Kickstarter: 5 Things You Should Know About Sisterhood of Blood Vol. 2 Playing Cards by 52Ravens

Currently seeking funds on Kickstarter, the Sisterhood of Blood Vol. 2 by Kirk Slater of 52Ravens is a follow-up to the deck's successful 2016 debut. Vol. 2 continues the theme of London vampires from the Victorian era with an all-new design featuring a striking card back, larger Aces, tweaked pips, new courts and updated jokers. Here are 5 things you should know about Sisterhood of Blood Vol. 2 Playing Cards:


1. Vol. 2 is an all-female cast of court cards.
This is similar to Kirk's previous 2 releases, the Coven and Vol.1 of the Sisterhood of Blood decks. According to Kirk, "Each of the vampires is named, thanks to friends, the online card community that help with the design process and Kickstater backers. The patterns used within the designs of each card relate to their standard deck of cards counterpart, along with the items they hold. They also each have hidden court tattoos to show their allegiance to their fellow court sisters."

2. Hidden movie quotes
"Being a lover of vampire films I've hidden on the back design in runes 3 movie quote from my 3 favorite vampire movies, Dracula, Interview with the vampire and Byzantium."

3. Vol.2 isn't just a recolor of Vol.1.
This deck contains 12 new court designs, new back design, updated Jokers and a new tuck case. But all of this has been done with Vol.1 in mind so that it feels familiar and a continuation of the Sisterhood of Blood without it simply being a recolored back design.

4. Like all 52Raven decks, Vol. 2 feature Diptych Jokers
"The Jokers are facing cards that when placed together create the complete Raven. Vol.2 is the reverse of Vol.1 which means you will be able to place one from each deck side by side to create a mixed pair."

5. Expanded stories on all vampire of the court cards.
Following the release of Vol.1, Kirk wrote a book that expanded on all the vampire of the court cards and the hidden world of the Sisterhood of Blood, adding some great depth to the deck. "The designs of Vol.2 hold secrets to the stories behind the vampires and will be available to read in the Vol.2 book next year." Vol.1 of the book and 1.5-inch coin are available as add-ons for the Vol.2 Kickstarter page.

If you like what you've read and want to support Sisterhood of Blood Vol. 2 Playing Cards, you can find it on Kickstarter Here! The deck will be printed by the Expert Playing Card Co and pledge starts from £10 (USD$13).

Deck View: Wonder Playing Cards

Eye. Dynamic. Swirl.

Designed by magician David Koehler and produced by Murphy's Magic, Wonder Playing Cards is an eye-catching deck with bright primary colours that commands attention! The prominent feature of the deck is the card backs featuring an entrancing swirling pattern of intricate lines and colors. When spun or moved rapidly during cardistry moves, the intricate yellow, red and blue spiral lines begin to blur and focus will shift to a simple eye design in the center.

With the exception of the custom Ace of Spades, the deck features standard face cards to maintain familiarity with the audience for performances. The tuck front artistically plays on the Wonder name by placing the eye on the lower right-hand corner of the box, surrounded by the colorful maze of red, blue, and yellow. The tuck back authentically represents the playing card backs. Also, included are 2 specially printed face cards with a four-sided Chevron design, creating a giant X with the eye symbol in the middle.

The Wonder Playing Cards are printed by USPCC and available right now from your favorite Murphy’s Magic retailer!

Cardistry: Art of Cardistry Playing Cards Funded In 24 Hours!

Art of Cardistry, a contemporary design deck of playing cards inspired by the polygon theme has been funded in less than a day, having debuted on Kickstarter earlier this week and surpassed its HKD$60,000 (USD$7,700) goal in only 24 hours. Hong Kong-based Bocopo Playing Cards Co. managed to raise over HKD$106,764 (USD$13,700) with over 290 backers and set to run for 28 more days.

The Early Bird reward is still available for an affordable $4 per deck for the Blue Edition.

The Art of Cardistry deck is a collaboration between Bocopo Playing Cards Co and Kevin Yu crafted specifically for the mesmerizing art of card flourishing. The contemporary design is a tribute to the mesmerizing art, the skill and to everyone that is interested in cardistry.

Every card is completely customized and redesigned to find the combination that is most suitable for cardistry with the perfect balance between flair and attention. Two editions are available, the Blue edition deck and the limited Red edition. Check it out now on Kickstarter!

Designers: Designing the 52 Plus Joker 2017 Club Deck with Alex Chin Part I

It's been awhile since we had a designers series article. This month, we are honoured to have a guest post by Alex Chin, creators behind the stunning 52 Plus Joker Club deck for 2017. In part one of this two-part series, Alex shares with us the inspiration and the design process behind creating the club deck. 

I designed this year's 52 Plus Joker Club deck with the concept of pulpwood in mind. The idea of paper creation as a starting point to create playing cards always intrigued me and this deck tells the story about it.

Inspiration
The running theme throughout the deck really emphasized texture so this entire deck goes above and beyond to highlight those aspects on the deck. The box design features a Mulberry bark tree covering through 3 of the four sides so that it looks unassuming. The fourth side that faces out reveals beautiful gold foiled lattice work and a representation of the designs inside.

I liked this because it helped tell the story of how people harvested the paper from Mulberry trees back then. The box design is the first of its kind to utilize a dual layer tuck box. There have been sleeves before but this was an actual two-layer tuck box.

This was important because we were able to create two different textures without using any embossing plates. The top layer texture features a bark/wood feel that is highlighted on the face with the gold foiling. The bottom layer features the offset detail.

The back design features Expert's Perfecta Foil which allowed me to do a two color foil on the back which turned out spectacular. The gold lattice work with the green shimmering leaves really helped highlight the hierarchy of the back design.

Design
Composition Study: I typically start with the back design and start out with sketching.  This is the composition item that I ended up using.

Depth Testing/ Contrast Models: The important part to note here is that this was based on landscape architecture- a bird's eye view. The idea is that you're looking down at a garden that supports the Mulberry Tree that is going to provide us with this paper. I'm playing for balance here because typically I'll do contrast models of what looks correct.  What is going to be light, what is going to be dark. Because we have plants, growth is a thing so depth became a big focus.

Join us next week for the second part of the designer series with Alex where we look at textures, vectorizing, face cards design and the tuck box of the 52 Plus Joker Club deck.


This exclusive guest post is written by Alex Chin for Kardify. No part of this article can be reproduced without written permission from the author. You can check out Alex's work at Seasons Playing Cards.