Sailor Moon Tarot Cards—The Lovers (Final version)
Originally when I drew this card's sketch I thought about flowers, but having all of the magpies and the feathers, I thought adding flowers would be too busy. Anyway... I'm going to show the previous versions.
Final version:
The Lovers major arcana tarot card meaning & reversed card meaning in the context of love, relationships, money, career, health & spirituali
Detail Work on Final card
It's harder to see the detail I put in Because tumblr won't let me upload the largest version. So here are some details you can't see.
The hardest part of the card was the rendering with such a odd source of light. BTW, if you right click (hold your finger on the image if on a phone) you can open the image in a new window and zoom in.
References:
I used a fair amount of reference images, and I would post them all, but I believe it's over the 30 images limit.
I took some artistic liberties as well. The shoulder protector's etched pattern I took from reference from Italian armor. I looked up Victorian armor too, since Tuxedo Mask is loosely based on Prince Albert. Takeuchi-sensei was noncommittal on the design of the etching, so I made it roses and leaves shaped like moons.
Pose reference:
I also used some ballroom dancers/wedding photo for the legs and hand detail. The hand reference turned out to not have the hand position I needed, but it had enough that I could turn it in my head.
Detail reference:
Lighting reference:
Gen AI can't do that... take a lighting reference and transfer it by judgement to another picture. It can't do lighting well.
The recycled images from the other cards reference:
All of these were created in 2013 or earlier in Adobe Photoshop. (i.e. No AI)
The Earth is from Blender+ NASA. Nasa has free images of the earth that are royalty Free, so I used that and took pictures. I've used this image a variety of times in the previous cards and I will again, because it helps to unite the graphics of the cards. (The Fool, The World, The Falling Tower, etc) I enhanced it a little with Photoshop. (With a lot of crashing)
I stole from myself the border, which came from the Materials Illustration book. I used Illustrator (at the time which was in 2013?-ish) to trace the outline.
The star background, I made in Adobe Photoshop in 2013. (It's on my Empress Card)
The sign, I took from typing with the font, Matisse, and manipulated with Adobe Photoshop to make a clean sign from scratch. (That's not a scan. That's hand remade sign)
The pearl feathers and moon are also Adobe Photoshop.
And finally the font, is Harrington, because I spent a day and a half searching for what it could be before Da Font had a reverse find function. I listed all of the Sailor Moon fonts, so I have them on file.
The Principle image: The birds, the feathers, the figures, the clouds were 100% done in Clip Studio Paint. I made the magpies (3 of them) and feather brush myself. (2)
Takeuchi-sensei's references for Endymion/Mask
In case you think I'm full of it... and don't think she referenced Prince Albert (and Edward VII)
The hip plate is a fairly close design of the one on Prince Endymion.
Also, there are a sequence of badges that matches the ones on King Endymion almost exactly.
Again, some of the reference seems similar.
Seeeee.... Totally based on Prince Albert in clothing.
Takeuchi-sensei did this on purpose since she was using the Sailor Suit. And thinking about imperialism in the second arc, the natural fit would be Prince Albert. Much of the furniture is Late Victorian or Art Nouveau.
Prince Edward VII
Anyway... I tried to pull a bit from Victorian designs for the etching on the shoulder protectors.
But I hope you see the references I do to these two historical figures. You should understand why it was critical to reference this for the second arc, which was about imperialism and the cost of it.
