Art Blog

Halloween and Horror Themed Decks

9/14/2018

A few years ago years ago we created a deck of cards that triggered some, but delighted others. It was bold and it was controversial...it was twisted.

Twisted Tarot tales has since become our best selling deck on this site, and appeals to a worldwide audience. Proof of this came yet again yesterday, when we sold about 3 Twisted Tarot Tales decks to customers in Thailand.

Perhaps this is because the Hungry Ghost Festival is currently taking place in various Asian countries.

A few years have passed since we created the Twisted Tarot Tales and as an artist, it's a great feeling to see people from various cultures and nationalities appreciate your work.

The newly created Twisted Tarot Tales reading cloth. Now in store.

You always want to see your work have some form of longevity, as I really feel that that's a sign of a good product. That's not to say it has to be popular and sell lots of decks to enter into the halls of greatness, or relevancy. I don't really believe that (I recall the many music bands I've loved throughout the years who most people have probably never heard of). For me, I want people to experience the same feeling I get when I stumble upon something really cool.

This year I wanted to add a few more collectible cards to the roster. Every Twisted Tarot Tales deck and bag this Halloween, will come with two exclusive cards which will be retired after November 5th.

A LEAP OF FAITH

Creating Twisted Tarot Tales was, and still is, a bold deck of cards. It's always a little worrying, a little scary (pardon the pun) when you face opposition from a

small, yet very vocal, group of individuals. Had we listened to all the concerns, the threats of boycott and the nasty private messages, we might have declined to finish the deck, or at the very least, watered it down to be another hum drum deck of pretty pictures with no substance. Looking back, I'm glad we stuck to our guns and shot our naysayers down, in a manner of speaking. (you can almost smell the gunsmoke!) Determination and faith rewarded us with our most popular deck of cards.

I think it's important to walk out on faith and trust that you will find your audience. For the most part, there is an audience for everything and over time we've found ours.

We've also produced Spooky Cats, a very cute costume orientated deck which is friendly to those who don't like horror, but love the general feel of Halloween.

These cards are bright and joyful and, near as I can tell, will not offend anyone (although who knows nowadays, right? *rolls eyes*)

We're also continuing work on the first

(I think) Waite Smith themed Zombie Tarot called Dead Waite. Strangely enough, we later found out that "Dead Waite" is a nickname that Aleister Crowley once called his arch nemesis Arthur Edward Waite. Entirely coincidental, but the name works. Despite some opposition from certain people, I will finish the illustrations for this deck and release it to the public in some form or another.

Again, this deck will appeal to those who are able to look at life a little humerus-ly...lol. When all is said and done, it's those people that I spend up to 14 hours a day (sometimes beyond) for months illustrating decks for, not those who complain at every horror image I draw.

Dead Waite will be our second horror themed deck in our collection, but I have considered the possibility of releasing small add on packs to Twisted Tarot Tales. In other words, slowly building up a sequel to Twisted without committing to producing 78 cards. Perhaps, a 10 pack of cards every once in awhile, with the idea of gathering up the best of the best (of the new cards) and streamlining it into a sequel to the Twisted Tarot Tales. I'm not 100 percent decided on that though. It would really depend on how positive the response is.

All in all, we're really happy with our growing collection of independently created, independently released small print run decks.

To be kept up to date on the Dead Waite deck, visit and like our Facebook page.

To see our Spooky Cats range of products, click here

and for Twisted Tarot Tales, click here.

Thanks for reading

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The Strange Case of The Visiting Cats

10/10/2017

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The strangest thing has been happening since May; ever since I started really putting a lot of thought into the Kiddy Katz Tarot deck; The strange case of the visiting cats.

Before I really get into the story, I want to make it clear that I am not demanding that the following is anything more than simple coincidence, even if it seems a little more than that.

Drawing the images, I started to have more and more cat visitors. Living in a small town, perhaps that should not be surprising. Having lived in the country all my life, and moving to a town, it's possible that people have cats visiting their homes all the time and don't think much about it. To cut a long story short, as I continued studying cats and then drawing them as cartoons, we would be visited more and more by these little strays.

