just to have a feeling of being this deck as light as a feather. Try light green, light blue, orange (lighter than the Fulton Ace deck), doesn't matter, but something very light. That's what my suggestion would be...
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So do you just mean enlarging the image on the back or bringing the letter and icon inside the border on the faces as well?
I'm really not sure how to do it. My guess would be to enlarge the image on the back.
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Lovely artwork there, very nice style. Three comments:
the border line on the faces is doing you no favors and looks awkwardly placed, I'd strongly suggest seeing how it looks without. Make the art the focus instead of a distracting line.
I'm not sure you will be able to print the pips that close to the edge of the card, perhaps give that a little breathing room. (Also make sure they are in exactly the same place on every card)
The back design is great but the colors evoke Christmas to me. I understand the need for green, but the red might be experimented with. Yellows, golds, lighter greens...
Nice stuff, looking forward to seeing more!
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I completely agree with Paul on the fact that the border on the faces is unnecessary. The artwork is so great and that line is distracting. A suggestion might be to add a bit of shading to fill out the background. I would definitely not change the colors though. I'm really loving this!
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I love the artwork but as Paul mentioned, the colors instantly make me think of christmas. I would personally try some gold and different shades of yellow instead of the red but keeping the green for sure. I would help fund this deck for sure :)
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The artwork is so beautiful! I especially love the faces. The back design I find a bit confusing, a mix between Christmas, Medusa, angels, swords etc.
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It's amazing how good talent gets around. I have a huge respect for Wen-m, I have browsed through that deviant art page more times than I can count, and absolutely love almost everything I see, so to hear that he's involved in creating a deck of cards is amazing news.
On to the cards - the faces are stunning, keep up the good work. The back has me a little tripped up though, I'm not sure if it's the colors, or the busy mix of theme, but something about it seems off. It might just be that I personally dislike seeing red & green side by side, I think they clash pretty bad, just a personal opinion though.
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If you want this to be Greek mythology based, you have to go Greek!
The shields at all wrong, the ones you have are middle ages, they need to be the round Hoplite shields. Remember medusa was used on Alexander the Great's breastplate and on some hoplite's shields. She is used to scare the enemy, make her slightly more uglier.
Colours are wrong, pottery is wrong. That seems more like Italian pottery and make it more Greek styled with even medusa depicted on the pots. And the plants, try making them more grape vine or olive tree styled. And the sword needs a bit more improvement. All in all I think you're on the right track, keep it up and good luck, excited to see the finished product.
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We'll continue to work on the colors of the back design. I can see the point about it evoking Christmas, I kind of saw that myself. We can try thinner borders as well. I'll try removing the border around the face cards to see how it looks too. We are thinking about playing with the overall white background a little anyway but need to be careful not to detract from the art itself.
The goal of the deck is to let the artist's fantasies come to life. Medusa's play a roll in myth and many fantasy worlds and the face cards follow the fantasy races of elves, dwarves, orks, and of course humans. Though a deck that follows ancient historical themes does sound interesting, hmm.....
If this project does well Wen is already excited to do more deck designs. I would love to do a whole series of decks but I'm getting a little ahead of myself now ;)
Thanks again for the input. I'll update the images with reworks soon.
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I've updated the images at the top with the newest version of the cards. I've put up two possible back colors, one gold and blue. Let me know what you think!
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I don't know why, but I don't really like the colours on this one. I'm talking about the back design here and the AoS. All colours are like a darken 'light' colour. It's difficult to explain. I really like the design of all cards, that's for sure. I would just try different darkness and contrast of the colours. For eg, I hate the green on the Medusa. I think purple or yellow (that background colour) could be nice for that one, or just another green colour. But I would definately change that. From now on, this more reminds me of a Tarot deck, absolutely not negative about Tarot deck, but It's just not my piece of cake. What if you tried to make some roses red. Really don't know what could come out of it. Could be awfull, but I think it would put some more life and contrast. So that would be my suggestion. Other colour shades: Try changing the contrast and the darkness of the colours. I'm absolutely no expert on the domain, but that's just how I feel it. Like I said before, I totally like the design on itself.
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I'm fond of the light blue background.
The improved faces are great. Normally, I might have said to let the background detail fade to the edges because anything that prints to the edge would potentially "mark" your deck, etc., but it's clear that this isn't a deck for magicians - it's an artistic work, pure and simple. Under those conditions, go right ahead - it'll be fine.
