#this is a fat wip

[ordinaryoracle]

8 Absolutely Unique Tarot Deck designs

For when you can't decide on which to get

Ah yes, it's always exciting to buy a new deck. The Rider-Waite deck has been the classic bread and butter of beginners, a friend of mine even said you can never go wrong with buying one. However I wanted to find a specific design; It'll be my first deck so I wanted it to be special. In my quest to find the most unique ones that really resonated with me, I found eight that stood out the most that I will put in four categories: Simplistic, Stylistic, Macabre and Magical.

SIMPLISTIC

As the old adage goes: Less is More. As much as I am a sucker for all the flair and themes of other decks, these designs in particular I adore because they're able to boil down the cards to minimalistic, easily understandable symbols

Golden Thread Tarot

Designed by: Tina Gong

This one resembles the original Rider-Waite deck the most among all the entries on this list. I'm a big fan of the more cartoonish art style they adopted. Where The Golden Thread Tarot lacks in color it makes up with this elegant gold foil bordering and illustrating the cards. Moreover, it's created using recycled plastic!

2. Synesthesia Tarot

Designed by: Jana Walker

This deck design takes things even further and sticks to an even simpler iconography. I love how the design is stripped down to the absolute basic symbols of the cards but with a splash of color to make it even more unique!  With silver foil accents and a matte black finish, what's not to love about the Synesthesia deck?

STYLISTIC

Departing from the minimalist designs, we arrive at the more unique and elaborate interpretations of the Rider-Waite tarot deck. These two designs in particular still resemble the original design quite a bit, but their designs usage of color and lines are what really make them stand out for me.

Sambucus Tarot

Designed by: WohStudio

The designers drew inspiration from the Sambucus plant, which they believed to have magical properties being considered to be one of the oldest magical plants. What drew me to the Sambucus deck in particular are its unique usage of curved lines and the plantlike motif that is prevalent all across the whole deck design. Each individual card deck is covered in a holographic foil which makes the whole deck look really nice when all the cards are stacked together!

2. Mystic Monday Tarot

Designed by: Grace Duong

In contrast to the previous deck, this design leans more on the flat art style. While I usually don't like similar art styles, the colors on this deck are what really stood out to me. Each illustration in the Mystic Monday deck feels like a punch packed with vibrant color! The gradient coloring style looks so clean and I just love how clear and angular the illustrations are!

MACABRE

Skulls! Eyes! Flowers! Knives! The designs of this category really lean into the spooky themes of tarot and are sure to draw the attention of curious onlookers. Aside from being impeccably designed, they're certainly going to be one hell of a conversation starter!

Antique Anatomy Tarot

Designed by: Claire Goodchild

This is the very first deck I bought. Each card design in the Antique Anatomy draws inspiration from anatomical and botanical illustrations during the Victorian Era. I personally love antique illustrations especially from that historical era so I was naturally a big fan of this design. Another neat detail I like about this design are the flowers. In The Sun card there are Marigolds, a flower associated with positive emotions and well, the sun itself. I think that matching the flower language with the cards' meaning adds another layer to the Victorian apothecary vibe of this whole deck!

2. Prisma Visions Tarot

Designed by: James R. Eads

This specific design stands out for me in a number of ways. First off, the Impressionist art style of this design is just beautiful. The way each illustration is drawn gives it an almost antique storybook feel. Prisma visions giving the Major Arcana an ornate border to make them distinct from the Minor arcana is a nice touch. However I most especially love how each Minor Arcana card can be put side by side and each card's illustrations form a single panoramic illustration, mirroring how the meaning of each Minor Arcana suit also tells a broader story!

MYSTICAL

If the previous two were all about the spooky, these last two are all about the spiritual! Tarot is naturally very mystical in nature and there are plenty of designs that are sure to fall under this category. Despite that, the themes of these specific decks are just so much more magical that they never fail to stand out for me!

Tarot of the Divine

Designed by: Yoshi Yoshitani

When I found out there was a deck that combines folklore and mythology with tarot, I had to learn more about it! The Tarot of the Divine features various folklore illustrations that match up with tarot imagery. The folkloric origins are so wonderfully diverse! Not only does it have well-known ones like the Chinese and Japanese tales of East Asia to the Greek and English stories of Europe, there are also the more obscure ones, like the ones from the Maori Tribe of New Zealand! The colorful art style is another cherry on top and combined with the stories, this deck almost feels like a children's storybook!

2. Oriens Animal Tarot

Designed by: Ambi Sun

For the animal lovers! I like how the tarot symbolism is still very prevalent throughout the whole design, only with animals as the main subjects rather than people. From fluffy red pandas to feathery cockatiels there are certainly a large variety of critters! Though Oriens may be mostly animal-themed, its design is so much more than just that. The starry motif and the usage of color in this deck gives off an ethereal vibe. Combined with the nature motif, these cards' illustrations make it feel more like representations of spiritual beings than animals!

