#cb tarot

[yvessaintlowrent]

The Hermit / Bronze

The Hermit is a seeker of inner knowledge. He navigates not by the stars in the sky, but the light of his own lantern. Drawing this card is a sign to withdraw from the chaos of the world and recalibrate yourself.

[yvessaintlowrent]

Death / Still Waters

The Death card signals that one major phase in your life is ending, and a new one is going to begin. You must release what’s in the past to focus your energy on the future. When things are at their darkest, a new spark is kindled.

[yvessaintlowrent]

Would you ever consider doing a creator's interpretation kinda thing over the tarot cards? Like what the card signifies and why the particular character, scene or environment was chosen to portray it?

No pressure at all!

Just tryna say that if you ever wish to talk about it, I'm sitting in a crowd of very enthusiastic audience.

OH ANON YOU MADE MY DAY and unlocked a very long post I’ve been writing on and off for days now. I’ve been wondering if I should start posting the meanings along with the cards, and I think I will start doing that from now on.

I’m going to add a cut to be merciful, but here is everything posted so far. I’m excited and flattered that you are interested in this!!

The Star/Chase: Steady hope, faith in renewal after loss or in spite of difficulty. Purposeful action towards replenishment. The answer to the destruction of the Tower.

The Moon/Buddy: Illusions and secrets, fear and anxiety around difficult choices. Wild/primal vs tame/civilized. Intuition lighting the path out of darkness.

Chase and Buddy were always going to be the star and the moon, but I think it’s lovely how well they wound up aligning with their cards.

The Hierophant/Deacon: Strong beliefs aligned with conformity, tradition, and institutions. Spiritual wisdom, a guiding figure. The male counterpart to the High Priestess, just as Deacon and Violet act as Chase and Buddy’s respective confidants. (Deacon isn’t nearly as conforming now as he was at the time of drawing this, for the record)

Strength/Prunella: Strength and courage specifically in compassionate ways or through persuasive means. Prunella has many other aspects but I appreciate how resilient and grounded she is. Also I wanted to draw Lady Lovalorn.

Temperance/Silver: One foot on the ground, one foot in the flow (mirroring the Star card). With patience and persistence, the winding path leads to a great reward.

High Priestess/Violet: A teacher but also a bit of a gatekeeper. Sacred knowledge is revealed when the student is ready. Divine feminine. The subconscious mind. I think we all can guess who the moon at her feet represents.

Empress/Mrs G: Feminine beauty, a nurturing presence. Connection to nature, manifesting abundance.

The World/Punko: The last card of the major arcana, the World is the whole picture. The circular wreath squirmle symbolizes the cycle of successful completion and new beginnings. As Punko completes one phase, she immediately begins another, always achieving.

The minor arcana are more narrative, so they have longer explanations!

Four of Swords/Dreams By Night: This card indicates a need for rest in response to anxiety and stress. I stretched a little bit on this one, because the glass coffin is presented in canon as a prison, not a safe space. So I tried to emphasize Chase as the watchful figure who promises safety and sanctuary.

Four of Pentacles/Mister Mischief: This card represents anxiety over money or other earthly concerns. Misdirected focus, need for control. The queen grips tightly onto one “coin” while holding two more down with her feet, as the one above her head weighs on her and occupies her mind. My version of this card seems nurturing and positive unless you know the narrative.

The Tower/Little Shadows: The Tower is one of the most negative cards you can pull. It indicates disaster, heartbreak, crisis. But! ☝️ It also means a dismantling of structures that impede us, no longer serve us, or were built on unstable foundations. Even though it implies destruction, it also clears the way to rebuild or change course. The parallel to the burning of Ex Libris is pretty on the nose for this one. The worst day of Buddy’s life actually set him on the path to a better life than he could have imagined.

Page of Cups/Little Shadows: The Page of Cups symbolizes being open to new ideas, seeing things from a different perspective, trusting your intuition. It’s the “go for it!” card. This arc is a turning point for Buddy. He decides to fully commit to courting Chase, and he starts to push back against the plan he and Violet were working towards. He doesn’t know how it’s going to all work out, but he is taking a leap of faith.

Knight of Cups/Little Shadows: All knights are cards of action, and the Knight of Cups is particularly aligned with following your heart. It’s an invitation. The knight is not as settled as the queen or king, he is beginning to master his emotions but can still be swept off his feet. I think the Stardust arc could have easily worked here too, especially since there is an aspect of diplomacy to this card as well, but I wanted the water element, and an excuse to draw more mermen.

Both Buddy and Chase’s cups are modeled after the bottle of the sea witch’s magic potion. They are starting to open up to each other, but there are still things they don’t yet have the voice to say.

A lot of the small visual gags and callbacks I worked into these cards are just little love notes, they don’t alter the original meaning. There’s no real plan to the order of these - if inspiration strikes on one or the other, I just do it right then.

If you made it all the way to the end, please accept your cookie! 🍪

[yvessaintlowrent]

Knight of Cups / Little Shadows

[yvessaintlowrent]

How long do the tarot cards take you to draw?

Tl;dr answer: 20-30 hours??????

Long answer plus process under the cut

This is so hard to answer because

1. I work on them 2-4 hours most days after work

2. I usually have multiple going at a time so when I hit a wall with one I can switch to another.

3. I used them to get over a 5 year art block, so it was very slow going at first.

I usually do my ink drawing over a very light blue printout of the original Rider Waite card and any assets from the comic that are not worth the trouble of doing freehand (the keys and the buildings).

That drawing gets scanned and edited in Photoshop endlessly, and that’s where I do the halftone colors. This takes the most time, but I am getting much faster as the color combos become more intuitive.

Here are the original drawings from Four of Pentacles. I decided last minute I needed that castle in there, and you can see the ghost of the screenshot I’m drawing over for that. The felt tip pen is BAD at doing face details, so that’s usually what gets edited the heaviest once it’s scanned. She looks like a lizard person in the original. 🫠

I am a painter by trade, and I have to turn things over fast, so I really relish taking my time with these to get them exactly how I want them. I’m getting faster as I get more comfortable drawing again, which is why you’ve seen me post more often lately. I don’t intend to stop, I love this project and I love Cinderella Boy 😊

[yvessaintlowrent]

Will you be releasing the Tarot cards as a full deck or prints?

Also I wanna say I love the use of screen-tones and desaturated colors. They really add to the vintage look.

Yes! I actually printed off a few last year to give to Punko at Comic-Con. I definitely will do a printed version, but with 78 cards in a full deck, it’s going to be a while!

I didn’t think to do individual prints, but I could! Do you think people would want them at card size or page size?

[yvessaintlowrent]

Page of Cups | Little Shadows

Watch out for sharks!

[yvessaintlowrent]