Tarot Card

I had a lot of freedom in my last job at a creators’ shop. So I chose to create a tarot card deck. The first idea was to illustrate the full deck and then make the cards out of wood with a laser engraving machine. Carving each card was way too long though and the deck would have been way too expensive. So we decided to create necklaces out of the major arcana cards instead.

First image on the left is the very first prototype for the wood cards. The one on the right is the first necklace prototype. It is 7cm long, with two holes on top to attach the chain. The middle one is 5cm long, with only one hole in the corner for the chain. We decided to go with the 5cm version, as it is easier to wear. The engraving is on decorative laminate that is then stuck on a piece of colored transparent plexiglass. The front and back layers have a center cut out to let the light in, and give a spark of color and shine to the piece.
The pictures below are various color tests (and also one on wood). The darkest colors worked the best with the engraving because the decorative laminate is very light underneath the color coat. We also tried to rub some ink in the engraving to make it work with lighter colors.
Finally, you can see every design of the arcana. I sketched them in Clip Studio Paint and the final files were created in Illustrator.