What's This All About

Well, I (The Aleks, Internationally Recognized Interactive and Multimedia Auteur of some note) am back to my old tricks, crowdfunding stuff (now on Indiegogo) and once again asking you to lend your support. This time around, I am looking to continue funding the recent focus of my passions, The Lacuna Tarot, a deck of Tarot cards conceived and illustrated by yours truly. For this particular project, the images hopefully speak for themselves. I will speak a bit more to the process, reasoning, and current progress directly below, but the long and short of it is that I'm a professional artist and long time devotee of all things esoteric, I like being able to eat and live, and I've wanted to make my own deck of Tarot cards for some time now.

I got inspired to actually finish the project over this past year (having landed, after some prior experimentation, on a more concrete direction), and then went ahead  and did it (well, a big chunk of it, at least, the rest is what I need your help with). It's been a pretty cool experience, if a challenging one. I might do more decks in the future as well, since it seems I may have developed a taste for it, but that's neither here nor there ... after this is done, I will be taking quite a break, probably. I need to stop eyeing my next project while my current one is still cooking. But hey, I can't help it. I'm a regular creative dynamo ... a real something or other. 

State of the Project

Anyways, let's talk about my current level of progress, since that's ultimately the most clear indicator of viability. Firstly, this campaign is part of the InDemand program, which means it's already had a successful crowdfunding run. As such, following a short break for the holidays and to run the original campaigns, I am back to working on it more or less full time, and it's progressing at a good clip, now that I have renewed motivation and the means to afford food and such for the next few months. 

As of my initial launch, I had already painted the at least a foundational variant of every one of the 78 cards (as well as the card back). I do find a good number of them to be more or less complete, pending some final touch-ups, but, as an artist and human being first and business person fourth or seventh, I always reserve the right to keep fiddling with my art until I hit an internal deadline or, much less likely, am perfectly satisfied (don't worry, I have made great strides in containing my toxic perfectionism). In short, if someone were to put a gun to my head and tell me to go to print now, I would only cringe a little. But thank goodness nobody is holding a gun to my head ... just in general. Knock on wood. 

My "first pass" through the set focused primarily on nailing down the compositions, exploring the overall feel of the deck, and getting all the colors in more or less the places I wanted them to be. I am currently wrapping up  my "second pass," which is mainly about smoothing over some rough edges (literally), adding the occasional  flourish, ensuring a level of consistency, adding numbering and lettering where they are still missing (all the text and such is hand-lettered - well, digitally painted and incorporated into the image, but by hand), and so forth.

All of that is to say that this project is already in a stage of relative maturity, with several hundred cumulative hours of work put into it, and not merely a hopeful glint in my eye, as can sometimes be the case with undertakings of a large scope (a Tarot deck is made up of 78 custom works of art, after all ... and that's a LOT ... oh my glob, it is SO MUCH)!

So, to clarify, here's a quick bullet point rundown of what still has to get done. 

•  Box Art - I am keeping this quite simple, with one of my favorite cards on the front, a short blurb on the back, and a relatively minimalist design throughout. It has not yet been finalized for obvious reasons (the biggest of which is that I have to first decide which card or cards I want to showcase ... it's like having to decide which one of your babies is your favorite).
   
• Individual Card Refinements - As mentioned above, each of the 78 cards is well underway, and many, perhaps most, would be considered print-ready as is, but I specifically want to take several months between campaign funding and projected publication date to basically dot all the i's and cross all the t's, in some cases literally.
   
• Informational/Instructive Insert - The focus of this project is undeniably visual. While I consider myself a jack of many trades, and writing is clear and accessible copy is not entirely outside of my wheelhouse (so long as you don't mind said copy served with a generous side of parenthetical, digressions, and poor attempts at humor), it was not my intention to initially include a booklet of any kind during the initial release. The reason for this is that The Lacuna Tarot (changes to some naming conventions aside) is a standard deck in structure, and even I am not arrogant enough to believe that I can improve, especially within the scope of a "little white book," on over a century of existing scholarship and popular writing on the subject of the Tarot that has come into being since the initial release of the ever popular Rider Waite Smith deck in 1909, not to mention the full totality of the Tarot's known history. Similarly, while some have expressed a desire to know my reasoning for every symbolic and visual decision on every card, I personally fall into the David Lynch school of artmaking, in that if you were to ask me to elaborate on something, I would much prefer to answer with a curt "no." (Note to self: Insert something clever about Roland Barthes and "Death of the Author" here).
  
  That having been said, I was swayed to include a short "reading guide" with the deck. Some of my awesome supporters brought to my attention, during the initial campaign, a blind-spot of mine. Not everyone is familiar with the elemental symbols that are used to denote the suits in this deck, or the elemental properties of the suits themselves. Most people were a bit confused by my use of the word "Tines" (a somewhat archaic word for "sharp, pointy thing") as a substitute for the more traditional "Swords" (though the other substitutions have elicited much less confusion), and it is only reasonable to expect some explanation for any changes to the titles of certain Major Arcana cards. Plus, not everyone is going to know what the deal is with all the Hebrew. While the Hebrew script is used largely as a decorative component and familiarity is not required to read the cards as normal, it's only natural that people buying this card would be curious to at least know the origins thereof, and get pointed in a general sense towards a means of learning more about this aspect of the Tarot independently.
  
