Choose Your Fate

It's almost New Years, and with it, something a bit different!

Wyrd is hosting a contest for a new Fate deck, and with that meaning restrictions are lifted, it's time to resurrect my deck design! Aside from some cleaning up, it's mostly the same deck you've seen before, but I've made sure to revise the face cards to suit the Malifaux world a bit more.

The explanation of the deck is this:

Many of the Fate decks already in existence are what I'd call "out of world" decks - The Puppet Wars deck, the very snazzy decks including artwork from concept sketches of various characters, etc.

There's only one "In-world" deck I know of, and that's Xander's Retro deck. It's a beautifully designed deck, and it very much 'fits' the word. The only problem I have is that it's old, beaten up, and made to look (I think) like they found it when they reopened the breach, sitting on a table somewhere, and thought no ill of picking it up and starting to use it. What I'm going for is different. I want to make the "Modern Malifaux" deck. I want one where any random trader, card shark, or bored kid could go into a shop in Malifaux (or Earthside - currently the city of origin is listed as my own, Toronto!) and pick up a deck much like this and play with it.

Many of the designs are held over from the previous two posts (linked above) so in this entry I'll mostly focus on the differences.

First, the jokers are mostly the same, but they're the least "busy", so they'll show off the background well. Whereas the old one was whatever I could find from the internet to convey the feeling, it was too yellow, and too 'not mine'. I have since revised it with a texture pulled from paper I purchased, photographed, and edited.

More importantly you'll notice a refined and cleaned up back. These are far closer to the fancy designs so often found and admired on poker decks, and the prominent, not-too-fancy M in the middle is a strong reminder of what game it is!

And now the big change: face cards! You can see the damage indicators still in the corner, the large symbols for each suit on the aces, and most importantly, customized designs! The Aces are all going to have large symbols in the middle, to keep Crows from being too fancy, and the biggest modification to this set of royals is the Queen; While I did try to limit the number of in-world characters, I figure someone like Lady Justice is both well-liked and well-known enough to gain card immortalization. The cards feature very bright red cloth, as red is considered the faction colour of the Guild.

Next up are the Tomes. Tomes represent Arcanists, and while they may make a sneaky deck with hidden clues to them, this is not that deck. They were chosen of the face cards because they have large discs, coloured in this to represent soulstones. They have less gold than their Guild counterparts (except the king) but they are coloured varying shades of blue. From the bright cyan in their eyes and the soulstones, to the more muted cyan and royal blue of their cloth, they hold to the Arcanist blue.

The Masks (or Masques) represent the Neverborn. Their colour scheme is made to echo that of the Guild, with a colder, more sinister set of purples (Neverborn's colour) trying to keep somewhat the feel of the Guild reds. The masks on each are made to look both like the suit icon, and also the one worn by the Guild's Secretary, who many suspect to be a Neverborn!

If I do win the contest, and am asked to, I considered snaking some subtle colour inflection through their robes to look like tentacles, but the darts on the King's sleeves kind of work that effect, and keeps the overall look subtle.

Finally, the Crows. This was a difficult one. Traditionally, Spades are the 'highest' suit, but in the world of Malifaux, it represents the Resurrectionists, who are perhaps the most hated faction in the game. As a result, I had to juggle the primacy of one with the hatred of the other, and so decided to go subtle. The ace, as mentioned, keeps the 'tariff has been payed' look, and each of the royals is made to be subtly creepy and undead. All three have sunken cheeks. The Jack has blank eyes, the Queen empty pits, and the King small eerie dots as though the irises have blanched. Their clothes are primarily green (the Resurrectionist colour) and brown (for the earth), with a minimum of gold effects.

It was nice to go through and clean up the royals, since it let me really think on the designs overall. I hope you like them!

Contest Entries: Diorama

My final piece for the Wyrd contest was a diorama depicting Santana calmly fighting off a Flesh Construct. I bought the one with the hapless victim about to be flung:

Originally, I thought about making the base incredibly fancy, but realized that would just detract from the models themselves. I used a subdued paint scheme to ensure that the few elements that should pop would do so (the blood, the bile behind the flesh construct, etc.)

For Santana, I experimented with using a more illustrative/painterly style, especially visible on her stomach. I was tempted to source light the entire thing, but with the Wyrd requirement (or so I thought) of a white background, the source lighting wouldn't have really worked.

