UnitedCardists.com - The forum for Cardistry, Magic, Custom Decks and All Things Playing Cards.

Hi guys!

Me and my friend have been working on this idea last two weekends, a deck based on brave women warriors in history. Just wanted to share with you the early concept of our project. I would be glad if you could give me your thoughts about this. Also there is one thing in here that may stop us working on this, the subject of our deck may be similar to Amazon Spartans somehow, what do you think?

Some of our chosen women warriors so far are:
Boudica
Joan of Arc
Fu Hao
Nzinga
Nakano Takeko

Thanks!

New List:

Heart:
King- Boudica DONE
Queen- Tomyris
Jack- Æthelflæd

Club:
King- Fu Hao DONE
Queen- Tomoe Gozen
Jack- Nakano Takeko

Diamond:
King- Joan of Arc DONE
Queen- Nzinga
Jack- Florine of Burgundy

Spade:
King- Artemisia Sketching
Queen- Zenobia
Jack- Cynane

Aces: 4 different symbols

Jokers: ???

Tuck box & Back cards: Sketching


***Post will be updated through process***

It looks a bit rough, but I already like this one card much more than anything in the Amazons Spartans project (besides the admittedly very nice tuck).

Gives me an immediate Blade of the Immortal vibe. A manga I love pretty much.



Therefore, I like the choosen rough on purpose art style. Looks promising.
I would definetly get rid of the middle section with the name. A bit too much imo and not a good solution. Maybe one way court cards solve this. If you wanna stick to two way courts I would prefer another solution.

As for similarities to other projects. Almost every theme on this planet has been done before, don't focus on being original, focus on being yourselfs, that leads to true originality.

Adonael wrote:... I already like this one card much more than anything in the Amazons Spartans project...

+1

I don't think the field of "women warriors" is crowded in any way. I say the more the merrier. The Amazons deck is focused on one particular group of women warriors and the artwork is more of the photo-realism style (I think?). I like your art style so far so I would love to see more. I agree that the banner in the middle isn't quite working. Perhaps you can join the two sides with no banner, more organic like Helheim, perhaps. I look forward to how you progress with this concept and I wish you luck!

+1 to design comments above. I too really like the art style and am eager to see where it goes.

Btw... Tomoe Gozen better be in this!

I would think the deck would look better overall if you didn't put the name on each card, but instead included a list of each cards person as maybe an ad card? I often find that text on the faces makes the card look like a souvenir/gift shop deck

This is awesome. If you're able to vectorize it or smooth it up some other way, these will look very nice.

Please please please make these!! All-women courts are way too uncommon

hsbc wrote:Please please please make these!! All-women courts are way too uncommon

It's been a nice trend lately with the Coven and Amazon decks, not to mention the 2nd version of Coven coming soon, I imagine. I'm all for it!

Wow! thank you all for nice feedbacks <3 :D

It looks a bit rough, but I already like this one card much more than anything in the Amazons Spartans project (besides the admittedly very nice tuck).

I'm glad that you like it, we wanted a rough theme since these women were fighters and historical but we may try a less rough version as well :)

Therefore, I like the choosen rough on purpose art style. Looks promising.
I would definetly get rid of the middle section with the name. A bit too much imo and not a good solution. Maybe one way court cards solve this. If you wanna stick to two way courts I would prefer another solution.
As for similarities to other projects. Almost every theme on this planet has been done before, don't focus on being original, focus on being yourselfs, that leads to true originality.

Thank you for mentioning this manga, it looks very cool and definitely will help us. About middle section I really liked the idea of Justin O. to put the names on an ad card, that can be a good solution I think.
And I really liked what you said here "don't focus on being original, focus on being yourselfs", it's very true :)

I don't think the field of "women warriors" is crowded in any way. I say the more the merrier. The Amazons deck is focused on one particular group of women warriors and the artwork is more of the photo-realism style (I think?). I like your art style so far so I would love to see more. I agree that the banner in the middle isn't quite working. Perhaps you can join the two sides with no banner, more organic like Helheim, perhaps. I look forward to how you progress with this concept and I wish you luck!

Yes you are right about the Amazons deck, and I'm with you in this "the more the merrier", I really like this field myself. In next update we show you a version without banner, as I'm seeing the card myself now you are all right, the middle gap is too much and it's dragging too much attention to it.