Here I was, drawing cats, and very quickly the house seemed to be surrounded by cats!

I guess I’ve allowed myself to see some significance in it. In many of the "think positive" type books, they often talk about attracting what you think about all day long. I had been reading Napoleon Hil, Norman Vincent Peale and others over the past while, and one thing I kept noticing was that in these books they talk about being able to attract things to you based on what you think. Almost to say that your mind vibrates at a certain level, attracting like minded vibrations to it.

I first started out with Paul McKenna's books (the famous hypnotist and NLP practitioner) but after having read Hill, Peale and some of the older authors, I realised that a lot of what McKenna has in his books

were extracts from Think and Grow Rich, Carnegie's How to Win Friends and Influence People, and Peale's The Power of Positive Thinking.

What I found interesting was the concept of thinking things into existence through a combination of persistence (months of drawing), a definite goal (a full Kiddy Katz Tarot deck) and being able to fully visualise the deck as though it already existed. These three elements, coincidentally, seemed to be what Hill described as the three necessary ingredients to make things happen; a definite goal, persistence, and the practice of seeing it already complete (along with the feelings that go along with it)

Every morning without fail this little one shows up for his breakfast. They are still a little shy I think, but I do my best to not make them frightened.

As an artist with a lot of faith in things, I've seen very strange things become reality; sometimes things that were spoken without being "true" in the sense that it had happened "yet", but spoken as though it had happened...at some point in "time". This can be read in another blog.

In the case of the cats, I was not trying to summon them lol, but it crossed my mind; did I attract the cats through some unconscious thought? Before anyone thinks this is totally ridiculous, I don't think it's any more unbelievable than suggesting we can get special insight into people's lives through reading cards.

Chances are, if you are reading this, you have some amount of belief that the cards are able to give insight into people's lives, as do I. In the creation of the decks on this site, as an artist I've had the good fortune to work with some of the best readers out there and have seen almost surreal results. (Continues below)

FROM THE GRAVES IT CAME

So last night I went out for a walk to buy a few light bulbs. The lights have been blowing out nearly every week (no, I don't think that is anything suspicious, maybe just bad house wiring lol). As I walked past the local catholic chapel, a "meow" came from the grave stones. Sitting beneath a Celtic cross shaped headstone, a little black cat meowed at me, then jumped over the wall. I did not know who owned it but it decided to walk down the street with me and was really friendly.

I laughed and called it "spooky cat" and it meowed again. I felt a bit bad because I am sure that the cat had an owner, but I couldn't get it to shoo. It followed me the whole way home, past all the fallen leaves. I gave the wee cat some friskies and hoped it would head home, although it had no collars or anything like that. I figured if it was homeless, it would still be there in the morning, but it headed off. I don't know too much about cats admittedly.

As I write, a white and black cat walks into our yard. That one is a new addition and arrived about 5 days ago, so I haven't got a name for him yet. I like the idea of them being a good luck omen or something of that nature.

THE CAT THAT STARED AT THE HOUSE ALL NIGHT

A few weeks ago I got up from my slumber in the middle of the night and made my way to get a glass of water. I happened to look out the window and there was a cat out in the middle of the road staring at our house.

It's a very quiet neighborhood and so there were no cars to interrupt the cat from its seat. While it seemed strange to see the cat in the darkness, sitting up, staring at the house without so much as a movement, after about ten minutes I went back to bed. Then I dreamed of cats....

This, of course, coming from a person who was not normally someone who would think much about cats, is still a little strange to me. Then again, like I said earlier; when you put tremendous focus into something, you inevitably dream about it somewhere along the line. I awoke about a few hours later and once again went downstairs to get some water...and the cat was STILL there. How strange. It was sitting in the exact place it was sitting 2 hours before. I woke Christine and she thought it was pretty spooky too lol. Maybe that's what cats do, I don't know. Has anyone heard of cats staring at houses for hours? Or maybe it had walked away and came back to the same spot. I don't know.

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June 19th, 2017

6/19/2017

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One I made earlier 2013-2014

Maps. They guide us where to go.

