The Evolution of a Golem Card!

Some of you may know that I have been working on this game for some time. It started with an idea on the mechanics and has evolved into something completely different.

The cards have changed as well. Here is the Earth Golem card as an example. 

Here is the first attempt that the Earth Golem card .. it's design was as simple as possible .. the card itself was easy to put together with a basic word processing software. The photograph was creative commons photograph that I was using as a place holder .. the size of the card itself was a bit odd.. but It seemed to work for an early prototype. 

The problems with this card was that though the creative commons images were free to use .. the attribution of every single image was going to be a major pain in the tail .. (My wife is a copyright lawyer and we are all about giving credit to those who create images) I also just happen to be an artist so Its important for me to actually be part of the creative process beyond that of the designer of the game mechanics. 

The other problem with the card was that the odd size of the card made it so that mass production of the card was not going to be easy. There would be extra costs in the production. 

The image above is the scan of the canvas I used for the hand painted version of the Golem card (the colors look a lot nicer on canvas as well as the final version ).. The process starts with drawing the creature on the canvas with pencil .. from here I get a feel of the design. then by adding layers of acrylic I start to ad shape and texture to the figure. This scan does not do the original justice.  I do tend to hide secrets into my original artwork that cannot be scanned. This way the original does retain some extra value over a print other then being the "Original art". By the way the canvas Original will be part of the Kickstarter rewards as the top tier backer category. 

Here is the latest version of the card. The canvas has been scanned and all the background has been "Cut away" though useing an alpha tool. The colors have been slightly altered to match the actual canvas. The backdrop is digital in nature. I am trying to create a hand painted version of the backdrop but have has little success. 

I have added lighting effects to the backdrop to accentuate the golem. In the earlier version the golem almost blended into the background though that was a very interesting effect and would not interfear with the gameplay it almost made the card look boring.

The text areas are no longer a boring block. I have chosen to limit the amout of right angels in the design to a minimum. 

Up in the top left corner is the suit icon. This I have found removes confusion of the golem is a creature or an object for the purpose of game mechanics. I am considering adding a "Deck icon" to show what deck this card belongs to make the print and play version of the game easier to play.. I would love some feedback on that. 

For those who are sticklers at grammar may have noticed that I have a very hard time with this. The cards and instuctions are being edited for ease of gameplay and to ease the frustration of those who actually understand proper grammar. 

Being that I have to go through this process another 40 times