.... I too really like the art style and am eager to see where it goes.

Thanks, we are glad that you liked it, more updates coming soon :)

Btw... Tomoe Gozen better be in this!

Haha, Tomoe Gozen is already in our list, we didn't reveal the whole list, and it's kinda hard to choose, but we have some ideas which we share them with you as we progress :)

I would think the deck would look better overall if you didn't put the name on each card, but instead included a list of each cards person as maybe an ad card? I often find that text on the faces makes the card look like a souvenir/gift shop deck

Thanks Justin :) I really liked your idea about thenames. We don't like putting names on card either but we want to mention their name for sure which an ad card is prefect.

This is awesome. If you're able to vectorize it or smooth it up some other way, these will look very nice.

Thanks :) I don't think we can vectorzie it (if you mean trace it in Illustrator it may look messy) but we can try a cleaner version, I mean less lines at some areas.

Please please please make these!! :D All-women courts are way too uncommon

Haha thanks, I gotta say we'll continue this for sure :D

It's been a nice trend lately with the Coven and Amazon decks, not to mention the 2nd version of Coven coming soon, I imagine. I'm all for it!

It's good to hear that it's a nice trend, and I saw the Coven deck before they look cool!


Once again thank you all very much, you boosted our confidence and give us incredible energy to working on this, now that we know we are on the right direction, hopefully we can make it with help of you :)
More updates coming soon, stay tuned!

Honestly, just seeing that someone can do a multi-quote reply is, for me, a huge confidence boost in their ability to do anything else

I like it. All women courts are nice to look at. I like the style so far. The back and the tuck could break this deck though.

Sent from my S10+ using Tapatalk

MagikFingerz wrote:Honestly, just seeing that someone can do a multi-quote reply is, for me, a huge confidence boost in their ability to do anything else

Thanks!

STLBluesNut wrote:I like it. All women courts are nice to look at. I like the style so far. The back and the tuck could break this deck though.

Sent from my S10+ using Tapatalk

Thanks, glad to hear it. What do you mean the back and tuck could break this deck? You mean design of them? We are doing some sketches for it, the more details we know the more it will help us

Yes meaning, I like what I see in this one card and if the other in this style look good that is great! However, the design of the tuck and back could make an otherwise great deck with great courts something that no one will buy.

Nice looking custom courts are a great start!

Sent from my S10+ using Tapatalk

Hi guys,

Sorry for the late update but we are back with some new stuff. We have worked on middle area and two new courts "Fu Hao" & "Joan of Arc", also some sketches for tuck and back. I also updated the first post and put our warriors list, it was hard to choose because we wanted them to be before 16th century which no guns were made, please take a look and tell us your opinions about it, also if you have some titles for deck, we would appreciate to know them :) None of these are final design (even list & title), and may change during process.
Do you like the idea of putting titles below pips?
These are just sketches, we need to vectorize them, some thickness adjustments and edits will be done. What do you think of these? We may try new composition as well.
Sample of what we have in mind for printing tuck, fully gold foil & emboss.
Few tests for tuck (minimal approach) and court (black & gold).

Don't hesitate to give us any thoughts or suggestions please :)
Thanks to all <3

I wouldn't call the update late, we know it's a long process! Looking very good and improved, definitely interested in this. I know some may not like words on the faces, but I think it looks good and otherwise I wouldn't have any idea who they are lol. Don't know what's supposed to be behind Joan, I like the look of them all being outdoors, like they're in their element. I like the back design, not too hard, not too delicate, the indices in the small circles aren't mirrored yet though one of them needs to be rotated 180.

Definitely not a fan of the women warriors name, it just sounds cheesy somehow, or the minimalist tuck (the tuck front in the second image would look great embossed and foiled, can definitely see your inspirations shown in it), or the dark cards. This style of artwork just never feels like it belongs when put onto a dark background imo. For the name, maybe something to do with Heroines, like Era of Heroines or just Heroine Era? Those are my thoughts anyway.

I too like the names under the pips. The first tuck sketch is nice if not a little too monochrome but the minimalist one is not befitting a custom deck and would turn buyer like me off completely regardless of the cards inside.