Surprisngly, the earliest known maps found in the world, were not actually based on the world, but rather the stars. Star maps have been found in the famous Lascaux caves.

My interest in maps started to manifest around my early 20's, long before I even drew my first Tarot card and certainly before I even knew what a Tarot card really really was.

I enjoy collecting maps of the places I’ve been (when I can). In terms of illustrated maps, Probably some of the best maps I’ve seen where from Florida, like SeaWorld. The very worst map I have in my collection, but it is not illustrated, is from Sharm El Sheikh, in the Sinai Peninsula. The map was pixelated to death, but that would have been forgiven if it were not for the fact that it was hugely outdated, probably by almost a decade, yet it was the only map I could find in any tourism shop. Streets were renamed, businesses had faded away; you get the picture.

Plotting out an entire world for Twisted Tarot Tales between 2015-2016. Every character "had his place in the world"

Since then there have been a few abandoned map projects, two of which are not real life maps, but rather were intended for some of our fictional world Tarot work. One was for King’s Journey about 7 years ago which I never attempted. I had every intention of creating a map for that deck as it was a map in the style of a Celtic Cross that was originally described to me before the actual cards themselves (the cross within the inner circle played host to the “Spirit Suit”) The problem was that the design given to me was so undecipherable that it would have taken the Rosetta stone to figure it out. In the end that map never came to be although the idea of creating a map interested me a lot.

The idea of creating Tarot's very first map was something that I saw I would eventually bring into existence. A few years would pass and although I never heard of Tarot having a map, I knew it was possible it had been done before.

I decided to start plotting out the entire world of Twisted Tarot Tales and had originally planned to add it to the Twisted Tarot Tales companion guide, more or less for the novelty.

When I really started to collate all of the images for the deck I noticed that a lot of the cards could fit into entire "areas". The Wheel of Fortune, the Magician, The Fool, the 2 of Swords all seemed to belong to a circus type background.

Continues below

In the world of Twisted Tales Tarot, there are multiple areas throughout the map: The Scientific / Mutation area, the zombie area, Japan town, China town, the carnival, the suburbs, main street, and the woods.

Then you had the genetic mutations like the Giant frog in the Justice card and the Mutant lovers (the alternative ersion). The King of Cups with his mutated feet, even the Knight of Wands with the gigantic bee (or depending what way you look at it, a minature little rider on its back). I envisioned that group coming from a scientific lab with the nuclear power plant not too far away.

Continues below

Above: The map as it currently stands, without the "area" markers and the "card" markers. Can you spot the nuclear spill area and also the spills along the coastline?

The world of Twisted Tarot Tales at night. The map even has a "Should I be offended?" museum, which would act as the back of the 8 of cups card. It was a fun tongue in cheek jab at Dan P for hating our 8 of Cups Cowboy shootout!

I started asking myself "Would anyone really care for a map?" and "Would it ruin the deck?" What purpose did it actually serve? To this day I can't see a map having any practical purpose other than novely. Perhaps that is enough.

The Twisted Tarot Tales was postponed last year; only because I devoted my time to writing and piecing together the companion book for the deck to complete the crowd funding campaign. The map idea I had was going to be spread across the entire standard 78 card deck back side, a special edition deck where if you felt so

inclined you could piece all 78 cards together to create one huge map (from the backs of your cards).

*As a side note, this is why I decided to swap the Stan Lee Tower card for the new Nuclear chimney tower; to tie into the nuclear disaster area responsible for the wild mutations throughout the deck. On the map you can see the nuclear spill, in the “scientific” quarter of the deck.

As we neared the completion of the companion book, I started to have doubts about my novelty idea. Some of the wackiest ideas are spontaneous and are the most successful, but the “wackiest spontaneous ideas” are sometimes the least successful too, so you have to be careful.

Sometimes they work, sometimes they get snatched up by other people before you have it finally complete (always a danger of that when showing works in progress) and other ideas don't seem fully fleshed out at that current point in time, but might work at a later date.

