I didn't expect to feel so satisfied with a composition that I had to redesign and re-think several times over since that usually leads to stagnation, but then I drew a big black blob and suddenly it worked. Please feedback to how well it works, because I want it to have an emotional impact a little bit.

( 15 - The Devil (thumbnail) )

Heh, from this point on, I've got 4 more character cards, two of which I'll probably be doing next, and then all the rest are scenes from the last book. Maybe I subconsciously didn't want to get to them because they're not quite as ingrained into my HP-mindscape. :P

Wow, the internet will tell you everything.

( 09 - The Hermit (thumbnail) )

Work has been deadly hectic lately so it might take me a few extra days to build up the reserve of thumbnails again. Nonetheless I still have this one left:

( 05 - The Hierophant (thumbnail) )

11/22 cards posted, 2/22 in progress. Halfway done!

I would have saved this for tomorrow's schedule, but it's 10:30pm and I'm STILL sitting at work so I feel like producing something. Here's a LOT of rambling about a simple(?) card.

( 11 - Justice (thumbnail) )

A lot of fanartists, at least ones whom I've followed, tend to fall out of the habit as they "grow up". Spare time becomes short as careers take over, and/or original ideas dominate as personal skills (and business sense) develop. I think I'm uniquely in the position to turn out just the opposite of that - I have more personal time now that I'm making a living and not deluged with homework; I'm not doing actual art for my job so my creative energy isn't all spent; and I... never have original ideas. ._. Working on this project kind of makes me want to make a tarot deck that's original or at least public domain-themed that I'd be able to publish (AS IF I'D EVER FINISH EVEN ONE DECK AHAHA), but nothing inspires me nearly as much as a well-crafted pre-existing work. So um... I think my only hope is that one of you will write a really great story that I'd want to illustrate for. How's about dem old-time plans, ctrl_a? :P

78 pieces of fanart. I'm never going to finish it. But what if I do?

( 17 - The Star (thumbnail) )

Long anticipated by some at least one of you!

( 19 - The Sun (thumbnail) )

WHEEL

OF

FORTUNNNNNNEEE

( 10 - Wheel of Fortune (thumbnail) )

Hey you people who care, please go back to the comments section of the High Priestess entry and put in your opinion for which layout is better (and why). :3

( 00 - The Fool (thumbnail) )

10/22 cards done, 4/22 cards in progress, 6/22 cards posted!

I was going to present the cards in the order I finished the thumbnails, but I wanted to talk about this one, so here it is today.

( 08 - Strength (thumbnail) )

The best thing about doing thumbnail sketches in Photoshop, as an artist who's not very good at layout and design, is that I can resize/rotate/shift elements around until they look right. THANK GOD FOR THE DIGITAL AGE I WOULD BE A FAILURE WITHOUT IT

( 07 - The Chariot (thumbnail) )

Yeah, that last one was huge, but relax, most tarot cards aren't QUITE as packed-to-the-gills full of symbolism as the High Priestess card. This one is, though.

( 01 - The Magician (thumbnail) )

I've been doing a lot of invisible work on the Harry Potter Tarot lately, and although I had wanted to do concept drawings for all the essential characters first (and I still will; it will take FOREVER), the layouts for a number of the cards have been banging around inside my head and I thought it was for the better to get them out. Right now I'm working on thumbnail layouts for the Major Arcana in a grid so I can see them all at once in relation to each other; it's working out pretty well with 6/22 sketches ready and 4 more in progress. I plan to do the same for the Minors but that's going to take at least twice as long.

And all that was to say that I'm going to be posting these one by one every day or two or several whenever I get around to it, because if I posted them all at once I would dry up real fast. Cards will not be in order. Thumbnails will be displayed at 2x actual size, which is about 1/4 the size of the final image. Also, these entries are going to be a LOT more words than art because I'm going to be describing here everything I plan to do and why - I welcome any Harry Potter fans or tarot scholars or even art critics to come discuss my decisions or make suggestions! But you guys probably won't

( 02 - The High Priestess (thumbnail) )

The new Harry Potter 6 soundtrack has a really pretty track - 02 In Noctem. It's almost too good for Harry Potter and I foresee it being great for getting in the mood to do some tarot-ing.

