Though the fire, lighting strike, fire and stone debris can be improved, I think this is more than enough for a Tarot card. Great image. what about having one of the falling figure falling backward to be a little more dramatic? :) Bill

Hey Headhunter, Looks great! Mine needs more work, and I have not decided what I'm doing with the titles. Your idea looks good tho. Right now I'm leanin towards a frame with the title at the bottom. I'll check out the Encyclopedia. Yes, I knew Waite switched the #'s, but I need to really think about it and decide which interpretation is right for me. ANyway, neither of those cards are my favorites, so I can leave them till last LOL. Gail

The debris that falls from the tower varies deck-to-deck from sparks to coins to stones, I chose a combination of sparks & stones on mine. The bolt was done with a Photoshop filter, which doesn't produce very realistic lightning, but it's the only one I had. I do agree that the stones need improvement, I think I need to vary the size & shape more, they look too regular. Some cards have debris descending the length of the tower, which I think would interfere with the falling figures. I'll try breaking the rocks up a little and adding a few more. Tesign: by "backward" do you mean feet-first? Most decks show both figures head-first or one figure already hitting the ground. I don't want to vary from the traditional packs too much, as this is supposed to be a 3D rendition of a pattern set about 500 years ago. BTW, my figures are to scale with the tower, in contrast with the hand-drawn Marseilles cards which show them about half the size of the tower itself. I lost all detail in the figures' expressions, but they don't look like they're falling out of an outhouse!

heehee! i think tesign means, instead of falling face first, as if they dove out of the tower, their backs should be to the ground. the lightning looks good, though the fire can be more bright and glowing. there's some fire-painting techniques at my gallery that might help. also, the tower is supposed to be a very dramatic card, you might want to play around with a more dramatic view (closer, and looking up... unless that's too untraditional), and especially more dramatic lighting. it looks cool! :)

Hi Headhunter, About falling "backward"...thanks to Bsong explaination and its exactly what I meant. But since you are working with reference to what is "tradition" of the original pack, I guess my suggestion is not valid unless you want to dramatize the own pack an call it your own while the story composition and meaning are the same. Have a good one :) Bill

I just bought the Universal Waite cards today and lo and behold, one of the figures is falling backward! (Upon seeing this it occurred to me [duh!] what Bill meant! OK, I'm bright but I'm slow...[G]) All the trumps & courts are finished, but I want to go back & redo a few (redid the Papess today, one of my favorite cards, dress still looks a little off but better than it was.) Oddly enough, Bloodsong, I originally had the camera @ the bottom looking up @ a steep angle, but changed it. I probably should have left it alone. I'll definitely have to check on the fire technique. I think I'll rework some of the simpler ones 1st. This card is taking an inordinate amount of work to get just right!

BTW, Bloodsong... what's the address to your site? I thought I had it in my bookmarks but can't find it. (I really MUST clean out my bookmarks every year or so!)

heya; oops! theres a link to it on my members home page thingydoodle here, but... here is the url, its quicker ;) http://people.delphi.com/sphynx/gallery/index.htm