My work is very playful and colorful. I try to base any character on basic shapes like circles or squares and work my way up. My main focus in character design, creatures that even though they look a bit scary at times, they are still approachable and fun. For this project I wanted to focus in my 2 of diamond concept but also include my style and some character design. I wanted a “solid dominant” shape and lots of little things to come out of him.

I like to explore the natural world, which also means discovering the more basic make-up of humans, wether in the throws of love or hate, possessed by loss and suffering or awake in a moment of peace. The girl in ‘Four of Hearts’ hunts for lovers like prey. It won’t be until her fourth victim perishes from the wound of her loving arrow, that she’ll realise that she can’t hunt for love, but embody it with peace and kindness and allow it to find her instead.

I picked the Clubs card because it’s a symbol that’s close to nature. In some texts, they mention that Clubs can also mean flowers, clovers or crosses, and in the Tarot-universe, the symbol is associated to air. I like nature and birds a lot and I felt that it’s a little apt for the card.

I got inspired by the meaning behind the 6 of Club “Messenger’s Card” – Let me quote: “All Six of Club feel an obligation toward duty and they take their responsibilities seriously. Trouble is, the 6 of Club also symbolize inertia.” Essentially Inertia is the resistance of any physical object to any change in its motion (including a change in direction) from a physics perspective. In other words, it is the tendency of objects to keep moving in a straight line at constant linear velocity, or to keep still. The principle of inertia is one of the fundamental principles of classical physics that are used to describe the motion of objects and how they are affected by externally applied forces. In my example I wanted to combine my love to space/universe with one of the moments of inertia, in this case showing a sphere(shell).

When doing my research I found that the 9 of Hearts card is related to wish fulfillment, specifically those wishes of an emotional nature and involving interpersonal relationships. I wanted to convey that longing for a wish to be granted, like a prayer, and I also included 9 different hearts in the character in different parts.

We see Captain Gumball Coner here from the land of Candy. All the 10 hearts we see in his head so indicates that he’s filled with love and lots to give. Every time he dispenses a one of his ‘loves’, another heart will generate within so rest assured, its always 10 of hearts within his shiny glass head. He’s well respected and all the candy critters love him.

I chose the Queen of hearts card because I thought that its the one that fits bettter with my style. Its very feminine, and I always like to draw female body and my muses.

Being a kid of the 80s, I’m always fired up to do something with that rockin’ retro vibe. My King of Clubs is no different. I originally set out to do something character-based, but I quickly reverted to illustrating a more straight-forward approach… with the club symbol sporting a crown. I dove into some research material from the 80s era to properly capture the colour and aesthetic.