Sent from my S10+ using Tapatalk

I like the names under the pips, too. Agree with all the other comments regarding the boxes, etc. Love the intricate design for the box and back, but not sure if the pips need to be repeated everywhere—we know we're getting pips. I guess Joan is supposed to have a cathedral interior for her background, but it isn't clear enough. The outdoor scenes look fantastic with the other two. Overall this is looking sharp!

I also agree that the Women Warriors name is lacking. Even inverting it to Warrior Women seems better to me.

Thanks guys for feedbacks :)

Behind Joan, it's a Reims Cathedral in France but not so much space to show it properly, but we work on it to make it better.

Naming is kinda crucial step for us but I listed some titles, still working on it and will appreciate your suggestions about these:

-Revolutionary Women
-Heroine Era
-Heroine
-Bravery
-Warrior Queen
-Warrior Queen | Bravery
-Women Empire

I'm glad you liked tuck box and back, I made another composition as well, do you like this one more? I personally like center text layout, cuz it drags more attention to it but in other hand circle in center is cool as well, hard to choose.
We still haven't decided about tuck being fully monochrome or with more colors, after we vectorise it in Illustrator, I'll share some tests with you for sure. Other things like pips on tuck are not final, it was just something to fill that area for now. Minimal and black ones was just some quick tests to see other possibilities.

I really like the update and the "Heroine" name. The tuck box art is beautiful, but I would love to see some kind of weapon woven into the delicate design elements. Some kind of connection to the theme inside.
Thanks for sharing your progress on this!

BaconWise wrote:I really like the update and the "Heroine" name. The tuck box art is beautiful, but I would love to see some kind of weapon woven into the delicate design elements. Some kind of connection to the theme inside.
Thanks for sharing your progress on this!

+1

A little late here, but here's my $0.02.

Warrior women looks good enough as a title. Heroines, not sure if the extra title is needed. Warrior women is clear and simple. Queens can be deceiving as very few of them were actually queens. Unless of course you want to create a v2 with actual warrior queens! That would be cool.

Love the new courts, but I have 1 problem with the super wide borders from the pics you shared. You're displaying some beautiful artwork with the ladies and the background. The wide borders need to be smaller. Consider making the white borders narrower; so that the art can be seen better. You could even have the indices break into the picture if you need.

Agitcom overcame the borders by having the artwork spill out, making htme look bigger, but since you have a background picture, that needs to have more space for the art to show. The art may look good on the screen, but it will get lost when you shrink it down to playing card size.

Hi guys, hope you are having a great weekend.

@BaconWise Thank you for suggestion. About having weapon inside elements, that's a great idea, I gotta say some elements are like motifs on swords but for more connection I added some, you can see them in image below (still not finalized). Also we might use the same art style as in Aces & new border for tuck box as well, it emphasizes connection even more.

@Eric Lee Thanks for sharing your opinion, yeah I like it to be more simple and clear so we may go with "Warrior Women", but a new title came to mind "Battle Angels", what about this?
And for sure we'll create v2 if this one goes well
I made white border as small as possible to this new court, thanks for suggesting it. I may even try another one to having indices break into image, but that way we need to remove name of warriors. I tested one without border too but I guess it will look like Agitcom which might not be good.

What do you think about these 2 aces? Is this art style could be suitable for tuck as well?
Thank you all for feedback and helps, eager to hear more from you

I like the KoS with the border much much more.

Sent from my S10+ using Tapatalk

This is looking pretty nice!

+1 to keep that interesting border (or variation thereof).

Hi guys!

Hope you are all doing well :)
We are almost done, only few designs left ( 2 courts and jokers ) and some finalizing for back and tuck box. Just wanted to share you the new images, hope you like them and don't hesitate to give us your honest feedbacks.
The aces will be polished a bit more.

Which one of suits you think is better? A or B ? We saw them too much and it's hard to decide.

Still working on tuck box but we came up with these so far. Silver and Gold foil with embossing.


We are planning to launch after holiday (around feb-march). We are thinking about having a booklet, coins and maybe poster prints as rewards.

Have a nice weekend :)

The A pips look great. B looks like 8-bit version.

The B pips do not fit the court art or tuck box style AT ALL. I think if you use something similar to A you would probably have a hit.

The court designs remind me a lot of Nicolai Aroei. I know I spelled his name wrong but people will know who I am talking about lol.

Sent from my S10+ using Tapatalk