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kevork wrote: ↑Wed Jun 26, 2024 12:44 pm I will say, Exquisite Fortuna is one of my favorite backs from all the decks I own, but if we are to take them for their word, it took EPCC two years to complete the project and oversee the printing by hand due to the accuracy required. Props on Piracy for trying, truly, but I recall the details were significantly lost through the foil application.

Lotrek has expressed cold foil is a very similar printing process to CMYK printing and relatively easy. He isn't satisfied with its appearance because it doesn't give additional depth/texture and shininess that hot foil provides. With that said, hot foil is more costly and arduous than these printers would want to take on as evidenced by the lack of such products in the market, and the efforts required. There's not much incentive for them.

Oneiros88 wrote: ↑Wed Jun 26, 2024 12:57 pmThere’s just something about it that shines so much more than cold foil!

bdawg923 wrote: ↑Wed Jun 26, 2024 11:35 am so to summarize multiple hot foils is almost the norm for lotrek while other producers do 1 or maybe 2 hot foils occasionally? Lotrek has probably done more multiple hot foil decks himself than every other card producer combined. I'm not a lotrek fanboy, but he's clearly the hot foil leader in the playing card space. I don't think anyone comes close.

Disenchanted_11 wrote: ↑Wed Jun 26, 2024 5:10 pm So lotrek's legacy is having done more foils than others?

But like montenzi said, other printers could do it with the right price. If that's not true, then maybe there's a reason for that, and lotrek is the living proof that it's a very inefficient thing to do.

Disenchanted_11 wrote: ↑Wed Jun 26, 2024 5:10 pm

bdawg923 wrote: ↑Wed Jun 26, 2024 11:35 am so to summarize multiple hot foils is almost the norm for lotrek while other producers do 1 or maybe 2 hot foils occasionally? Lotrek has probably done more multiple hot foil decks himself than every other card producer combined. I'm not a lotrek fanboy, but he's clearly the hot foil leader in the playing card space. I don't think anyone comes close.

So lotrek's legacy is having done more foils than others?

But like montenzi said, other printers could do it with the right price. If that's not true, then maybe there's a reason for that, and lotrek is the living proof that it's a very inefficient thing to do.

bdawg923 wrote: ↑Wed Jun 26, 2024 5:55 pm

Disenchanted_11 wrote: ↑Wed Jun 26, 2024 5:10 pm

bdawg923 wrote: ↑Wed Jun 26, 2024 11:35 am so to summarize multiple hot foils is almost the norm for lotrek while other producers do 1 or maybe 2 hot foils occasionally? Lotrek has probably done more multiple hot foil decks himself than every other card producer combined. I'm not a lotrek fanboy, but he's clearly the hot foil leader in the playing card space. I don't think anyone comes close.

So lotrek's legacy is having done more foils than others?

But like montenzi said, other printers could do it with the right price. If that's not true, then maybe there's a reason for that, and lotrek is the living proof that it's a very inefficient thing to do.

Never said that doing more foils was his legacy. His creativity and pushing the boundaries of what's possible with multiple hot foil applications just makes him stand out above the rest. Also he's not wjpc who are probably a giant company with huge teams of people. He's one dude who figures this out himself. If that's not impressive to you then I don't know what is.

Disenchanted_11 wrote: ↑Wed Jun 26, 2024 5:10 pm

So lotrek's legacy is having done more foils than others?

But like montenzi said, other printers could do it with the right price. If that's not true, then maybe there's a reason for that, and lotrek is the living proof that it's a very inefficient thing to do.

laitostarr777 wrote: ↑Thu Jun 27, 2024 4:56 am I might add this as well:
ARK “claimed” to have been the first ever to make Playing Cards tuckbox made of silky surface paper, but in reality, Lotrek did it first with the Charmers Signature and… iirc, ICONS

laitostarr777 wrote: ↑Thu Jun 27, 2024 4:56 am I might add this as well:
ARK “claimed” to have been the first ever to make Playing Cards tuckbox made of silky surface paper, but in reality, Lotrek did it first with the Charmers Signature and… iirc, ICONS

Oneiros88 wrote: ↑Thu Jun 27, 2024 7:04 am

laitostarr777 wrote: ↑Thu Jun 27, 2024 4:56 am I might add this as well:
ARK “claimed” to have been the first ever to make Playing Cards tuckbox made of silky surface paper, but in reality, Lotrek did it first with the Charmers Signature and… iirc, ICONS

It was Gio/TWI who said about their first to use velvet-texture stock on Damokles, but Lottek made Icons Imperial / Imperial Reverse on velvet stock.