I started to think that having a “map edition” of the deck would probably seem a bit pointless to most people. That being said, it is a novelty deck so it may work. One positive, I suppose, would be that it could become somewhat like a Jigsaw puzzle. With being about 70-80 percent complete, I will probably do exactly what I set out to do, at some point, possibly, on some distant Halloween.

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TAROT PORTRAITS

4/2/2017

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Portraiture has been around since ancient Egypt and possibly even beyond. From statues of the Egyptian Pharaoh Akhenaten to coins depicting Julius Caesar, portraiture has been around for thousands of years.

Traditionally it was only those in power or who had great wealth that could commission portraits. The royals all have their portraits, along with the U.S Presidents.

Before the invention of canvas painting, which seems to have been introduced around the 13th century, most portraits came in the form of great monuments and statues that were erected to honour kings and leaders throughout history. The Sumerians had their cylinder seals with their depictions of Enki and the other "Annunaki". The Mayans created, among other great works, the depiction of Pacal the Great on a well known sarcophagus lid in the Temple of the Inscriptions Pyramid structure in Mexco.

Regardless of what form the portrait came in; statue, or canvas, even paper, portraiture was a form of immortalising royal or political figures before the invention of photography.

While art portraiture continued on alongside photographic portraiture, it's importance, in terms of immortalizing the figure, waned. Yet despite photography mainly succeeding the hand painted / drawn aspect of portraiture, traditionally painted and drawn portraits are still carried on today, probably more through a sense of keeping tradition.

Did you know that from George Washington onwards, U.S Presidents have traditionally had their official portraits painted? There's a colorful history behind the portraits too. President Washington's portrait, it is said, was rescued by First Lady Dolley Madison when the White House was set on fire by the British in 1812.

King Charles The Second

Theodore Roosevelt hated his portrait so much that he had it painted a second time; this time by one John Singer Sargent. He felt the original looked too tame and he wanted something a bit more masculine.

Bill Clinton's portrait was the first of it's kind to be painted by an Africa American artist; Simmie Knox. Barack Obama was the very first U.S President to have his photo taken digitally. He's also the first to have 3D portraits taken of himself.

Yet while photography, and now video, have, for the most part, replaced the hand produced "immortalisation" technique of portraiture, hand drawn portraits have stood the test of time. What's more. You don't have to be the next president or born into royalty to afford a great portrait.

For those of you in the Tarot world, I have begun to once again take commissions for portraits. While it's probably one of the more time consuming services that an artist might offer, it doesn't have to cost an arm and a leg. (We're currently offering portraits around 60 dollars) . I understand that to some that seems like a low price (when compared to other artists) but I'm also aware of the current economical climate.

One of the most important aspects in portraiture, both for the artist and for the "sitter", is whether the finished pieces actually look like the figures. Take the Queen of England for example. There are some really great portraits of her, but there are also some which are a bit....well, not the most flattering. That's why I feel it's important to see a few examples of portraits I've already worked on.

First up is my partner Christine.

Based on photos of Christine before I met her in "real life", here are a few portraits there were created from her photos. There were quite a few changes made to blend in with a fantasy theme, but I like to think the likeness is still there. The arm movements were changed since in the portrait I have placed her on a throne hewn from stone amidst a garden. With the angle her head is tilted at, I felt it was important to add a hand below her chin slightly to make the final image look more natural.

The next image of Christine was created with a slight Japanese theme. The background was inspired by the famous banzai flag, not for any political motive, but it was a design that I liked visually.

Christine's grandmother and mother come from Japan originally, and Christine herself has a lot of interest in asian culture so the theme seemed fitting.

Here's a few more faces you might recognise below!

If interested in a great portrait of your own, please see our Tarot Portraits services

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King's Journey Card Meanings PDF

2/9/2017

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It has been a few weeks in the making, but the King's Journey Card Meanings PDF is finally available. The full 94 cards are covered, which includes the Spirit Suit and the two additional majors Daath and Soul.

Originally we had included the card meanings on a total of 6 tarot sized cards along with the deck, but as time moved on our printer raised prices quite dramatically, driving the card number into a higher priced tier and so in order to keep prices roughly around where we had them we were forced to figure out an alternative to the extra 6 cards worth of card deck meanings.

