InfernalTarot Posted November 2, 2019 Posted November 2, 2019 Hi folks. Shameless self promotion time. Sorry in advance, not very good at it! So here's the story. When I was a kid, growing up in Pendle, Lancashire, UK (where the witches came from!), my mum was a Tarot reader and a rare book collector. I grew up with mysticism and magic, it was part of everydaye life. One book I loved was called the Dictionnaire Infernal. Possibly the very first published encyclopedia of magic and the occult. Lots of people have said many things about the illustrations of demons and monsters in the book. They are pretty stunning... However, there are over 500 images in there. And tiny images at that. And when I was a kid, I noticed that some of them looked like the images on my mum's Tarot card. The first one I spotted was the Fool (let's face it a good place to start!), and slowly but surely, I spotted other seemingly hidden tarot images inside this 200 year old book. About 6 months ago, I started to clean up the images, colourise them and create a Tarot deck. I truly believe that some of these images were hidden in this book for somebody to find and use on such a deck. Some of the images are just far too close not to be Tarot images. It's been a great project, if very slow progress! But I'm now about a third of the way through. I'm going to launch a Kickstarter when the time is right. Not sure when that is, I guess when I see enough people signing up on the prelauch page to be informed. So if you like what you see and you'd be interested in getting a copy, then the best thing you can do is go here to build my confidence! https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/infernal/the-infernal-tarot-a-200-year-old-secret-tarot-deck There will be lots of one-of-a-kind items and exclusives as well as earlybird discounts, so if you click the 'notify me' button, you shouldn't miss out! Thanks for reading, and any questions or comments, please let me know 🙂 Erik
Raggydoll Posted November 2, 2019 Posted November 2, 2019 What a cool idea! It will be exciting to follow your progress!
MissJones Posted November 2, 2019 Posted November 2, 2019 You've done a great job so far, they look fantastic! Keep going, I'll definitely be following keenly 🙂
InfernalTarot Posted November 2, 2019 Author Posted November 2, 2019 Thanks for the encouraging messages! I'll post more designs as I finish them :)
Eric13 Posted November 2, 2019 Posted November 2, 2019 It's just me I'm sure, because I am somewhat sensitive to the images only from an intuitive stand point. I do like what you have going on here but I have particular cards I judge a deck bay and one of them is the Hanged Man. I prefer a traditional Hanged Man whose upside down. It means something in that aspect to me. I'm not looking to start a debate on this, but that's my recommendation. Otherwise I like your concept.
InfernalTarot Posted November 2, 2019 Author Posted November 2, 2019 (edited) Hi Eric, Good name! It's a valid point. I suppose that's the challenge artistic licence vs. traditional imagery. There's probably 3 other 'hanging' images in total that I could have used, and one is depicted upside down... The trouble is, the image isn't very good to be honest. It may well be that in the end, I use that design over the above one, as it's more true to a traditional tarot deck... We'll see. That's the beauty of the journey of creating this deck, it's still fluid in its creation, and my artistic preferences still haven't been set in stone yet. Perhaps (if people are interested), I could put it to the vote on here with the alternative images? I'm more than happy to go with the concensus. 🙂 Erik Edited November 2, 2019 by InfernalTarot
Grandma Posted November 2, 2019 Posted November 2, 2019 Hi @InfernalTarot - I love your cards. I just signed up for notifications on your Kickstarter pre-launch page and will eagerly follow your progress. This deck is going directly onto my Wish List in the "In Progress" section where it joins @Day Soleil's Silver Soul and @Tobi's Barescat Tarots. Hopefully it can be moved to the "Backed on Kickstarter" section soon. Love, Grandma
Saturn Celeste Posted November 2, 2019 Posted November 2, 2019 @InfernalTarot When your kickstart goes live, please post here and let me know, I'll put your deck on the forum list. 😉
InfernalTarot Posted November 2, 2019 Author Posted November 2, 2019 5 hours ago, Grandma said: Hi @InfernalTarot - I love your cards. I just signed up for notifications on your Kickstarter pre-launch page and will eagerly follow your progress. This deck is going directly onto my Wish List in the "In Progress" section where it joins @Day Soleil's Silver Soul and @Tobi's Barescat Tarots. Hopefully it can be moved to the "Backed on Kickstarter" section soon. Love, Grandma Aww thank you Grandma. That means a lot. Thank you for being so welcoming 🙂
InfernalTarot Posted November 2, 2019 Author Posted November 2, 2019 22 minutes ago, Saturn Celeste said: @InfernalTarot When your kickstart goes live, please post here and let me know, I'll put your deck on the forum list. 😉 Brilliant, thank you, I shall. 🙂
Alchemist Posted November 2, 2019 Posted November 2, 2019 Fantastic work @InfernalTarot! I can really appreciate all the time and love you put into this. I trudged all over Europe back in the day to source a series of books with occult plates from the 1840s, and only got around to remastering them all into an oracle deck in the last few years. Definitely is a labor of love, and my hat is off to you as this one looks like it'll be quite nice. A few comments/questions: I don't necessarily disagree with @Eric regarding the hanged man. Obviously, your inspiration as the artist/creator of the deck reigns supreme. But, I will say that I usually don't give a second look at decks that literally show someone being hanged by the neck for the simple reason that it's very counter to how I interpret the card. Will this be a pip deck a la TdM, or a full imagery for all 78 cards deck a la RWS? Again, fantastic work! Keep it up!