The Flesh Construct (and zombie) was fun to paint: A lot of grey was mixed into his flesh tones, and I used a colder brown than I typically basecoat flesh with. This resulted in a very pallid, 'off' seeming skintone that was strongly contrasted by Santana's warm olive tones. The brass fixtures were done to feel especially steampunk, and to tie together with the eerie fleshtone. His victim was painted very simply, meant to look like just an average dockworker.

Since Santana has such a solid, no-nonsense pose, I decided to imitate that in her painting. The dusty brown trousers and jacket, the functional white t-shirt, and even her guild-approved reds are faded and dulled. This is no flashy gunslinger, this is a woman who gets things done brutally and efficiently. (Even her garb is functional.)

The base was done in my typical Malifaux fashion: Grey stone, washed with various colours to infuse some variety, then re-drybrushed with grey to fade out the colours more. I added some moss and water effects to get across the grimy, dockside nature of this encounter.

Overall, I like the idea of this woman dwarfed by some necromantic nightmare, calmly dispatching one opponent and lining up on another. I have an idea for my next diorama too, so we'll see when Wyrd next decides to swing a contest our way!

Contest Entries: Single

Next up is a model I was toying around with a bunch, and this was finally the kick to get it finished: Izamu!

I did a bunch of research for this guy, attempting to make him as accurate as possible for a samurai. back banners are relatively accurate, the armour colour seems to be incredibly common, and I replaced his casual use fan with a Japanese war fan. His weapon is curious; it's a Chinese weapon (Dadao) in blade style, but a Japanese weapon (Nagamaki) in handle comparison. I ended up just going with a simple verdigrised gold/brass handle with leather wraps, a bright metal blade, and gold rings.

The fan is a curious one. Samurai were known to have the typical folding style fans, often metal-bladed and meant for when a weapon was not permitted. (A short club, hidden as an accessory!) That said, they were very unlikely to be brandished on the battlefield, especially not by a blood-crazed giant of a man (spirit?) like Izamu. I did what I figured would be his more logical choice, and gave him a General's war fan. The latter was used in battle to both mark characters of importance, and to direct troops in the chaos of combat. Izamu seems first of all like the General-sort, and also the kind who would want to command his troops in battle, even if they are just figments of his own broken psyche.

I also kept his warrior mask on, but rather than the full-face version given in the box, I cut it back so it more resembled the traditional variant. Samurai often wanted to look as fearsome as possible, and a certain division commander even enjoyed bright red armour and big horns off the top, which worked great until he was sniped.

All the metal on his armour is likewise verdigrised and tainted, which goes with the tattered look of his pants, and the plethora of arrows sticking out of him. Unlike most of my Malifaux models which live in a world of bricks, cobblestones, and mouldering docks, Izamu lives in a world where he's still on a feudal Japanese battlefield, and I wanted to represent this with the bright green grass, flower bushes, and of course, a half dozen other arrows on the ground around him. This last bit was to hopefully explain he doesn't just suck at deflecting arrows, he's weathered a full barrage!

Most annoyingly, I discovered as I painted him: I suspect when making the CAD file for this, the designer mirrored the legs to make the pose. His clan symbol 'twists' two different directions depending on the leg! I had confirmed this to be the case too late in the project to cut and putty, so I just reflected the paint on the back banners in the same way, so they twirl different directions depending which side of the banner you look from.

I am honing my NMM-style metallic painting, and am particularly happy with the way his blade turned out. I'll have to start infusing colours, and see how that fares next!

Contest Entries: Crew

Well, the Wyrd contest winners are now revealed, and alas I was not included. That said, it was fun to try to paint a bunch of stuff in one month, just to push myself. I don't know if I will push thus again, but still...

That said, to start off with, my Viktorias Crew!

One image, as posted, and I'll go through them in detail below:

The Viks themselves, as before, are meant to look relatively utilitarian. They're well-off mercenaries sure, but they're not exactly rolling in it. As a result, their armour isn't entirely clean and polished, the clothing is relatively drab in colour (except Vik of Blood's red pants and black leather jacket), and the swords have a nice nod back to my first iteration of purple. I am still a little frustrated that the woman with arms in opposite directions has a level-chest, and the one with arms mostly leaving at the same level seems to have an anti-gravity boob, but that's something to discuss with the sculptor, and not really an issue in painting.

I love the new Taelor: I'll do a direct comparison soon, but man, more awesome pose, more practical clothing, a relic hammer that looks bizarrely old, the new clockwork arm is fantastic... My only issue was the ponytail going over her head. There is no way her pose makes her hair do that, so I put it in the more logical location of flowing down.

