The Gwai Lenormand on Kickstarter

[cmuins]

Hello! 

 

I launched the kickstarter campaign for my second divination deck a couple of days ago and it's nearly 100% funded! Would just like to put the word out there in case any of you lovely folks might be interested in the deck (I've also included copies of my first tarot deck, L'Œil de l'Âme tarot as an add-on)

 

(Admin: Link removed due to self promotion rules) 

Edited March 19, 2022 by Little Fang
Self promotion

[Little Fang]

Welcome! 

I have removed your link due to self promotion in the wrong section. The Promote Yourself section is subscribers only, but you may view it here:

https://www.thetarotforum.com/forums/forum/26-promote-yourself/

 

[katrinka]

It's pretty. But, with all due respect, a lot of the images are so altered that the meanings are completely lost. (Lenormand is not learned by "creating a deck", but by years of study and practice.) The Rider isn't even visible. The Fish is an anglerfish. People don't want to eat those, and they don't travel in large schools, so it doesn't say money or abundance. The Star just looks like a flower, it doesn't say aspirations, night, or science.

And the backs are too similar to the Oracle of Black Enchantment by Patrick Valenza:

 

 

Why not take a cue from Valenza and make a non-Lenormand reading deck instead, like he did with the Mildred Payne?
 

[Decan]

Out of curiosity I took a look at this one.

The back, indeed, is really inspired by the Black Enchantment Oracle, it’s clear!

Otherwise there are so many things I could say here I think, but I won’t 😄

For me a Lenormand should be placed near a porcelain tea cup on a chic and old fashioned cloth, so you can see my point, lol.

[katrinka]

12 minutes ago, Decan said:

Otherwise there are so many things I could say here I think, but I won’t 😄

 

Yes, I stopped short of posting Linda Blair gifs. 🤣
Sometimes people really don't know what the Lenormand method is about. "Benefit of the doubt" and all that.
 

12 minutes ago, Decan said:

For me a Lenormand should be placed near a porcelain tea cup on a chic and old fashioned cloth, so you can see my point, lol.

The refinement of those, yes, but the straightforwardness of an old plank table and drinking from a mason jar, lol. There's a certain utilitarianism to it. Form should follow function. 😉

[fire cat pickles]

I searched it on Kickstarter,  easily enough, for those who may be interested. "A" for effort, and all that. It's... interesting.  Is it readable? Hmmm, I don’t think I could. Not for the beginner,  I don't think. From the description,  I can appreciate the attempt at bringing inclusion into the mix, so the creator has their heart in the right place, so it has that going for it. Definitely quirky! Not for me though. 

[Niobium]

Regarding the card back, it's the same (or almost) design the artist used for their L'Œil de L'Âme Tarot deck (visible here), so I don't think Valenza factors into it at all. A coincidence, at most. (The artist is also in Hong Kong and may simply not have seen Patrick's deck before. Certainly I've not seen plenty of the decks coming from East Asian until I really started hunting for them.)

 

For my part, I backed the deck, but I know my relationship to Lenormand if very different than others, and I truly love this 'Area X' art style that Charlotte Mui has used here. It has a similar vibe as my Dream Visions Tarot, which I utterly adore.

 

 

 

 

 

 

[katrinka]

8 hours ago, fire cat pickles said:

I searched it on Kickstarter,  easily enough, for those who may be interested. "A" for effort, and all that. It's... interesting.  Is it readable? Hmmm, I don’t think I could. Not for the beginner,  I don't think. From the description,  I can appreciate the attempt at bringing inclusion into the mix, so the creator has their heart in the right place, so it has that going for it. Definitely quirky! Not for me though. 

 

Inclusiveness is always good.
 

5 hours ago, Niobium said:

Regarding the card back, it's the same (or almost) design the artist used for their L'Œil de L'Âme Tarot deck (visible here), so I don't think Valenza factors into it at all. A coincidence, at most. (The artist is also in Hong Kong and may simply not have seen Patrick's deck before. Certainly I've not seen plenty of the decks coming from East Asian until I really started hunting for them.) 

 

Nobody's saying Valenza's image was purposely stolen, only that the backs are too similar:

 

The Oracle of Black Enchantment has been around since 2018. I looked up the L'Œil de L'Âme Tarot, and it was published in 2021. That's three years between them, and the artist obviously has good internet access. It's possible to observe something, forget about it, and have it bubble up in your mind later with no context. You think it's inspiration, but it's memory. It's happened in music more than a few times, even George Harrison had to pay a settlement and damages because My Sweet Lord is so similar to the Chiffons' He's So Fine. George certainly didn't go around stealing peoples' music, even the judge believed him, but the ruling was that he'd "unconsciously plagiarized" the song.

However it happened, the similarities are too striking for it to be purely coincidental.

[Niobium]

@katrinka I didn't think that anyone was. I'll admit that as an owner of Black Enchantment it didn't even cross my mind when I saw this card back or the other one, but I have a lot of decks full of eye motifs, so maybe I'm just expecting to see them all over by now. 

 

 

 

[Decan]

This particular pattern was used by Patrick Valenza before the Black Enchantment, in his Royal Mischief Playing cards; not exactly the same but the same idea and style.