I say it's not a magician's deck, because as a magician, if I pulled this deck out and tried to perform with it, my spectators would be so spellbound by the artwork that they'd be paying little attention to the trick routine. It's not even the often-heard but not really true lament about how any deck that doesn't look familiar is thought of as suspicious - I've pulled out all sorts of uncommon decks without my audience getting tipped off. But something this pretty would be too much for them - they'd want to really look at the art rather than the magic.
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I like the gold back design best but now it looks very "busy."
The faces look awesome and I like that added design in the background of the faces.
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Have you guys noticed that the "wings" motif on this deck is nearly identical (although much more colorful) to the one that appears on the back of the Archangels deck?
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Have you guys noticed that the "wings" motif on this deck is nearly identical (although much more colorful) to the one that appears on the back of the Archangels deck?
Yeah, but I won't say the designer is ripping it off, the deck itself has a completely different theme, being a at least to me, a very RPG theme, I would say go for it. Also it has alot of different colour, which is not something I see a lot of.
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Have you guys noticed that the "wings" motif on this deck is nearly identical (although much more colorful) to the one that appears on the back of the Archangels deck?
Yeah, but I won't say the designer is ripping it off, the deck itself has a completely different theme, being a at least to me, a very RPG theme, I would say go for it. Also it has alot of different colour, which is not something I see a lot of.
Granted. It's just interesting to see. It's like how the NOC deck and the Mystery deck have exactly the same back design, which is just a solid field of color with a white border. They came up with the ideas independently, but still ended up in the same place.
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Here's the Jack of Hearts. One of my personal favorites :)
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Very nice but the intricate design that go all the way to the edges kind of negates the border of the back design. It is very nice, I like designs that go all the way out to the edge. But in terms of practicality in magic, it is not going to work out in some magic tricks. Although if it fades out all the way to the edge and it is inconspicuous, that'd be great. All this is just my opinion.
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A little more feedback:
I think that anything that creates a one way design will be met with a lot of distaste. As much as i I love face patterns, you need to find a way to mirror that design element.
The pip is sweet but that drunken and broken J is a little random and doesn't match the lovely artwork.
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I did a test by mirroring the design element. I reduced it from a 10% black to 5% because I think it would distract too much from the illustration and it should be very difficult to notice from the edge. Fading it to the edges didn't work, it just looked wrong. Personally I like the one way design but I understand the issue for Magicians. I'm not sure what I think about the mirrored element though. By the way Encarded, I love your Tendril deck and it was one of my inspirations on desiring to make my own deck.
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I have to say that the mirroring on the design on the back of the court cards are a bit odd. A more 'free' design would be better in my opnion. Certainly being the front of the cards, no one cares if it is different one way to another. Not even these demanding magicians. ;)
For the back design. Have you already decided which one you liked more? Or did other experiments with colours? From what I see now, this deck is very promising. I'll be looking forward to further updates...
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I think that mirroring works pretty well, actually. However, now that I'm really thinking about it, the overall art style and theme of the illustrations doesn't exactly match the neo-victorian-curly motif. We've seen that motif used a lot lately and it is very attractive, but I think there needs to be a valid reason for it's use, not just because it looks interesting. The illustrations are very fantastical and aggressive and I don't feel like that mixes very well with the delicate curls.
Just some designery thoughts.
Thanks for the kind words Cipher, glad I could give a little inspiration.
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Yeah, I've been thinking the motif might not be necessary the more I play with it. I was mostly worried about the background not having enough body to it but with the custom icons and illustration there might be enough going on that a lot of negative space would be OK. The strong upper left to lower right diagonal and negative space in the upper right and lower left might actually look kinda cool with some tricks and flourishing. Here's the queen without the background.
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I don't mind it if you put the delicate lines or not but what does the ace of Spades look like now? I'm thinking it looks pretty because of all the white spaces.
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I'm loving the faces with or without the background design. I'm not particularly picky with that. :P The back design can do away with the boarder. It would be much better. Like what Paul mentioned earlier. I like the feel of this deck. it has a lot of potential! Great work! And keep it up as well.
xoxo
Lara
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I tried some more experiments with the back design. I removed the border and the background.
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Now that looks much better!
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Ok, now it is really appealing to me. I so want it. I must have it. Why don't I have it.
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@CipherKai - no background and no boarder looks really fantastic! I LOVE IT!
good update! I have a feeling the printing plates of these would look so amazing... its too bad that USPCC does not allow the release of the plates anymore.
xoxo
Lara
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I personally prefer the newer back and most recent court card without the back design. I do agree that the deck looks extremely promising. I can't wait to see more!