I gave Taelor and the Student of Conflict almost an identical paintscheme. I liked the idea of the Student latching on to this powerful potent figure, and that while Taelor may be all kinds of condescending to the various mercenaries and ne'er-do-wells in Malifaux, this child with a brave heart would speak to her. The garb for the Student is very utilitarian, and so I matched that paint-wise with a rough-and-ready wool fabric, boring scabbard, etc.

Also, hard to see in the pic is Taelor's boots are visibly steel-toed. There's a few scuff-marks where the metal shows through. I don't especially like the boot design for her or Vik Ashes; there's a weird run of fabric and belt buckles that sent me back to the illustrations just to find out what was going on.

Finally the Ronin. I figured rather than in any way attempting to make them look subdued, I'd do quite the opposite and make them stand waay out. I remember a fluff-tale for the Viks involving them eschewing armour for speed, and I figure they've passed this on to their disciples. I also wanted to theme each of them with tertiaries, since in the crew they kind of are. Viks are the primaries, Taelor's the secondary, and then there's the Ronin.

I ended up making the Cyan ronin almost look like Wendy (the mascot) and she is paler than I usually do skin, with vibrant teal/cyan clothes. the back-armour has the kanji for "ronin" on it (I hope), and bright red hair, which I'll probably do a tutorial at some point for.

Purple was made with a mind to using colours I rarely do: gray, and muted purple. I know it doesn't look as muted in the photograph, but it is. In keeping with the tertiary concept, it's a blue-purple colour.

Finally comes my Latina Ronin (I know, anachronistic or what?) I intentionally shaded her skin darker, and attempted to imitate a bright, strong, Spanish-style colour mix. The colour fade on the sleeves and stockings match, but I kept it simpler for the kimono and sash, to help them stand out more. At first I was tempted to go complimentary as a detail colour, but realized I should just go black. The yellow-orange and orange-red was so strong that to just go with the opposing colour would have looked off.

I kept the bases mundane, with cobblestones and water effects, figuring this is a crew that does not spend its time in the finer areas of Malifaux.

And now, with this wall of text for all, I shall see you next time! I may edit and upload singles-pics to intersperse in this post, after I've uploaded all three entries. Then, another post about Infinity stuff! I am now counting off days until we get to enjoy the Icestorm starter set!

Pandora Crew, together at last

It seems Pandora is photo shy. It's really difficult to get a good one of her! Nevertheless, here she is in all her painted splendour:

Isn't she just so innocently adorable?

The photos mostly had to be amalgams, because either the focus would only be on half of her, or too bright, etc. She was a ton of fun to actually paint though. I got to use techniques I haven't in a while, and really pushed my skin painting.

I knew I had to fancy up her dress when I saw how much flat space was on it. I had to delicately cover up the wisp of smoke/miasma coming off the box, because I knew I wanted to keep its eerie glow even when the model was painted.

Kade's also been finished and photographed now. It's odd; there's a notch under his leg where the teddy is supposed to slot, but I prefered the idea of him having paid attention to it right up until something else caught his eye... something warm, and naive, and vulnerable...

He was also incredibly difficult to paint in a way I'd not experienced previously: With only really skin and diaper to paint, he paints up so fast you feel like you're missing something. I must've looked him over a few times just making sure of that.

Candy of course looks appropriately adorable now. It's amazing how large the bases seem for Candy and Kade, especially being the plain discs.

Aand finally, the entire original crew. I may yet do some painted details on the sorrows and poltergeist, but for the time being, I want to leave them pure creepy plastic. They were the real motivation for clear bases: I may eventually do a scenic base for them with lights buried in, casting a creepy glow up through their base.

And then, one final group-shot to leave you with; Pandora amidst her creations!

Teddy will join them as soon as I can figure out what to do about his eyes.

Pandora and Teddy

At long last, Pandora's at a state I am willing to declare 'done'! There's still some minor tweaking, as there always is, but with her done, and Teddy almost done, my Pandora crew is almost complete and table-ready! Tonight I'll be basing them, I hope.

Her cape's purple is the same as Candy's dress and Teddy's belly, which helps tie the crew together a bit. Her boots got a plain leather. I'll have better pics of her when I get the chance to take them on a day with better lighting. After a bunch of back-and-forth, I went with a relatively basic metallic colour for her box of evils, figuring doing anything too ornate would pull attention from the rest of her.

I'm happy with how the wisps of power look coming out of her box. It was well worth covering with blu-tac!

