Mythical Gods Card Deck by Marci Brinker

[Collector]

I decided to make a separate thread for this deck. Why? →
http://playingcardcollector.wordpress.com/2013/03/06/behance-mythical-gods-card-deck-by-marci-brinker/

[Collector]

"Hi again! I submitted my cards to HOPC over a month ago, and other than the confirmation email that they had received them, I didn’t hear anything else so I don’t think they are interested in printing them. I have been researching other options. I’ve been considering a Kickstarter campaign, but it might be a little difficult since I have limited time to devote to it, but I haven’t ruled it out. I also just found http://www.drivethrucards.com and they have a service where they take orders, print cards on demand, and pay their publishers a royalty. The only big drawback I can see is that they don’t offer custom tuck boxes. As collectors, is that a deal breaker for you?
I’d appreciate any thoughts the readers here might have about that. Thanks!" ~ Marci

@Don, as I remember you had some contacts with TBC (HOPC). Can you do a good thing?

[Alex Willis]

I love her deck and would love to see it made.  Perhaps someone can partner with her to do the Kickstarter bit.

[Don Boyer]

OK, a few things:

Collector, maybe it's just my browser or the computer I'm using at work right now, but your first post's link back to your blog is broken.  It generates a "page not found" error.

I just found the error - the date portion of the URL after wordpress.com should read "/2013/04/26/" and not "/2013/03/06/" - OR - you should remove the "-is-updated" portion of the link, depending on which page you're trying to point us to.

I've seen this deck before, and I liked it.  But I know that at HOPC, there's two things going on.

1) They have a LOT of submissions.  Many of them are crap, but enough of them are high-caliber that their production calendar is set for months.

2) If either Alex or Kevin personally don't like the work, for whatever reasons, it stands a low chance of HOPC making it.  It stands to reason - it's their show.

She'd stand a much better chance of getting this made on a KS project than through HOPC.  Optionally, she should shop it around to the other card design houses - they've been known to take interest in new artists before.  Last time I looked, Ellusionist is still holding in the wings a project they worked on with Alex Chin, designer of the Seasons decks - the running rumor is that it's a special Seasons release for E.  Could be the summer and winter decks, or it could be something completely different - I don't know.  Dan and Dave expressed interest in other artists' work before, a prime example being the Tungstene deck they eventually carried and sold out of.  The worst thing that will happen is they say no and she can run over to KS and make her own project rather than being another company's hired gun.

I personally think the work is great and would love to see this deck on pasteboards sometime soon.  Is she based in one of KS's "no-fly zone" countries?  EDIT: just checked, she's from Orlando according to her Behance profile.  She'd be free to launch this on KS herself if she was interested.

[Collector]

OK, a few things:

Collector, maybe it's just my browser or the computer I'm using at work right now, but your first post's link back to your blog is broken.  It generates a "page not found" error.

I just found the error - the date portion of the URL after wordpress.com should read "/2013/04/26/" and not "/2013/03/06/" - OR - you should remove the "-is-updated" portion of the link, depending on which page you're trying to point us to.

Thanks. Fixed.

I've seen this deck before, and I liked it.  But I know that at HOPC, there's two things going on.

1) They have a LOT of submissions.  Many of them are crap, but enough of them are high-caliber that their production calendar is set for months.

2) If either Alex or Kevin personally don't like the work, for whatever reasons, it stands a low chance of HOPC making it.  It stands to reason - it's their show.

She'd stand a much better chance of getting this made on a KS project than through HOPC.  Optionally, she should shop it around to the other card design houses - they've been known to take interest in new artists before.  Last time I looked, Ellusionist is still holding in the wings a project they worked on with Alex Chin, designer of the Seasons decks - the running rumor is that it's a special Seasons release for E.  Could be the summer and winter decks, or it could be something completely different - I don't know.  Dan and Dave expressed interest in other artists' work before, a prime example being the Tungstene deck they eventually carried and sold out of.  The worst thing that will happen is they say no and she can run over to KS and make her own project rather than being another company's hired gun.

Don, I think you didn't understand my appeal. I actually asked you to ask your friends in the HOPC to answer on Marci’s submission. It doesn’t mean to print the deck. It means to help to get information whether they read her submission, are interested or not interested in cooperation with her, are busy and will be able to cooperate with her only in several months, etc. It’s actually common decencies to answer questions or submissions. It’s a question of respect. One month isn’t one day. They ignored her. It can't be the way to say we are busy or we don't like your deck. I hope you agree with me.

