Colouring Techniques

[Page of Ghosts]

 

I have never been on a forum like this before, it's great to have so many helpful and skillful people who can join in and give their guidance on creating decks i would like to see more members join in, i wasn't aware that this forum was quite new i assumed it had been here for years. :)

agree! hope to get some critic soon when I post topic for my Tarot deck in progress!:)

I have never been on a forum like this before, it's great to have so many helpful and skillful people who can join in and give their guidance on creating decks i would like to see more members join in, i wasn't aware that this forum was quite new i assumed it had been here for years. :)

 

Oh no, we're very new! The big old legend among tarot forums, Aeclectic Tarot Forum, closed down last summer after around 15 years and a lot of new ones sprung up. This is the one I settled on and I quite like it. The 5 post rule or something similar was on AT and I think it's to prevent spam and other not so fun things. I remember there was a post limit on accessing the readings sections because there had been some issues there as well. I'm not sure how it is here now, most of the early members were old AT users so it was pretty lax to begin with but we might have changed some things up later.

AT member here as well! I remember this forum back then but we had so many showing up every day so I log on 3 & seem to forgot to make acc here until it shows up on my etsy statistic page few days ago!:) you are doing great job by making topic including this one visible without need to log in so hopefully more people will spot it & join us!:)

 

Yeah, it was pretty stressful those last few weeks :( I wish there had been a more co-ordinated effort to set up a new forum instead of everyone panicing and setting up a whole bunch so people became more spread (I only registered for 2 and that was overwhelming enough!), but it is what it is and I've made some good friends in the time I've been here. In the years I knew of AT I was mostly a lurker and joined only in March or April last year so I didn't have a long run on there like so many others, but it's interesting to see this forum grow and I hope it will stick around for a long time :D

[reall]

yeah, same here! I've only discovered AT year or 2 before it went down!x,x

I've been posting on few but it seem we'll never get same traffic as AT!

hopefully this one look promising?:)

[Page of Ghosts]

No, it's not moving as fast here as on good old AT but it's doing alright I think! It's not even been a year since the closedown so it will take a while before we get somewhere similar, especially with all the scattering of people. But it's not bad at all for a baby forum to me, the regular user :)

[reall]

agree!:) a long as there are people wish to be here there is hope!^^ lolz time will tell but keeping topics active for a year is good sign!:)

[Birdie]

Hi! Congrats on your deck! It's a big achievement and a lot of work goes into something like that.

 

As far as coloring techniques, I think it depends a lot on personal art style. For example, I really love the look of traditional storybook illustrations, so I use a lot of watercolors and gouache. But I know a lot of people are drawn to photoshop paintings which can be just as lovely. I think you mentioned you liked the Rider-Waite. A flat style like that might be best achieved with either photoshop or gouache. You might even be able to do vector images with something like adobe illustrator, which is kind of cool because vectors can be blown up to any size without sacrificing quality of the image.

 

Sorry for being long winded, but I hope this helps you a little bit! Good luck!

[Guest]

i had to switch to pencils and paper...

 

i am leaning towards Prismacolor Turquoise and Prismacolor Ebony pencils, I use the Kum long point sharpener. i have found depending upon the paper I come across I may need a 9b or a 6b to completely fill the tooth. And I keep can of Conservator to re-tooth the paper to get more contrast and prevent smudging when I close the book.

 

this is last nights sketch i did during my breaks and lunch at work. I am going to redraw it and use Copic markers to fill in the black tonight,I am finding it hard to do a black fill with pencil

 

[DoNotDelete]

 

Hello Birdie,

 

I do tend to use photoshop colours which can sometimes look a bit flat, i have been trying out different techniques to see which one looks best but i'have never tried the gouache method.

[Guest]

Just replying to your PM in your thread in case anyone else was interested.

 

I think you were asking about my Pike and Clover cards. There the colouring method was quite straightforward. Basically I drew the designs on paper in ink, then scanned and converted to b/w. To colour I just used flood filling in photoshop at very high resolution with a palette of 5 colours (no antialiasing, so you get an exact edge with no blur at the edges).

 

My other earlier cards I did differently. The Inglewood Hunting Deck is just painted in watercolour then scanned.