  To that end, I have written up the initial draft of the insert, dealing with all of the above concerns and providing a simple primer on reading the Tarot through the lens of the Kabballah and the Tree of Life. Now it's just a matter of proofing it, editing it, and laying it out for inclusion in the tuckbox on release. 
    
• Unglamorous Admin Stuff - Most of this will be done once I have already forced myself to stop fiddling with details that probably nobody would have noticed anyway, and "let go" of the creative element of the project, and would simply involve prepping all the files for the final print version (personal proofs/prototypes excluded), quintuple checking for uncaught typos, and so on. Once all of those things done, we will finally enter the wild and exciting world of fulfillment.
   
• Marketing and Such? - Um ... I am not good at that. Please tell your friends, tell your dog, tell your family, tell your spirit guides. I have a feeling that, coming at this as I come at most of my projects, with zero starting capital and very few spoons, I am going to need all the help I can get. 

Barring my untimely demise, the deck will get done one way or the other, especially now that we're in "secondary campaign" territory. My Goal is to get it all sewn up and in your hands sometimes in early April of 2023 ... that having been said, as is the case with most crowdfunding campaigns, that probably means May, or possibly early June, especially once you factor in the fact that printing and shipping take time and can occasionally come with unpredictable contingencies. 

Why Does The Artwork Look Like It Does?

One sec, let me go put my art school apron on. *Ahem*

In developing this series, I aimed for a layered mixture between abstraction and representation that conveyed, above all, a sense of magic(k), liminality, and possibility inherent in the processes of dreaming, conceptualizing, and realizing (and sometimes, derealizing), employing an almost paradoxical juxtaposition of volumetric forms, flat planes, and pure abstraction, using semi-illusionistic pseudo-"trompe l'oeil" techniques as purely compositional elements and deconstructing the "virtual plane" of the image to achieve a dreamy, surrealistic effect with both comforting and confronting qualities coexisting in fractured, multivalent worlds. These cards were designed to feel like an exploration of a mysterious and ever-shifting reality undercurrent. To that end,  symbolic expressions were emphasized and recognizable figurative elements were limited, deemphasized, or dissected.

I think I've more or less managed it, I guess. For me, the Tarot (and divination in general) has never been about predicting the future, as I do not personally believe that such a thing as the future really exists (to say nothing of a fixed, predetermined fate or destiny, which I believe in even less). It has always been about revealing a Moment In Flux and the potentialities inherent therein, whether internally or externally. Alright, let's not get into a whole thing on the nature of time and stuff here.  To sum up, I am quite proud of the resulting aesthetic, which I think invokes just the right amount of Mystical Mystery and Such.

Who The Heck Am I, Anyway

I think I might be ... some kind of ... superstar? 

Seriously, though.

Well, you already know my name. I am 36 years old (by the time this deck ships I may or may not be 37). I am an Aries on the cusp of Taurus, but astrology has never been my forte, so I don't really know anything else about all my other celestial correspondences.  I am told that I don't seem like an Aries, but I don't know what that means. I am much better at Tarot, trust me. Oh, I just found out that my Life Path Number is 11, which is apparently pretty cool. I know a bit more about gematria and numerology than I do about astrology, but again, it's not really my preferred modality when it comes to divination.

I graduated suma cum laude from the Maryland Institute College of Art in 2008, being thus officially ordained as a Bachelor of Fine Arts, with a specialization in Painting. I have somehow managed to keep my art practice alive since then, generally at great expense to my financial stability and quality of life, but you know, there is an old proverb amongst my people, "if you seek to prepare an egg-based consumable patty of matter, it is necessary to break several eggs, subsequently placing the contents onto a skillet for cooking" ... and in this case I am the egg. I am the egg ... I am the ... Coo Coo Ca Choo.

Aside from the visual arts, I have done quite a bit of work in experimental game design,  ranging from analog games, to hypertext and ergodic literature, to video games of a distressingly "artsy" nature. A lot of that stuff is on thealeks.itch.io, if you want to check out my bona fides. Let's see ... what else. 

Oh yeah, I've been reading Tarot since I was maybe around 18 or so, which I guess makes about half of my life at this point, (which is a thought that I will be abandoning here for my own safety). I've also always been a long time student of all things esoteric, occult, and metaphysical. In my spare time, I like thrifting (and sometimes flipping stuff on the internet), playing games, eating, getting in the car and rocketing into the night, Twin Peaks, smelling old books (not reading them, just smelling them ... which is frankly probably not great for one's nasal health), building retro looking computer monstrosities (not using them, just building them), derealizing, depersonalizing, dissociating ... let's see, what else, what else ... I think cats are pretty amazing. Love cats.     