Next up is the beast that is Teddy. His claws have earned their gloss black, and I've painted the patterns on the patches. I wanted to make them look like parts of kid's blankets, as though they were sewn in after being 'found' elsewhere. I still can't decide how to do the eyes though. Glowing green, red, and fiery orange are all possibilities, as well as just leaving them as dark black as I can make them.

Something else I'm debating is whether or not to gore up the teddy himself. On the one hand, it fits the style. On the other, I've never been much a fan of the heavy use of gore on models, and I want him to appear adorable if you take a quick glance, with increasing creepiness as you really take in the various elements of his enhanced form...

I'll probably sit with this for a while, and then perhaps add some gore if he makes a particularly noteworthy kill in-game.

Designs and Drawings

Well, I'm back from a laptop panic. My macbook is from 2007 and is being quite temperamental. I had to play around in Unix to make it behave again, so I've not finished as much since then as I'd like to have.

First up, the deck! I have decided to custom-create the designs for the royals, which may take me a while. I am going to have to consider what each of the suits would mean in a Malifaux context, but also in such a way as won't too directly reference the 'evil' side of Crows and Masks. If I can't find a design that works, I may stick to the defaults. I'm also likely to replace "Jacks" with "Mages", at least visually. Malifaux is a world populated enough by magic that I figure any deck of playing cards would reference them (the icon will remain the same of course.)

That said, here's the full deck laid out (still the old royals) with likely the background pattern I'll end up using:

But wait, there's more! I've been working on fancying up Pandora's dress, and I am frustrated by the skirt join. I have done everything I can think of to obscure the join line, and it still shows. I may have to do something scandalous and put epoxy putty on even though it's already been basecoated!

Here she is. I've tried to capture a better shot of her face that shows off the makeup. You can see my translucent skin effect on the legs, and the swirled designs on her skirt. They'll be further highlighted as I go along.

With computer problems sorted out for the most part, I should have more time now for painting, and can hopefully figure out what to do about that annoying fabric join...

Ten Thunders, One Leader

I knew I had to do something special with Misaki. She has sat on my desk longer than any other model in the faction, just because I wanted to make sure she felt right. I'm still not certain I nailed it, but I reached a point where I wouldn't be improving if I put on more paint. With that in mind I finished off the final details I could see and set her aside. I may yet add some grass tufts or bushes to her base, but otherwise she's done!

Her pose is a very dynamic one, and I decided to play to the arrogance in her fluff by having her acrobatic maneuver take place so she's still delicately balanced on the stone in the zen garden. To reflect her impulsive nature, despite the delicacy, it's ruined by her other leg high-kicking lightning everywhere.

I would have removed the lightning, in all honesty, if it weren't that it would leave her utterly without an independent stabilization point, and part of her toe is part of the lightning piece!

As for the painting: I knew she had to be almost entirely red, and a bright bold red at that. She's not shy or subtle, and a big bold red would reflect that. It also helps that red is an important colour in both Chinese and Japanese culture. Yellow is likewise important, being either royal or noble colours in each. This helped make a good secondary point and completed the colour wheel when the blue was added in. It's a bit of an obvious primary, but again, she's not subtle!

Her blade was done in what's becoming my favourite way to paint metal: NMM with metallic paints. In this case, I worked in a few blue-green glazes to give the blade an unusual sheen, and also to reinforce the blue-green of her headpiece and leg armour. The main plates of her gear is bronze, to match the yellow a bit closer.

I of course had to go crazy on kimono details. This time it's lots of flowers (cherry blossoms primarily), with ferns, a nice little pond, etc. I wanted her outfit to look incredibly expensive, and not at all combat-based, as a method of displaying contempt to her opponents and a desire to primarily be the centre of attention. I tried to make the lightning arc as detailed as possible, but it's a bit of a tough one to really nail down...

In this pic you can also see the zen garden itself. Easiest way to make that is smear some greenstuff over the base as flat as you can manage, moisten your thumb, and press it in firmly and evenly. You'll get a good set of grooves, and all you then need to do is drop on some bits of larger sand, work grooves around said stones, and presto: Zen garden!

More details, closer-up this time. Her facial covering has more blossoms, the back has a coiled dragon, and on her leg you can see those details.

With that, my Ten Thunders crew is done! Now I work at finishing up hired swords, paint some Pandora folks, and convince the fiancee to field one of the forces! If she gives me permission, I'll show how she's figuring out making a LCB all Cthuloid.

Ototo, alongside Shang

As part two of my Ten Thunders Leaders, I've got pics of Ototo! Misaki's brother is a beast. Sure he's all hunched up, but if you measure out his height if he were standing, he's a good head and shoulders over the next tallest Malifaux model it looks like.