Now it looks like “Come to us with your ideas”. A person comes with her idea. And what does she see? A closed door. The HOPC proposes to submit projects to them not designers.

No one demands from the HOPC to leave everything and to print this deck. They should be respectful and answer questions of people especially when they provoke them to ask those questions. I propose to artists to try the HOPC. From this moment I don’t have any reasons to go on with that. If they are so busy they just can post on their page "Do not submit your art - we are too busy". It'll be much better than to ignore people.

I had some ideas of new decks for BentCastle Workshops. I told them about that. On the next day they thanked me but warned  that they won't be able to consider my ideas because of their tight shedule till the end of the year. Feel the difference.

I personally think the work is great and would love to see this deck on pasteboards sometime soon.  Is she based in one of KS's "no-fly zone" countries?  EDIT: just checked, she's from Orlando according to her Behance profile.  She'd be free to launch this on KS herself if she was interested.

It's not so easy to run Kickstarter projects. Marci know about Kickstarter. She made some investigations and understood that it'll be too hard for her.

[Marci B]

Hi, I thought I would jump in to say thank you all for your thoughts and input about my card deck. This is my first deck, so it's good to hear what people with much more experience with this think about it.

I understand that HOPC might either be too busy to be interested in my deck, or that perhaps it isn't their cup of tea. That's OK.
I've been doing a fair amount of research, and while Kickstarter is a little intimidating, I am starting to think it's the way to go. I have been hesitant about it because I wasn't sure I had the time to dedicate to making a successful campaign, but I think I can do it if I plan it out properly. I'll be communicating with USPCC to figure out some details and finishing the last parts of the deck and the tuck box, and I'll start to plan out my KS campaign. I'd still love to hear any additional input anyone wants to offer.
Thanks again!

[Don Boyer]

Hi, I thought I would jump in to say thank you all for your thoughts and input about my card deck. This is my first deck, so it's good to hear what people with much more experience with this think about it.

I understand that HOPC might either be too busy to be interested in my deck, or that perhaps it isn't their cup of tea. That's OK.
I've been doing a fair amount of research, and while Kickstarter is a little intimidating, I am starting to think it's the way to go. I have been hesitant about it because I wasn't sure I had the time to dedicate to making a successful campaign, but I think I can do it if I plan it out properly. I'll be communicating with USPCC to figure out some details and finishing the last parts of the deck and the tuck box, and I'll start to plan out my KS campaign. I'd still love to hear any additional input anyone wants to offer.
Thanks again!

Welcome aboard.  Always nice to have another talented artist/designer around here!

Seriously, approach other design houses.  Theory11, Ellusionist, Dan and Dave - perhaps even CARC.  I have some idea about how they work, and you wouldn't make as much cash, but you would make money AND not have to lift a finger after that (unlike Kickstarter, which can be labor intensive for a deck project) AND you'd get exposure, which could lead to commissions where you'd have a bit more power to set the terms and your fee.

[Marci B]

Thanks, Don! That's great information. I'll look into all of them for design submissions. I do like the idea of being able to hand over the actual sales and order fulfillment to a company that knows what they're doing, rather than taking it on myself. The time I'd spend not packing orders would give me more time to spend designing and drawing new things, and that's worth a lot! It would be great if it also gave me the opportunity to design more decks too, because I enjoyed the challenge and I'm happy that people seem interested in the work. And if none of that comes to fruition, then I can take the plunge with Kickstarter.
I'll keep you all posted on any developments!

[Don Boyer]

Thanks, Don! That's great information. I'll look into all of them for design submissions. I do like the idea of being able to hand over the actual sales and order fulfillment to a company that knows what they're doing, rather than taking it on myself. The time I'd spend not packing orders would give me more time to spend designing and drawing new things, and that's worth a lot! It would be great if it also gave me the opportunity to design more decks too, because I enjoyed the challenge and I'm happy that people seem interested in the work. And if none of that comes to fruition, then I can take the plunge with Kickstarter.
I'll keep you all posted on any developments!

Remember - first, copyright everything!

[Marci B]

Very good advice!

[Don Boyer]

Very good advice!

More good advice - you can learn from the lesson of Emmanuel Jose's Curator deck.  He'd been working away at creating the cards of his first deck, not even certain if they'd ever get made into a deck, when he struck a deal with HOPC for printing his work.  It wasn't long thereafter that he was approached by someone who'd actually obtained a bootleg copy of his deck, before his was even on sale!

