 |
| First Tarot Card ever finished. |
Anyone who's been by my tables over the last couple of years will know that the Anime Tarot set is one of the staples on my table. The concept for the set was born in April 2008. The 22 Major Arcana card set premiered at Anime USA in November 2008. Since then, I've gotten a lot of people asking when I'm going to finish the set, and each time I've had to say, maybe next year, with every intention of having finished it by the next year. But, because of life and other things, the actual date for completion of the set kept getting pushed back.
Life things included my husband's last year in NCSU's doctoral program during which he wrote one of the longest most complex theses on record--he studied immersion theory in video games. His thesis challenged existing academic theory on the subject and supplied his own model for understanding immersion. I digress now--if you want to know more on this subject, I can always get him to guest write a blog on it. =P Then there was the process of defending that dissertation, graduating, finding new work, moving, adjusting to a lot of new life changes that came with all of that.
 |
| Most recent completed - Wow can you see the difference? |
|
Other things that delayed the completion of the Anime Tarot set included Anime Weekend Atlanta, my husband's Anime RPG book project, and plain old burn-out. Conventions all have different policies regarding fanart; Anime Weekend Atlanta currently has an 80/20 policy--my table has to consist of 80% original art and 20% fanart. Considering there are 78 cards in the finished Anime Tarot set, even with only part of it finished, that's a lot of original art to have to come up with. As it is, this year, I will not have the Anime Tarot set at the convention as prints or badges; I will (if all goes well) have it as a single deck of cards (1 item =D). So, for 2009 and 2010 I had to take time off during the summer and early fall to focus attention on drawing original art or risk being asked to leave AWA's artist alley. I won't say I'm complaining--I actually enjoyed the chance to take a break and draw some other stuff. I won't go into my husband's Anime RPG book--that was a stressful couple of months of binge drawing to meet the print deadline. I'll admit there was also a couple of weeks to a month or so that I didn't draw anything (like after Magfest 2011--I'd just finished almost 60 pieces of art for the Anime RPG book, plus finished the 12 print/badge Would Would ___ Do? set all in less than 6 weeks).
 |
| King and Queen of Wands. The end of an adventure. |
Anyways, after a lot of various delays, the Anime Tarot set is finally coming to a close. I have sitting on my desk now the partially inked Queen of Wands and the sketch for the King of Wands. Once these two are finished, the set is officially finished. It's really weird looking at those 2 and trying to comprehend what their completion actually means. For the first time since 2008 there will not be more tarot cards on my list of things to do. It's one of those projects that was so big and was taking so long to get finished that there were times where I really wondered if I'd ever actually see the end of it. It's been a long journey; it's been fun. I don't think I could say I'd ever want to do it again though. XD
No comments:
Post a Comment