The wild coast of Bohemia

Today the sun came out, I saw a green woodpecker looking for somewhere to build a nest and the cats went mad on the roof. First hints of spring!

I also got a wildly, wildly gypsy tablecloth that I bought. Minnie sniffed it for five minutes and was appalled, so I took it straight to wash (she checks everything that comes into the house). It turned out to be FILTHY - basin after basin of brown water was flushed away before I got it clean. I then drenched it in aroma fabric conditioner and hung it outside. After which it will be fit to use. It's falling to pieces really, but it looks like something from a Victorian circus and I love it. Once it's dried and ironed I'll photograph it.

For now though, some of the red-on-white embroidery that I love so much here. This is very faded and on an unusually thick linen (only a strip left, it's been cut just an inch from the embroidery) - I suspect it's a good 100 years old. We will scan it all and store it for use as a graphic later. Then maybe I will think seriously about sewing it on to one of my thick old french sheets, if it's wide enough. Any other ideas? I would really like to use it for real as well as using it as a graphics source.

Finally we have most of the real bags photographed (though not all - some had to be posted out before Alex had a chance) so for now here are the Bohemian Gothic ones. It is GOOD to see these for real at last.

Strength



( More here )

I'm really happy with these final cards - we are very tired and I was worried that that might show, but in some ways the images have just got better and better. Well, that's what I think!

My problem with the Six of Wands is that it tends to be a useful but somewhat worthy and boring card in most decks. So we decided with this version to really pull out the stops and make it into something much more controversial and thought-provoking:

By the way, this witch is a real gargoyle that hangs over the Mala Strana end of the Charles Bridge. We make her larger, so that she could be seen properly on the card. Interestingly, very few people who walk under her notice her - I suppose there is generally too much going on and too many crowds.

Well, it's all going along steadily and we seem to be nearly there (how often have I said that?) Take a look at the website if you'd like to, I've sorted it out a bit and there is more on there now:

http://www.bohemiangothic.com

I took the watermarks off the cards as I realise that the real problem is the cards here, which I'm now marking all the time.

Also, on Friday I got an email from the commissioning editor at Llewellyn asking if we had a publisher (hey ho) and if not, if we would be interested in doing it with them. Just a touch late to make this offer ;) - though I don't think we would have let anyone else publish this deck in any case.

We've never submitted anything to a publisher and this is the second time one of the "biggies" has approached us, so I suppose it means we are on the right lines. On the other hand, I'm not sure we want to be mass market in quite that way.

Based on a make-up by our friend Vlad Taupes - wonderful work.

Sorry to post and run - but we are just so pressed with the coming print deadline. The cards seem almost to be getting better and better though. I LOVE this one - it feeds into lots of my obsessions:

We need to begin offering giclee prints on this deck, we really do. But the giclee printer is all tied up with doing fabric prints (and full of fabric ink) and it's SO expensive to use our small printer. Hmm, must work out a solution. Some of these pictures just should be offered large and frameable - I'd like this one in a darkish hallway. Ohhhhhh yes!

Sorry it's so small. We have some computer/network problems so we are not throwing the large files around between the machines so much until it's sorted. Hopefully soon.

Er - are you suddenly seeing a huge font on this page? Or have I reset my options by accident? Drat - one of those weekends computer-wise!

I have to admit that I really like this one.

Sorry to be slow in answering the comments - just a bit up against the book deadline. But for now, here is the Four of Cups.
The teeth are not very finely drawn because quite honestly they will hardly even be visible in the final card. But just to show they are there!

By the way, sorry about the copyright watermark but I'm not putting this on all the images as I've found them popping up all over the place on the web.

We ended up doing this in a very classic style - I have to admit partly because we very much wanted to use the amazing Sphinxes with their bee-bodices. The mask is from the Barandov Studio collection (photographed with permission).

In complete contrast, this is a much more explicitly narrative card. It took forever to do but I am thrilled with it ("thrilled"? Maybe that's a word that comes from looking at the expression of Dr Frankenstein here). It's hard to get the right emotion into a Frankenstein card (the monster can end up just looking laughable) but this places an interesting emphasis on the motivation of Dr Frankenstein himself I think.

I know we need to do faster with this deck - but it's hard to speed it up when the cards are coming out so strong. I don't want to risk the quality and depth of any of them.

We did this a while ago but somehow I never got round to showing it. It's very simple, but as there is so much going on in many of the cards, I rather like to have a few that are more sparse. I kind of like this one and it will work - in its own quiet way, nicely with the rest of the deck:

Now THIS was a hard card to do. I wish I wasn't saying that about so many of them. The deck will be worth it though - but goodness, it's been a long haul.

More from the conference of film special effects soon. And much, much more of the larger-than-lfe Bohemian Cat (modelled on our Eight of Wands cat).

I think there are shades of the Bluebeard type of story here. The young woman who marries a rich man, and then begins to look around his lavish house and wonder...

I like this one - you could build an entire story around it in a reading.

It's taking a while to get these all done - we just got submerged under wholesale orders (all to Japan, China and Korea interestingly enough) but here is one that we just made for an individual order. If you are reading this and it's yours, it came out looking GREAT and I want one!




( Lots more pictures here )

Here it is, finished at last. Not an easy image, I know: