Any practical suggestions on making one's own tarot deck?

[Swampdweller900]

This might be overly ambitious in terms of spare time projects and my own spare time, but I'm thinking about doing a from-scratch tarot deck. I love a classic Rider-Waite-Smith deck, but using one's own hand really entangles the deck to me more than something made in a printing factory.

But how does one hand-draw a card on card stock and make that deck last and shuffle well?

Colored pencils? Markers? Sharpies? Paints seem like a mess and acrylics too thick on the card.

Lamination? Direct on thick card stock?

Open to any and all suggestions. Thanks!

 

[Sedim Haba]

This might be overly ambitious in terms of spare time projects and my own spare time, but I'm thinking about doing a from-scratch tarot deck. I love a classic Rider-Waite-Smith deck, but using one's own hand really entangles the deck to me more than something made in a printing factory.

But how does one hand-draw a card on card stock and make that deck last and shuffle well?

Colored pencils? Markers? Sharpies? Paints seem like a mess and acrylics too thick on the card.

Lamination? Direct on thick card stock?

Open to any and all suggestions. Thanks!

I did this, or tried to, a while back. Computer printed on adhesive-back stock then stuck on regular playing cards.

They did not last very long, or shuffle all that well. There's a reason card stock is shiny, to slip past each other.

Tried various fixing sprays like shellac. Nothing really worked. If one has shiny card stock I guess permanent sharpies

but color choice is low, especially on the fine-points. In the end, I gave up and tried a different tack. Put simple symbols

on the cards by sharpy, a simple sigil that caught the core of the card, and shuffle those then after the layout was done

swapped with printed paper print outs replaced. I got this idea by 'Magic: The Gathering' use of what's called 'Proxy Cards'.

 

[stalkinghyena]

Paints seem like a mess and acrylics too thick on the card.

For coloring on card stock I use oil paint thinned to watercolor consistency. This dries a little slower but in light use can still be workable with other media. It has the advantage of not warping the material like say a watercolor or acrylic can do if too much is used. Oil can also blend with some colored pencil to a degree if using a firm brush with thinner. You can also thicken the oils lightly to get more opacity, but you might want to be judicious about drying times as overworking can cause the paint to clump up.

A ball point pen and/or Sharpie can also work over the oils to get darker lines.

If you work out your ideas in sketches and then scan them onto a computer first, you could print on the cardstock or even a heavy photo paper. But I think you need to consider at least 250 to 300 gsm thickness, if you can find it.

There are corner clippers to round the edges, which can usually be found at a hobby store in the scrapbooking section.

 

[Yazata]

Lamination

I don't have the artistic skill I wished but made a deck like this. Printed on thick hobby paper and then laminated both sides. It works but really isn't a smooth shuffle.

 

[Morell]

If you want to make hand-drawn tarot, I would suggest printing the back side and making empty cards then to draw on with the same back for all of them. At least 300g paper indeed, honestly.

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I would suggest different approach entirely:
If you want to draw all cards, but want good detail, then you might do better to draw art bigger like on A4 paper, scan it, optimize, downscale it on the card size and print.

When I want a deck printed, I commission one of the companies here in my country, that offers card games and have no problem with printing decks I request. The quality of print is undeniable, shuffling is easy, cards are little softer and bend almost too easily, but always last me a lot of uses. But the graphic for printing must be properly prepared. Maybe I could write a tutorial on that.

 

[Dyn Hysbys]

To get a smooth shuffle, you'd probably need to get them printed.
I made a Major Arcana deck using collage, took photos on my phone and had them printed cheaply (I got 10 decks done, folks bought the other 9, so it worked out cheaply)

 

[Morell]

I've written down that tutorial for making tarots for print. Hope it gives some useful ideas...

[Tutorial] - DIY Tarot Deck

It is not that hard to design your own deck. This tutorial is with a goal to make printable graphic for printing either at home, or by commissioning printing company to do it for you. That can be preferable even for single deck, let alone for a bigger number for selling them. They have better...

wizardforums.com

 

[Swampdweller900]

Thanks all - especially @Morell for the tutorial. I really didn't consider getting a deck printed, but whipping something up in GIMP/PS would certainly be well within my range, and probably a lot faster than hand-drawing each card. It would depend more on what a local printer can get done, but I expect that's not too onerous.

 

[Sedim Haba]

I'm the only one who's used regular playing cards as stand-ins? In fact, there's a whole practice of divination using playing cards, Cartomancy.