Also, Lotrek has done foil in a leather-like paper stock in Grotesk Signature and ICONS Signature.

I wish he’d do a new one on this kind of material!

laitostarr777 wrote: ↑Sat Jun 29, 2024 10:36 am New update on MYSTERY III

KGthePrince wrote: ↑Sat Jun 29, 2024 11:21 am

laitostarr777 wrote: ↑Sat Jun 29, 2024 10:36 am New update on MYSTERY III

Let's goooooooo That tuck looks awesome!

Fenrir wrote: ↑Sat Jun 29, 2024 2:48 pm That looks reminiscent of two previous Lotrek series. I wonder if it’s tied to an existing series at all.

PiazzaDelivery wrote: ↑Sat Jun 29, 2024 5:43 pm

Fenrir wrote: ↑Sat Jun 29, 2024 2:48 pm That looks reminiscent of two previous Lotrek series. I wonder if it’s tied to an existing series at all.

What are you able to surmise from this almost complete absence of a picture lol?

crazy_lazy wrote: ↑Wed Jun 26, 2024 6:12 pm
I don't think Oath is a one-man operation. I agree they're not a mega-sized company like WJPC, but they do seem to be a company with staff. I'm pretty sure he's mentioned before that he has a team of apprentice printers and others who help with things such as packaging, assembling, photography, etc. Just to be clear there's nothing wrong with that at all and I'm a fan of Oath and consider their work to be impressive, but I don't believe it's a solo thing. This is all based on my memory from reading his patreon updates and social media posts so maybe others can chime in if that's correct or not.

That said, I indeed went to the printer rather delayed but the truth is that even if I had an ETA in 15 years, I would still be late, changing the design till the last moment.

From that point on, others take over: During the offset printing the printer's assistant did something absolutely stupid with the varnish, and the result was that all sheets were almost stuck together and of course destroyed. I found out about that when the printing was over, as I went to take home a few sheets.

The company manager accepted accountability for the mistake and offered a reprint. Great! The only problem was that the stock needed for the reprint wasn't immediately available. We had to wait about 10 days for the stock to arrive. When the stock came in, the printer wasn't available as they were already printing a huge quantity of stuff that had to be finished first. Add some more days' delay. We finally reprinted and the print was fabulous. Excellent!

I took the sheets to the foil printer (a different company) waiting for my turn to print. Meanwhile, I realized the problem with the white PATRONS deck that we discussed in the previous updates. This changed and stopped everything.

Eric Lee wrote: ↑Thu Jun 27, 2024 12:16 am

Disenchanted_11 wrote: ↑Wed Jun 26, 2024 5:10 pm

So lotrek's legacy is having done more foils than others?

But like montenzi said, other printers could do it with the right price. If that's not true, then maybe there's a reason for that, and lotrek is the living proof that it's a very inefficient thing to do.

That's an extreme oversimplification of Lotrek's legacy and doesn't explain why he's still admired by so many. He was the first to: (these can be found on Kardify, Kickstarter and other playing card website)

- show double hotfoil can be done with fine details and be semi-commercially viable with Icons. Cherry Casino's holo deck claimed to be the "WORLD'S FIRST large scale DOUBLE HOT FOIL" only in 2022, but acknowledge that Lotrek already had done double hot foil earlier.

- show highly detailed hotfoil edge printing with Sanctus,
Chris Ramsay's 1st cards with USPCC came out 1 year later. 1st had a long delay as USPCC had trouble printing the hot foil stamped right on the edge of the deck as it had never been done before commercially. See CR's video here.

- print cards only with hot foil and no ink with Golden Oath

- use double hotfoil with very fine details with Arabesque.

- do multiple (4) foils on the courts with Damask. (Compare the details on Damask and Arabesque with EPCC's Exquiste Fortuna. It doesn't come close)

- use just 1 foil to show texture and depth with Silk.

As for efficiency, Lotrek actually did go into some detail on why hot foil is so difficult and not cost efficient to do in a Deckin Around interview. The video link and summary can be found here on this UC thread:
https://www.unitedcardists.com/viewtopi ... ek#p213429

(Do correct me if there's any errors in my post)

Evilgamer wrote: ↑Mon Jul 01, 2024 1:58 pm Received my white patrons today, Id say 11/12 courts have some kind of damage probably 3 have what I would normally likely consider "replace" damage.

Its such a nice deck, shame that happened.