While they are available in the companion book, the card meanings are now available as a free PDF. At some point this year I may offer it as a cheap black and white book, a sort've stand alone book if one desires the card means in book only format.

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The Fortune Hearts Oracle

2/9/2017

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Similar to our Fortune Cookie Oracle, the Fortune Hearts Oracle features nicely cute coloured hearts that are sure to brighten up any reading, no matter how dire the answer! lol.

I envision these, just as I envision any of our decks, on the table tops of fortune tellers across the world be they in home readings, gypsy parlours or outdoor psychic faires. Make your stalls more inviting and attract an audience with these nice colourful hopeful cards!

The backs are inspired by the American Sweethearts candy box, featuring a similar font, a few extra hearts and a few alterations, to still stay within the general idea and visual feel of the famous candies.

I have really enjoyed putting together an Oracle deck to celebrate Valentine's day called Fortune Hearts.

Based on the American Sweethearts candy (In the UK they are called Love Hearts) each of the 50 hearts/cards have a little message on relationships that can be used to guide relationship themed readings.

The cards are created as bridge sized cards ( 56mm x 88mm, 2.25" x 3.5" inches ) and are 300gsm professional quality card stock with blue core (smooth finish) like our Fortune Cookie Oracle released a few weeks ago.

Please note while the cards are designed and inspired by Valentine's day, we make no guarantees that the cards will arrive on Valentines (in fact it's next to impossible). That being said, love is supposed to last much longer than the 14th of February right?! lol Love is for life, not just for Valentines!

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FORESIGHT- IF YOU HAD IT, WHAT WOULD YOU CHANGE?

2/9/2017

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Foresight. If you had it what would you do with it?

There's a lot of people that subscribe to our newsletter that, through one method or another, claim to be able to see into the future, to have the "gift" of foresight, and for all I know this is completely true. I can only vouch for a few which I know first hand. Yet that wasn't always the case...

In 2012 I took some time away from the art table and started to put a few chapters together of a book about the spiritual gifts that people claim to have. Unfortunately I was never able to complete the book. Life got in the way. I met Christine and made plans to bring her to live with me in Ireland and so my book got set to the side.

Anyway, I'd taken some time away from doing art and my brother and I would attend psychic fairs, we attended Reiki sessions with an elderly lady who lived near the woods. We even met Sharon Neill, the UK's only blind psychic medium after reading her book Second Sight. We met her in her home, but also Irish psychic fairs.

We attended Derek Acorah events and even someone called the Native American Princess, who did the local circuits. Silly me, I thought she would, at the very least, be an American. Rather she put on some bronzer and had a thick Irish accent. I even attended the Tarot Association of the British Isles Tarot meet up in 2011 (my first and only Tarot event)

Yet I came away from much of these events disillusioned. So disillusioned in fact that I wondered if I should ever produce Tarot deck imagery again.

I didn't like the idea of people charging upwards of 50 or 60 dollars per 20 minute

reading and not knowing how to even read the cards; maybe even doing more damage than good. I saw elderly women walking away from readings distraught, sometimes even in tears and thought "Should I be contributing to this with my art?" Then again, for all I knew the reader was delivering the truth. Tears didn't necessarily mean a "bad" reading in the sense that it's not accurate. Yet going on my own experience with some of these readers, they could not read me at all. Some psychics even felt brave enough to name names of my family members etc, but I never understood this braveness when they must've known there was a high chance it would be inaccurate. (Since they always were). I wanted to believe, but I needed to be convinced...

I then met Christine and she told me the story of how there was someone she knew and was quite close to who had secretly planned to commit suicide one night, but who decided to visit a reader by the name of Mrs White in Rhode Island. When Mrs White read in the cards that she had planned to commit suicide and told her not to do it, the person was shocked. Mrs White was able to go into detail about her life, naming the names of the people in her life and so on.

Twenty years later she's happily married and enjoying life.