 

The most complicated to describe was the way I used for Viceroys. I first drew the designs on paper in ink, then scanned and converted to b/w. To colour, I painted in watercolour on a blank paper, then scanned and overlayed the black/transparent outline from the ink drawing (in photoshop). I think that gave a good effect. If you look at the "in progress" pictures at the bottom of this page on KS, you should get a good idea of how I did it.

[Morsoth]

I'll finally start making my own Tarot Deck (it's been years that I want to do it) and I consider using watercolor. As an artist, I usually only draw with pen, most of the time in black & white. A year ago, I was to make a deck only in B&W, but I know I would prefer it to be in color. I'm good at Photoshop for lots of stuff, but not for coloring original art, unless it uses plain color technique without any shade or light effects. So yeah, now I'm watching LOTS of YouTube tutorials and I'll do many tests before doing the real thing! I plan to take a full "Year and a Day" to do the deck, so I'm going to take all the time I need!

 

When I'm ready to start the tests, I'll open my own thread and post all the updates there! It's going to be a fun adventure!

[DoNotDelete]

Hi Morsoth,

 

There are so many ways how to create a tarot deck, i prefer doing line drawings then i can choose how to colour each illustration with photoshop or using marker pens. I will say creating 78 cards does take a lot of dedication, i will look forward seeing some of your artwork. :)

[Morsoth]

I did a quick watercolor test today, and oh boy... That's not THAT easy if you don't have the techniques. I'll post my "Test Card" here, but I won't do the deck that way now! The picture looks way too sketchy to my taste, and it seems that I can't do all the details that I want.

 

Good idea KnighsQuest - Next test will be the card draw with a black pen, and colored with artist markers. I hope it's going to be easier this time. I like my template with the Roman number, and the Astrological/Kabbalistic associations -- I'll probably keep it that way. To be continued...

 

But here the first test made with watercolor (and a quick light effect with Photoshop) :

[reall]

I did a quick watercolor test today, and oh boy... That's not THAT easy if you don't have the techniques. I'll post my "Test Card" here, but I won't do the deck that way now! The picture looks way too sketchy to my taste, and it seems that I can't do all the details that I want.

 

Good idea KnighsQuest - Next test will be the card draw with a black pen, and colored with artist markers. I hope it's going to be easier this time. I like my template with the Roman number, and the Astrological/Kabbalistic associations -- I'll probably keep it that way. To be continued...

 

But here the first test made with watercolor (and a quick light effect with Photoshop) :

Wow! Looks like you did great with these! Colors looks Awesome to me!:D

as *pro deck creator my tip is;

1)do black & white lineart first (it'll save you time & give feeling you are progressing faster!^^

2) take photos of these & save digitaly before coloring!^^

3) color when you feel inspired!^^

 

Also you can add all text later digitally!^^

 

p.s instagram is good idea for fanbase & promotion!^^ here is my; https://www.instagram.com/myluckycards/

[Morsoth]

This is a great advice! I would have colored directly on the original art and OMG, I can ruin this so bad on my first attempt! You probably saved me from a catastrophe!  X-D

 

So, I'll do the black & white in ink, scan the drawing at 300dpi, print a black & white copy and color that copy. I'll keep the original b&w ink as it. This way, I'll be able to try two possibilities: the first is to color with markers like KnightsQuest mentioned, the second is to color it digitally in Photoshop. The best one will decide how I do the deck. I'll post my 2 new versions here this week!

 

Thanks again and reall! The journey continue!

[reall]

This is a great advice! I would have colored directly on the original art and OMG, I can ruin this so bad on my first attempt! You probably saved me from a catastrophe!  X-D

 

So, I'll do the black & white in ink, scan the drawing at 300dpi, print a black & white copy and color that copy. I'll keep the original b&w ink as it. This way, I'll be able to try two possibilities: the first is to color with markers like KnightsQuest mentioned, the second is to color it digitally in Photoshop. The best one will decide how I do the deck. I'll post my 2 new versions here this week!

 

Thanks again  and reall! The journey continue!

ha ha! you are welcome!:) that way you can always have your original bnw lineart ready for bnw color your own deck, coloring book or guidebook or if you simply change your mind!:)

personally prismacolors my fav!^^ some people are color wonders with these but digital is my forte!XD facepalm lol ask if you need help with anuthing & be sure to check our creators threads!^^;D