Um, I contain multitudes. I am way too complicated and mysterious to summarize in just a few paragraphs. Many have tried to get to the bottom of this ... whole ... situation. Only through rigorous discipline, meditation, and financial support can such a task even be approached, let alone fulfilled. 

Risks and Challenges

The risk of this project not coming to fruition is currently quite low. Should I fall severely ill before finishing it (the initial launch of the first campaign had been delayed because I finally caught the Covid, so fingers crossed I don't catch it, or anything too wild, again any time soon), or should another massive set of world events send us all spiraling into a pit of depression and anxiety, some delays may occur. So ... considering how things have been going lately ... some delays probably will occur just so I can spend a week here and there cowering under my bedsheets in the fetal position or crying in the corner.

But I'll try to keep these interludes limited. My previous crowdfunding campaign funded almost exactly as the pandemic hit, and that caused some delays for sure - the third party service providers I needed for fulfillment purposes shut down for a few months, and then there were several months there when I just ... couldn't. I just couldn't! It was all just a bit much. But hey, I did get it done in the end.

Should I perish before completing the project, well ... I am going to try and make provisions for that contingency, but it's not like I have a backup artist in the wings just in case. More likely than not, it will be passed on to a trusted party to oversee the release of the deck more or less as it was during the moment of my death, which means some cards may not get their final pass (I think they all look pretty good already, though, so most folks won't even notice). And, like, I'd really apologize for the inconvenience, but I'd be dead, so ... What can you do, really?

Now, the good news is that I am not currently in especially poor health or particularly elderly, being 36 years of age and having no diagnosed physical maladies beyond sleep apnea (knock on wood), which is well and truly under control, despite being of portly mien overall, rotund in a manner that most will find devilishly pleasing to the eye, even if the doctors cannot, in their infinite wisdom, appreciate such girth for themselves. The threat of an untimely death hounds us all from the very moment of our birth, and should black winged Thanatos pluck me from my coil before I've played the part I sought to play, so be it. Exeunt, exeunt, pursued by death itself! But statistically speaking, while the risk is always present, the percent chance that it will become an issue is hopefully low.

If some manner of apocalypse occurs during the final stages of this project, whether or not it gets completed will very much depend on the precise nature of said apocalypse, my own status, and the state of infrastructure. But I wouldn't hold out too much hope, if it's like, a proper apocalypse, and not just the slow, ambling but seemingly inexorable decline we are currently experiencing, that is. If we survive, we'll all likely be too busy scavenging for food or fighting off eldritch monstrosities or what have you.

In short, if both I and the world are more or less intact over the course of the coming year, this deck is going to be made available as planned. That is to say, within roughly three months (give or take a few - probably more "give" than "take") of this going live, which I will spend putting the finishing touches on the artwork and doing all the boring but necessary admin stuff.

As for challenges, the biggest one is my own perfectionist tendencies. This is not meant as a a "humble brag." Heck, it's not even a joke. It's actually a problem, with genuine clinical and pathological aspects. Refinement work can sometimes drag on longer than expected as a result of my inability to become "perfectly satisfied" with a piece.  It's a neurodivergence / OCD thing. That having been said, I do have plenty of coping mechanism in place to manage this issue, and the project is already far enough along that I can afford to take extra time on some individual cards if I feel so inclined.

The fulfillment aspect is comparatively straightforward, so it's not a challenge per se, but rather something to be aware of. When it comes to indie decks, Print-On-Demand is often the most practical and accessible option - while crowdfunding may allow for an initial fixed print run, stocking inventory and such quickly becomes impractical for a solo artist like myself after all the backer copies have been shipped out (I just don't have the space or up front capital), and I would like to make the deck available to anyone who wants it indefinitely (as opposed to having it go out of print immediately, which is good neither for me nor for potential buyers) - so POD is currently the means by which the deck is to be printed and distributed, unless something truly unexpected happens.

What this means is that I have had to rein myself in when it comes to "product design" considerations. You are unlikely to see fancy gilding, holograms (not that those would have been a thing either way ... although ... maybe someday? For another deck?), fancy nonstandard cardstock, cool boxes with a matte finish and embossing, cards that glow in the dark, and so on. That said, POD technology is pretty impressive these days, and having evaluated the service these are currently set to be printed through (at the moment, I am fairly sure I am going with The Game Crafter for various reasons), I am fairly satisfied - the cardstock is nothing to write home about, but is hardly offensive, being quite standard gaming stock and thus well suited for shuffling and day to day use. The cards should have nicely rounded edges, and will have UV Coating as an additional perk. The images come through nicely, the color is well preserved, and the boxes seem pretty neat as well.

One distinct advantage of POD is that I may, in the near future, be able to offer a few different variants of the deck in different sizes (standard Tarot size versus poker size, which I personally like for my own daily use decks due to portability and shuffleability), as well as potentially provide a version without the card names, in case someone wants to mod it to maintain a more traditional naming scheme or what have you. That is all very nice to think about. That said, I'll start off with the standard size and form and gauge interest and viability for those down the line, just to keep things simple.