AJ-ish/Sharyn Posted November 3, 2019 Posted November 3, 2019 will there be a book, drawn from the original? I'm thinking of The Charles Dickens Tarot and the Shakespeare Tarot by Chris Butler, and The Ship of Fools Tarot by Brian Williams, from the 1494 Narrenschiff as examples.
gregory Posted November 3, 2019 Posted November 3, 2019 Thank you for being in the UK (noted elsewhere). I can BACK this one !
InfernalTarot Posted November 11, 2019 Author Posted November 11, 2019 On 11/2/2019 at 11:46 PM, Alchemist said: Fantastic work @InfernalTarot! I can really appreciate all the time and love you put into this. I trudged all over Europe back in the day to source a series of books with occult plates from the 1840s, and only got around to remastering them all into an oracle deck in the last few years. Definitely is a labor of love, and my hat is off to you as this one looks like it'll be quite nice. A few comments/questions: I don't necessarily disagree with @Eric regarding the hanged man. Obviously, your inspiration as the artist/creator of the deck reigns supreme. But, I will say that I usually don't give a second look at decks that literally show someone being hanged by the neck for the simple reason that it's very counter to how I interpret the card. Will this be a pip deck a la TdM, or a full imagery for all 78 cards deck a la RWS? Again, fantastic work! Keep it up! Thank you for your kind words @Alchemist 🙂 Appologies for not getting back in touch with you sooner. Real life (work!) got in the way this week... and the only spare time went on working on more cards. One of is the alternate Hanged Man image. which I have now decided to use. The ilustraation is a little rougher around the edges, but it just fits the card far better. Crossed leg, hands tied behind back.. it just works better. So thanks to you and Eric for giving me the nudge. As mentioned previously, this is most definitely a 'work in progress', and there's quite a few cards that are likely to be revisited prior to the deck being finalised. So thanks again for your comments. They will hopefully lead to the best possible deck. As for your other question, they wil be full imagery. Each suit wil have its own icon and card name at the bottom, but in the central imagery, I'll attempt to make them correspond to the meaning of the card. Luckilly, I have a lot of source material to work from! No doubt, I'll be in touch with a few 'do you think this one... or this one...' type comments in the future, if you all don't mind getting involved? In the mean time, here's a few newbies. Hope you like them.
InfernalTarot Posted November 11, 2019 Author Posted November 11, 2019 On 11/3/2019 at 2:45 PM, AJ-ish/Sharyn said: will there be a book, drawn from the original? I'm thinking of The Charles Dickens Tarot and the Shakespeare Tarot by Chris Butler, and The Ship of Fools Tarot by Brian Williams, from the 1494 Narrenschiff as examples. I'm putting together a 'companion guide' book for the cards. It will be available as an option, rather than as a compulsory purchase. There are so many tiny details that most won't notice, so I'm looking forward to being able to hightlight those. When working on the new The World card, I spotted something that clearly somebody was meant to find... Like a sneaky 'nod' to the purpose of the original image that you just won't see unless you're REALLY looked ridiculously closely at the source material. I love stuff like that, it makes this journey all the more fun! It's like spotting little tiny trinkets of treasure.
AJ-ish/Sharyn Posted November 11, 2019 Posted November 11, 2019 I like books like that, all of us have keyword books, I want to know what the artist/author was seeing and thinking at the time of the card creation and what they see as the crux of a card.
Francis Posted November 13, 2019 Posted November 13, 2019 Amazing cards congratulations excellent work, pls let me know when you complete all the deck.
fire cat pickles Posted February 25, 2020 Posted February 25, 2020 This Kickstarter is going live on Friday!
Decan Posted February 25, 2020 Posted February 25, 2020 After the poor experience I had with my last Tarot deck maybe it's what I need, something infernal! 🙂 I will follow that to see how it will turn.
Grandma Posted February 28, 2020 Posted February 28, 2020 (edited) I just pledged too! During the few minutes I was on the Kickstarter page the total amount pledged went up from $1200-change to $2359 - yowza! They're almost halfway to goal and the campaign has been live for less than half an hour! Edited February 28, 2020 by Grandma
Flaxen Posted February 28, 2020 Posted February 28, 2020 Thanks for the reminder @fire cat pickles - I've gone ahead and backed it.
InfernalTarot Posted February 28, 2020 Author Posted February 28, 2020 (edited) Oh my word! I was going to message at the moment we went live, but It's gone a wee bit crazy!! Thank you for those who have pledged early and got a discount or limited edition item. I'll check in later on with my intended update! 🙂 For those interested, Infernal Tarot is LIIIIIVEEEEE on Kickstarter!! 🙂 http://www.tinyurl.com/infernaltarot Edited February 28, 2020 by InfernalTarot
InfernalTarot Posted February 29, 2020 Author Posted February 29, 2020 Wow! Yesterday was pretty crazy! Just a quick update. The Kickstarter is now over 350% to target. Stunned! If anyone still wants earlybird offers, some are still available, but they're running out. The most popular one - Soothsayer level with discount ends in 9 hours, so if anyone wants it, now's your chance! Thanks everyone for your support. If you want to help, sharing the Kickstarter in forums, Facebook groups & on social media would be really helpful! Erik
geoxena Posted February 29, 2020 Posted February 29, 2020 It's beautiful. I love it and want it, and wish I could afford it, but I can't. So I will cheer you on from the sidelines! Bravo!
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