(Above is Mrs White's residence in Rumford, Rhode Island) Since then I've heard a few optimistic stories like this and I came to the conclusion that illustrating decks of cards can have a noble purpose.

I've had readings from a small number of people in my life. A woman called Doire who lives a few miles away foresaw a relationship with Christine a few weeks after I met Christine online (I had not met her in person at that point) She was actually able to give a name.

I've had readings from Chanel (co-creator of Simply Deep and King's Journey) who, with using the King's Journey deck, was able to foresee that I would meet a friend who I hadn't met in over 10-15 years and we'd have drinks together. I remember telling her at the time that this was impossible. I'd lost communication with everyone from my school days. She told me that the time frame would be "in the next two weeks". Sure enough I was at a bar, and a guy tapped me on the shoulder and said "Jimmy, long time no see". It was my friend James Fleming who i'd not seen in 15 years. I'm not sure how he recognised me as I had much longer hair, facial hair, and had aged 15 years.

Christine herself has given very accurate predictions but doesn't conduct readings for money (though I wish she would as it would help with the groceries). I am grateful however that she puts all of her Tarot knowledge into the decks we create. She's predicted a lot of things that shortly afterwards, came true in my life.

Sometimes this is seeing a new client in my freelance business, and where the person comes from etc, new business opportunities.

Where once I was a bit of a skeptic, I've become a believer. So it makes me wonder. With foresight, what would you do differently? What would you change?

What fascinates me most of all however, is those readers who decide to give a brutally honest reading rather than one that you think your client wants to hear. How honest should a reader be?

I think this is a question that every reader has to answer individually for themselves, on behalf of their clients. Do you do what Mrs White did and tell the client the horrible news that the client is already aware of? Do you deliver the bad news that they are NOT aware of?

A troublesome question I often see in Tarot forums is whether to deliver the bad news that the person their client is in love with is "just not right for them" or the relationship is destined to fail. I can only imagine that there is a little apprehension about delivering bad news to a client. After all, one's wish is to always make their client happy. It's the first thing we learn when we come to conducting most any kind of business. In an ideal world a client would WANT to hear the truth, even if it is not the outcome they would wish to hear.

Looking at this objectively I think many clients seek a reading, not necessarily for an unbiased opinion, but to seek affirmation about a situation. They want to hear their desires and wishes repeated back to them. Romantic relationships, especially, can be sensitive topics and when one is caught up in the feelings of love, they do not want to hear negativity.

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Go Easy On The Brew This New Year's Eve!

12/29/2016

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As we approach the New Year, it will be a time for celebration and like much of the Western world (and beyond?) much alcohol will be consumed in Ireland.

That brings me around to our newest edition for the Winter Chinese Propaganda Art Tarot deck. It’s still a work in progress but is based on our original Chinese Propaganda Art Tarot. Our Temperance card features a man saying no to Alcohol, but could be seen as saying “no more”, as in, no I’ve got to drive home and don’t want to take my life in my hands by going over the limit. Like many of our cards, this one is based on an existing work, but illustrated and made over in our own style. It could also represent abstinence. It’s a card I’m really happy with and I think it’s turned out really well.

As for New Year, I’ll probably have a bit of a quiet one, either sharing it with my siblings, or just a quiet night in with Christine.

Christine doesn’t drink but despite not being much of a beer drinker, I may have a few beers. I tend to prefer cider and whiskey, but I couldn’t resist trying a few foreign beers as they came across my radar a few days ago while having a walk through Sainsburys.

As I write this, I am sampling the Japanese brand Asahi beer. According to the bottle it is Japan’s number 1 beer. Is it Japan’s number 1 beer in fact, or is it fake news? Lol I cannot possibly verify.

I’ve also got a brand of Chinese beer called Tsingtao. Hopefully I am not culturally appropriating too much, though in my case I prefer the term cultural appreciation. That’s what I liked a lot about travelling. Sampling the local food and drink.

So I hope you take advice from our guy in the Temperance card and not drink too much! And for heaven’s sake if you really must drink too much, get someone to hide your car keys in advance!

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Making A Product: How to Guarantee Greatness

12/29/2016

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What makes something great?

