#also shoutout to my partners and also my good friends Spades and Tea and Minataur and Starflung

[aseuki]

It's time!!

Sharing my contribution to the Umbral Wings Tarot Deck with my art for the Knight of Water!

The campaign's in the final stretch and the deck is fully funded! 🎉🎉🎉 If you wanted to get your hands on some truly phenomenal artwork, I highly suggest checking it out! 👀

Here's the link once more in case you missed it: 👉 [Link]

Going to dip a little bit into the designmaking process itself under the cut!

The Knight of Water is thematically about sensitivity. Charm, romance imagination-as a person, it's about a 'knight in shining armor' type character who may help others with the matters of the heart.

I also wanted to note that another cool thing about this deck is that the artists were designated their suit depending on their art and rendering style! The Air suit focuses on more atmospheric type art, Fire is character symbolism driven, in the Earth suit you'll se a lot of traditional-style rendering, and in the Water suit you'll see a lot more anime-inspired art styles!

With these factors in mind, I wanted a composition that would pay homage to the classic anime bishoujo genre--sailor moon and utena played heavily into the design and composition--something with lots of sparkles, atmospheric framing, a pretty waterfall to tie in the elemental theme, and lots and lots (and LOTS) of roses. (Fun fact! If you look at each rose, they have a heart in the centre! Each one was carefully and painstakingly hand drawn!). The pose that was chosen for this card was also a direct homage to the classic Sailor Moon style transformation sequences (and also swan mating dances with the wings), with the element of a 'bleeding heart' visual cue so to speak with the red roses and petals to the chest haha--it was fun going through different pose ideas before settling on this one! Roses and thorns go hand in hand, so thorny vines were also added at the bottom so that they become more evident when the card is inverted! (The inverted card speaks of emotional upset, depression, hypersensitivity, and lashing out)

For the dragon design itself, I took the 'prince on a white horse' and 'knight in shining armor' aspect and meshed them with leafy and weedy sea dragons and betta fish from real life to make a unicorn-like design--a creature that is traditionally associated with sensitivity and emotions--with a classic anime magical girl spin. I wanted the design to look ethereal and noble, and still clearly a dragon instead of a horse! (It was trickier than one might think!)

That's all the notes I have at the moment! Overall this was an Incredibly fun project to think through, I know I've been absolutely vibrating off the walls to share this haha! Everyone else has also brought their A game to each card in this deck, be sure to check them out through the KS link when you can, I can assure you that each and every card is just as lovingly rendered as this one!