I love the idea of this model, but I have to say the pose is a bit strange. I converted him to be more over his own base, but the default has him pretty well not at all actually situated on his base. Also, I can not say this enough: If you want to do a good job painting him, leave him at least partly disassembled. I should have left his helmet off entirely, and perhaps even left his arms disconnected from his torso! I kind of did what I could for his front, but it is nowhere near the level of detail I could achieve if I wasn't having to bend space-time just to get to his mask!

I did a simple pattern on his clothes, in a rich blue meant to contrast the armour, and to look like traditional robes of a warrior. His hair is a simple grey, as is most of the ground. I did little jags of lightning, because of course, and like Yamaziko, he's got lots of red on him.

His helm is painted in a way I'm trying to perfect, which is a NMM style (non-metallic metals) but with metallic paints. This way you still get the significant shine in person, but have controlled to make the 'colour' really rich and deep.

Also, according to Google Translate and a few other sites I used to verify, the symbol on his helmet means "Thunder" (or "Lightning") in Japanese, because again, Ten Thunders...

Originally I was going to make his club solid metal, but I changed it at the last minute to be wood. I have to say, the club lacks a lot of detail, so be very careful when spraying it or trying to paint it.

If I ended up with another Ototo, I would go whole hog on making him standing. This pose doesn't seem to fit his persona fluff-wise. Other than that, neat model.

Because that was just one set of photos, I shall also include Shang, Misaki's sidekick/familiar:

I know I'm not the only one to say this, but there is absolutely no reason for him to be on a small base. If they're concerned about corpse tokens (which I don't think he drops) they could give him the "willowy" rule they gave Yamaziko.

So, on to talking about how to paint fire. There's two ways with models. The first is to paint the darker reds towards the base/core of the flame, highlighting to white as you move towards the tips of the fire. Problematically, that isn't how fire works in the real world. The other option is to imitate real fire: White at the hottest/brightest, moving through yellow to orange. I've tried that on this guy, base-coating him in white, and then highlighting him up through the yellow and orange stage. The last orange step was so necessary, because before that he looked like a popcorn demon, not a fire demon.

And just for fun, another over-lit image showing how he would appear as fire:

Shang and Ototo are certainly the weaker two models in the Ten Thunders box, I think. Misaki's nice and dramatic, the Torakage are so distinctive and evocative, but these two have enough flaws that I wish I could edit...

Next time, Misaki herself! Then I have to get back to painting a bunch for my next run of stuff.

Ten Thunders Yamaziko

At long last, we had a nice enough day I could fotograph the last few Ten Thunders models I have! (I'll do a full crew post when I can again get a nice day for fotos.)

To start things off, let's get a good dramatic pic of Yamaziko:

Yes, the colours have been enhanced in this one, but it allows me to make her look appropriately dramatic with her lantern lighting her from behind.

Here she is in proper light. I decided, in contrast to Misaki, to keep her robes relatively plain. They are still fancy with a decoration of flowers, but is nowhere near the level of detail I put into the young leader. I figure this ties the feel of the models together more: Yamaziko reserved, Misaki wild and flamboyant.

Her face's paint is actually the second attempt. The first time I did my standard flesh tone, wash, with a highlight, but it made her skin seem too 'young'. I went back over it again with a pale flesh colour, intentionally mixed with a small amount of grey and highlighted with pale sand to simulate more an older person's skin. I also intetionally made the strokes all lines, and without much smoothing, to get across a wrinkled feel.

Believe it or not, this is my first attempt at source lighting painting. I've not often been a fan of it, mostly because a lot of folks go way overboard, making the model just look like they've been hit by an airbrush from a few angles with whichever colour of light. Here though, with such a distinct and significant element on her, I had to go a bit fancier.

Here's her side-shots. The bit of hair that is loose from her bun on the left side is a bit odd, and may yet see some updates. The left shows off the flowers on her kimono, while the right displays the effects I attempted on source-lighting the bricks.

Next time (and far sooner than I typically post) I will have an update of Misaki and her friend Shang.

A 'New' Malifaux Deck

With my Panthers put away, and my Hired Swords and final Ten Thunders models up on the painting desk and being steadily layered, I've also been turning my attention to another project.

I am, by training, a graphic designer. I am also a card player, mostly euchre but so many more besides. One of the big draws to Malifaux for me was always the curious card system rather than dice. When I saw the default fate deck, I was unimpressed. I immediately thought about making a deck attempting to integrate the symbols; I've had thoughts of messing around with the distinctive look and feel of cards before, and here was a reason! Then, as I circled ever closer to purchasing and playing Malifaux, I discovered a thread regarding the forum-spawned old school deck, and knew I had to get one.

