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These are new designs for a project I will hopefully be launching in February or March. The idea is to have two decks with different time period courts, same characters. Looking forward to your input.

I like the idea, and I will back it. That said, I'll put in this request: I wish the characters were drawn a little less cartoony.

What happened to your "1920's era" deck? I liked that one with the cartoonish faces because they fit that time period for me. These so far don't, sorry.

The working title for this deck is "Revelry". I plan on doing a roaring twenties version of it in the future, maybe even this campaign. I'm not committed to the time periods yet. That being said, I made the design less cartoony and added some detail. I also mocked up a variant. I'm trying to stay away from standard looking courts on this one.

I like the variant, it draws the eye more toward the centre of the card, not sure how I feel about the back, though I can't think of how to improve it, I like the blue one the most.

I like the artwork.

I don't like the coloring of the court cards. It strikes me as plain and the colors just don't work in my opinion. Maybe there are too few colors at the moment.

I like the back designs, but the the red chosen doesn't seem to go well with the purple chosen. I like the green/blue back much better. I like the linework and design of the backs.

Extra background details look much better. Can you tone down the color intensity? Hot pink and purple are not a good look, especially on the card back. The green and blue is better but still bright. I know you want non standard courts which is great for me but the colors are not. Just my opinion as always. And this Jack doesn't look Roaring Twenties either.

Unpopular opinion: I like the colors. That said, I suspect that you are probably going to have to do a test print or three to make sure they all play nice with each other on paper the way you would expect them to look when you see them on your screen. Even looking at the pictures on my phone and my desktop - so external lighting conditions are, obviously, the same - the color temperatures of the screens are different enough that the red-pink that looks positively lurid on my phone is almost subdued on the computer monitor by comparison.

I decided to rework the design a bit more and then add colors.

Serious, serious upgrade/improvement. You nailed it.

The reworked version makes me much more excited to see where this goes; I particularly like the subtlety of the background shading and the patterning on the doublet. My one misgiving is that I think the more painterly style makes the join at the middle of the court (right by the wrist) look a little more jarring and not quite as smooth as the rest of the image.

Honestly my verdict will probably be out until I see a queen or two, but I think you're onto something. The back design will need some love so it doesn't look flat next to the nuanced color work on the faces, though....

That new court looks great!

Now you nailed it Dave! Looking forward to more.

Definitely a vast improvement! Looking forward to seeing more

Holy smokes that reworked card looks amazing! I hope you are still thinking of making a "future" version of the same characters, because I'd be very excited to have both.

It is looking good. I like the changes also. I would like to see the pips be a bit more interesting, but I can't give any great suggestions.

Bradius wrote:It is looking good. I like the changes also. I would like to see the pips be a bit more interesting, but I can't give any great suggestions.

I actually like the simplicity of the pips. They are easy to distinguish and don't look bad at all.

Thank you so much for all of the input. I'm going to design a few more court cards before revisiting the deck back with the idea that it will match the courts a little more.