He was posting the images online in the typical portrait view showing the whole card image.  It appears that a Russian printer took the images straight from the web and printed them on a generic back into his own deck - and surprisingly enough, even gave Emmanuel copyright credit on the tuck box (without any of the actual profits, of course)!

From that point, he started presenting his images by taking photos of them from an angle, making them appear two-dimensionally trapezoidal rather than portrait-rectangular, thus making it more complex to forge.  Other artists are known for including prominent watermarks in the images to prevent illegitimate use of the images as well.

Copyright - AND protect!

[Alex Willis]

Copyright - AND protect!

Excellent advice Don, however it doesn't always stop the Russian and Chinese knock offs unless you're married to a copyright lawyer and even then all you can do is crack down on the people distributing here in the states.  Your best bet is to make it difficult like Don said, watermark, skew... I just looked at the blog posting (linked at the beginning of this thread) and all your cards are free to copy in full face format.  You should change that.

[Marci B]

Yep, you're both right about that. I'll definitely be updating those images.
Thanks!

[Collector]

Yep, you're both right about that. I'll definitely be updating those images.
Thanks!

They are right. Please, don't forget to notify me about your update.

[Emmanuel]

Yep, copyright and protect. When about 75% of the Curator deck was completed, I registered it with the US Copyright office. The fee is only $35. Even though the Russian rip-off happened afterwards, I have a pretty strong case if I ever find out who was responsible. I also decided to continue shooting photographs of my art straight-on up until a certain point, because I wanted to establish a history of the IP addresses that stopped viewing my profile when I started to take photos at an angle.

[Marci B]

That's a great approach - logging the IP addresses. I'm sure it would be hard to catch them, but at least you have as much ammo as possible in case that does happen. It sucks that they did that to you. The web is such a double-edged sword for artists or really anyone producing anything creative - you get to show your work to so many more people than ever before, but you also have to worry about a few bad apples stealing it too.
I followed your lead as advised here, and updated my images on my website and Behance gallery (http://be.net/gallery/Mythical-Gods-Card-Deck/6007789), and am finishing up the copyright form now.

I'm so glad @Collector introduced me to this forum. You guys have all been very nice and helpful to a newbie, and the other threads are also full of useful information.

[Emmanuel]

The changes you made look great! Your work is beautiful, and we're grateful to have you in our community

[Collector]

I locked my post about this deck for a while. I’ll wait for final updates. Marci, I think you should try watermarks as well. I don’t think they spoil pictures too much. Look at this for example
http://playingcardcollector.wordpress.com/2013/05/02/deviantart-the-jack-of-diamonds-by-miserymirror/

[Marci B]

It's been a few weeks, and I've been busy making updates to my deck, copyrighting artwork, trying the submissions route, and researching Kickstarter. I sent a submission in to Ellusionist.com first. The customer service guy who answered my inquiry was very nice and said he liked the design but that he wasn't the decision maker and he said that they have only ever printed one outside submission. He suggested Kickstarter as a possibility if I didn't hear from anyone there within a month or so. It's been just over that, so I don't think they're interested in it right now. I'm also sending it to theory11 to let them have a look, and we'll see if I hear anything from them. I'm not really holding my breath but you never know...

I've been reading lots of the posts here about Kickstarter, so I'm getting an idea of what I would need to do if I go that route. I've also been reading about the decks that got funding without being able to deliver, so I am definitely going to make sure all my bases are thoroughly covered before I take that plunge because I want to make certain that wouldn't happen in my case. I've gotten a quote and info packet from USPCC and I plan to have them look at the artwork to make sure it's in good shape. I know they'd have to approve the Bicycle branding if I use that too.

Having said all that, I thought I'd post the updated artwork here to see if anyone has any comments or sees any major faux pas that I should address. There's a more detailed look at all of it on my Behance page (http://www.behance.net/gallery/Mythical-Gods-Card-Deck/6007789). I've added 2 jokers to the designs (Eris, the goddess of strife and discord and Loki, the god of mischief and chaos), redesigned the back to tie in more with the symbolic nature of the cards, tweaked the colors a little, and added a tuck box design.

[Collector]

Hi Marci,

I understand that Loki is an unordinary person but two right hands are too much even for him
Can you try a little darker red on the back and the tuck case?
Nice changes in the back design.

[Marci B]

Ah, good catch. I knew I had looked at them for too long (with multiple revisions) and might be overlooking something simple like that.