First off, please note that I didn’t use the word “popular”. There are untold numbers of great pieces of music, art and film that, while will probably never enter into the hallowed halls of popularity, are nonetheless great.

It's a question that a lot of people wish they knew the answer to, yet at the same time it doesn't guarantee financial success.

We only have to point out the fact that Vincent Van Gogh died penniless, having sold only one painting in his lifetime.

Greatness is something more than that. Presumably Van Gogh would have loved wealth in his own lifetime, yet today he is considered one of the greats in the art world and his paintings sell for millions of dollars.

As a general rule, I’d like to sum up what makes something great by doing a bit of ad-lib on one of the quotes of my childhood hero Stan Lee. (I can’t find the actual quote unfortunately).

Lee said something along the lines of the great thing about comics is that you have to love comics personally to keep doing it because comics is the kind of medium that demands so much time and energy and eats through so much material in terms of storylines and plot, that someone with low dedication would burn out really quickly.

Ok, so that’s a more elaborate explanation, but in summary, it basically means that to create good comics you need to love with you’re doing.

When I designed most of the characters for King’s Journey, I really loved what I was doing because I had never seen a full story taking place in a tarot deck before. I mean King’s Journey tracks the journey of a young boy who at the end of the deck, is basically a much older, full bearded, long haired man with a wife and child. I had never seen an actual story played out in a Tarot deck like that before.

For Twisted Tarot Tales, each image was a labour of love because I got to draw all the monsters and crazy scenes that, let’s face it, anyone into comic book art would have fun imagining. My co creator Christine has been a fan of horror comics and film since she was a kid growing up in the 70’s.

The Chinese Propaganda Art Tarot is another one of our successful decks thanks to Christine’s love of and knowledge of Chinese Propaganda Art along with the historical background the art is based on.

In short, the best works of art, writing, music or film, almost always comes from a love of the genre which you’re basing your work on.

What makes something…not so great?

Namely, a lack of passion.

I recently found an actual apology from the writer of the movie Dragon Ball: Evolution, Ben Ramsey. The film didn’t do so good, prompting Ramsey to issue the following…

"To have something with my name on it as the writer be so globally reviled is gut wrenching. To receive hate mail from all over the world is heartbreaking. (...) I went into the project chasing after a big payday, not as a fan of the franchise but as a businessman taking on an assignment. I have learned that when you go into a creative endeavor without passion you come out with sub-optimal results, and sometimes flat out garbage. So I’m not blaming anyone for Dragonball but myself.”

Dragon Ball: Evolution was apparently so bad that Akira Toriyama; creator of the original manga, revealed that he felt the Hollywood producers did not listen to him and his ideas and suggestions, and that the final version was not on par with the original Dragon Ball series.

He felt the result was a movie he couldn't even call "Dragon Ball". Discussing the film in the 2016 Dragon Ball 30th Anniversary “Super History Book”, Toriyama wrote: "I had put Dragon Ball behind me, but seeing how much that live-action film ticked me off..."

I haven’t seen the movie personally, nor have I ever read or know anything about the manga the movie is based on, but there’s a two things we can take away from what Ramsey said…

1, He went into the project, not as a fan but as a businessman hoping for a big payday.

In other words he believed he would be able to cash in on the Dragonball name itself, ( purely a business like attitude of course, but one that cost him) rather than caring about the content.

2, He learned that when you go into a creative project without any passion about the content you’re working with you come out with much poorer results, and “sometimes flat out garbage”

There you have it readers. If you want to pursue something and make it great, take a word of advice from Ramsey and create something on a subject you’re passionate about!

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New Kickstarter! - The Venetian Carnival Tarot

12/28/2016

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I've always done my best to support new Kickstarter projects in our industry If I think they are good and of course, if they happen to pass my radar! As a self employed artist, you can imagine I don't always have the "disposable income" that I wish I had to be able to support such projects more fully, but at the very least I like to share links etc. Here is the Venetian Carnival Tarot and it is currently ongoing on Kickstarter. Here is their facebook page if you'd like to see more!