Haven't seen the movie yet and looking forward to it being great, just based on this soundtrack.

Aquarium post coming soon! Duck and cover

Work's been pretty easy-going lately, which means that I've had time to revisit my own projects (personal laptop at work = best thing evar). Namely, I finally have the time I never could spare to compile all the notes I needed for the HP tarot. This nourished some thoughts into old obsessions, ( so, useless braindump time! )

I hope to be posting some thumbnail/concept sketches before too long. Would be nice to get some discussion on those, but that might be too much to hope for. XP

The new Half-Blood Prince trailer is incredibly pretty. But even from a minute-long trailer I can tell the script is soullessly uninspired yet again. And that's not even going into how apparently butchered the story is. (Massive spoilers. However there are other reports with positive responses, so maybe it was just one of several test edits.) Will watch for pretty, not holding any hopes for story.

(Why does every bit of magic have to be so swishy? Apparation, the Death Mark, blah dee blah swish swoosh CLOUD FILTER RENDER.)

Holy crap, Half Blood Prince trailer. Li'l Tom Riddle's acting sounds lame-ass but damn if the trailer isn't impressively edited.

(Slightly higher-quality version here at MSN, but it took like 10 times longer to load for me.)

I slept dead through the earthquake. Go me.

I am SO GODDAMN CLOSE to being finished with my demo reel. Here are old fandom projects I'm nostalgic for and wish to re-indulge in immediately after I send off resumes.

* Harry Potter tarot
* Ocarina of Time fic
* Twilight Princess [unrevealed project]
* Sailor Moon anything
* Okami fanart
* Pokemon training
* Band Bros. composing
* Lord of the Rings rewatching
* Smash Bros. playing

By the way, I didn't find Half Blood Prince the most exciting of the books, but I really like the look of the movie's production design. That, at least, is getting better and better with every movie regardless of how successful (or not) the adaptation is. My dream is to work on either of the Deadly Hollow movies. Hey it could happen :3

(Still never going to buy the Harry/Ginny pairing. I don't dislike it but it's developed SO BAD.)

(Hurr, crappy old-ass fanart)

(And what do you know, Draco really has developed that "thin, pointed face". How fortuitous.)

Goblet of Fire was so damn gorgeous, I liked it even better than PoA (which I thought was leaps and bounds above the first two). Maybe the fact that I haven't re-read the book in a long time helped that I wasn't missing all the things that were cut out, but I felt it did a pretty close-to-perfect job of cramming in all the most important parts of a freaking 700 page book. ctrl_a, I think you'll even enjoy it since they trimmed off all the fat they could manage.

I was getting all emotional at the parts from the book that the movie did so perfectly, like the Quidditch World Cup stadium and the Durmstrang ship rising out of the lake and the whole graveyard scene... Ohh, I'd love to watch this again, but who knows when that'll be. Wonder if I can catch an IMAX showing at the Tech when I go home for winter break? ::drool::

And then Narnia's coming out in a couple of weeks, and then King Kong! Too many good movies to watch! ^___^

Edit: I like how they ( slight movie spoilers )

I'm too lazy to cut for spoilers, because I got out most of my comments to summercomfort already, so I will just be brief and very vague.

I still (mostly) believe in Snape.  It's not like he could've acted any differently.

Harry's shipping was decent but I'm still not happy that it came out of whoa nowhere.  Bad development, Jo!  Am content with the pairings otherwise, though.

The writing was cliched and unsubtle at parts.  (Even though I still overguessed myself.)  The emotion was very good, though.  Much better than I felt at the end of the last book.

Also, looks like I'll have new tarot assignments!  If Ravenclaw turns out to have a wand, I'll probably include the artifacts in illustration(s) of some cards like The Magician, but I'm not changing my suits, theropicus.  I mean, Gryffindor as Swords?  Please.