major arcana #15: The Devil

[egypturnash]

Been working on her for a few days. She probably needs something More.

We vanish to New York for a wedding this weekend.

Comments

[ff00ff.livejournal.com]

Best Baphomet cleavage ever.

[ria777.livejournal.com]

we have met. I happen to know Alicia and you might even recognize me. but anyway, I just posted to say how much I appreciated both your setting out to make a transhumanist tarot deck and how well you have managed to do it.

also, to comment on this particular card...

the floating in mid-air in lotus position image appears so often in sf and fantasy art and in comics. I noticed it turning up a few years ago. it fascinates me.

in case you did not know if it, giving you a link to the most comprehensive English tarot deck on the 'net...

http://www.aeclectic.net

I think you would really like this deck:

http://www.aeclectic.net/tarot/cards/moonprincess-himiko/details.shtml

I happen to have an art book with all the card images printed large size.

[shatterstripes.livejournal.com]

My initial intent was for it to be a much more jokey xenofetish affair, but somewhere in the middle of the first drawing it turned into a fairly serious transhumanist deck. And all the idle research I'd done in the past came bubbling back up...

I think the floating lotus probably started appearing in Western fantasy imagery soon after Indian religions began to suffuse into our culture in the sixties; I bet you could find it if you started looking through psychedelic posters. In this particular image I sort of have this intent of her being possibly supported by her tail; I need to tweak it a little to make it look like it's bearing weight instead of just dropping straight down.

I'm aware of Aeclectic - if you go look in the forum, you'll find a thread in the 'deck creation' area where I've been posting these images as they come to see what the reactions are. But thanks! I hadn't seen that particular deck in my browsing; it's pretty nice-looking.

[ria777.livejournal.com]

I figured you would have heard of Aeclectic, but you can never assume.

also, I hadn't thought of the Devil as female, more androgynous.

[shatterstripes.livejournal.com]

I've missed more prominent sites in my research before!

The Devil's ending up female in this mostly because the default gender in this deck is female. I like drawing girls; there isn't really a deeper reason than that. I could dig into myth and metaphor and find justification (temptation of eve/lilith/deliberate inversions/cross-reference to completely non-christian myth/etc) which I've done a little bit now and then - but mostly I just thought it would be fun to draw a serene, pretty figure who really has no interest in human-scale things!