When I got it, for all the awesome it has, there was an issue: The cards are plastic. Not plastic-coated paper, like most you'll see, but fully plastic. If you are a card player, you know that they are just not up to snuff for most games. They slide wrong, they're thicker, they don't quite shuffle right, etc.

Other than that, beautiful deck. Wonderfully integrated symbols, a nice old-school touch, and very much a feel of a deck that returning colonists discovered in the parlours of Malifaux from the first excursion: Still playable, but warped, aged, and a little off.

So I got to thinking: I'd wanted to design a deck, and here was a reason. I wanted a different feel though: The old-deck (If someone can remember who made it, I'd love to know) looks just that: Very vintage. That kind of ink crazing happens after a long time, and the cards are well beaten up. I wanted to do a deck which is designed in the style you could theoretically walk into a store Earth-side or in Malifaux 'today' and buy.

First, knowing the era Malifaux takes place in, I wanted to add the arabesques that were so popular of the time, so I worked out a simple little swirl pattern. The faces currently are default from the internet, and while I may mildly change them, for the most part I don't want to theme them after the four main factions; this is meant to be a deck produced by a contemporary print shop, and I can not imagine them intentionally crafting cards themed after the vile Resurrectionists!

Considering the effects of the jokers, I made the black joker a grim reaper, (much like Xander's Retro deck: See the original here.) but wanted to make it feel even more like a 'real' deck, and so kept the art pattern simple, and then copied the pose for the red joker: A true jester, but still morbid: Skull wand, creepy expression, etc.

The four symbols, while heavily inspired by the old-deck, were done without any direct reference. I wanted them to be unique, and to answer the challenges my own way. I insisted that the shapes be as analogous as possible, which forced some odd bends to the crows, and necessitated the tassels for the masks. Since the 'heart' suit is now "Rams", each symbol is two ram skulls aligned as though butting against one another.

Similarly, the numbers were inspired by typefaces popular at the time, with the J(11), Q(12) and K(13) coming first, and then informing the Ace(1) and other numbers thematically.

I struggled for a while with the back design. Card design over the centuries has seen simple patterns, photographs, or often just blank backsides, but I wanted to go more the bicycle route. Initially I tried integrating the steampunk feel but it just felt too forced. Eventually I settled on what I figure any visitor to Malifaux would want on their handy, ever-accessible deck of cards: A map of Malifaux's regions.

This, then, serves as a way to advertise the capabilities of the printing house's detail, makes for a useful tool for people who own the deck, and feels very card-like. After attempting various ways of fooling with digital arabesques, I finally just gave up, hand-drew all but the skulls, and then scanned and vectorized them.

Finally came the challenge of the spade ace. I knew I wanted to make the deck as like a real one as possible, and here the rivet-counting ways flared in. Through research, I discovered that the reason Aces of, specifically, Spades have such fancy designs has to do with tariffs once applied to things like decks of cards. Rather than having a slip of paper with every deck sold to prove its print house had paid its dues, card makers made the first visible card in the deck have it on it. This also served as part advertisement, and gradually evolved into the very fanciful ace we have today.

Well, with that knowledge, I couldn't have each suit with a fanciful Ace, as there'd be no historical bearing for it. Clubs (Tomes), Hearts (Rams), and Diamonds (Masks) were relegated to normal status,  but I had to do something fancy for Spades (Crows).

This is where I am at so far. (The grey is just template for the card border.) I've been pulling in various Ace design shapes, and pulling inspiration from the best elements of each. My ace works as "advertisement" for the print shop, and fancy design as it ought. The crow itself is reworked in its design, but is essentially still the same crow. I can't yet decide if I want to do more patterning through the center, and I am debating putting arabesques around the crow itself. (Input would be greatly appreciated.)

For final thoughts: I welcome any critiques, especially on the face cards, back of deck, and Ace of Spades. I'm mostly on the final cleanup now, and will likely also be getting a cream-coloured paper to photograph, and add as texture to the cards before sending them off to print. There's a company that offers to make decks and I am hoping the prints will work out. I'll test-run it first on a laser-printer, to make sure the detail is not too fine. If folks want a more detailed look at the various suit cards, I can add them in my next update when I can finish off the ace.

It's been a fun process; my Illustrator file is sprawling with layers to keep everything aligned properly!