Overview

With so many designs, it can be really hard to pick a favorite one to get. Personally, I wish I had enough money to buy all of these! Hopefully this carefully curated list of diverse deck designs can help you pick! If none of these still manage to catch your interest, make sure to keep visiting our website as we'll be making more of these concise lists to help even the most indecisive people find their very own tarot deck!

[syntaxaero]

oh yeah baby you know what time it is!!!!!!

[swordsandholly]

A little sneak speak into a poly 141 x reader pro wrestling AU I’m working on for WIP Wednesday.

“Hello.” You blink up at the imposing figure above you.

Dark eyes stare down at you from behind his signature mask. A black balaclava with a sewn in skull covering his eyes. An iconic image in modern day wrestling.

The Ghost. Simon Riley. Current Heavyweight Champion. Thirty-one. Six-four and two hundred and fifty-five pounds. Lean.

You try very, very hard to ignore the fact that this massive man standing in front of you is wearing nothing but his wrestling trunks and knee-high boots. It feels so much skimpier in person.

“Och, yer the new announcer, aye?” Another man appears beside him. John MacTavish aka Soap. Another member of the 141 faction.

He’s pretty. The kind of pretty you’d recognize from a mile away. He was always one of your favorites to watch in the indies, when you could, and he continued to be a favorite all the way into the pros. He’s fast, high energy but a heavy hitter at the same time.

Current tag team champions with Gaz. Twenty-seven. Five foot ten, two hundred and twenty pounds and one of the prettiest men on the planet, as per the numerous fan pages dedicated to him and his kilt.

You nod, trying to calm down the rushing in your ears by giving your name and holding out your hand. Hopefully he doesn’t notice the shaking.

“Lovely tae meet ye.” He shakes your hand excitedly, a genuine grin splitting his face. “Donnae mind the big guy - he’s as quiet out of ring as in.”

You snort. So it’s not just the persona.

[vodid]

oops! earthspark bunny

[softcitrus2345]

And over a month later, here's prompt #17 XD 17. Curse - Hugo receives a curious gift from an unknown source

Seems like he doesn't mind the results of his curiosity, though he's definitely gonna have to cancel classes for the day until he figures out how to get back to normal-

I actually did some research on runes for this prompt, I thought it would be interesting if the "curse" was intended to be a gift for the person receiving it- >;3c

Here are the runes I used for reference ;p (and here's the source I used too)

Now that I finished this huge prompt, hopefully I can get more of them out a bit sooner TTwTT

[fattlestacks]

CYOA May 2024 WIP! Fat skunk in the works...

Patreon.com/Jaymz

[vylirium]

[peptoabsymal]

Behold a babe :0

[luclipse85art]

Comic WIP, Taking WAY longer than it should but I want it to look good

[wastelandhell]

wip. still dont know how to draw this goofy outfit.

[kaleidoru]

Learning how to use aseprite made me realise why I hate pixelart kherbkgs,re

EDIT: in case you guys didn't know, I already finished this! Here is the final product

[wizardsorbet]

I'm cookin btw, if you even care <3 (censored for the censure site, but you can find the uncensored version here) (Sorbet uses he/him only)

[smugpugchimera]

forgive me for I have sinned (started another wip)

[delta-hexagon]

this perfectly encapsulates me as a person. trying to design my new phyrexian OC Telbas and i was GRIPPED by the urge to design a cute little lobster in the same document

i can be your angle... or yuor devil

[vylirium]

[snepfeathers]

a little wip! it's about time I introduced an oc here other than Aleyxi, so meet Callisto! (and Europa and Ganymede, by extension)

Callisto is what you get when you try to make a werewolf out of someone who is already decidedly canine and anthropomorphic - a wereberus! were-cerebus. Three times as much wolf in your wolf, right there.

...Maybe a bit more than three times as much on occasion. Three heads does mean three times the appetite, after all. Gotta store extra energy for your next transformation, y'know! Go ahead and eat up, you ever know just how much you'll need.

I'm still working out her actual markings/palette, but this gets the main idea across. Europa is the extra head looking at the pie, and Ganymede is the head with both ears folded. Callisto's overall design is going to draw on Jupiter's moons, they're so pretty... and she's good at living up to her namesake.

If anyone's noticed the name pattern and is wondering where Io is, I'll throw some stuff under the cut for you.

I'm still trying to decide exactly how I want to include Io. Io stands out from the other Galilean moons anyway, it's super volcanically active instead of being icy like Ganymede, Callisto, and Europa. It's a monster world.

My current thought is either bellymaw or tailmaw - either way, they wouldn't make appearances all too often. Probably only during transformations when there's an absurd amount of magic around, like lunar eclipses or close to special days like Halloween.

I think I'm really leaning more towards tailmaw at this point. It would even play into some of the myths that describe Cerberus as having snake heads instead of just dog heads, hah. Still just brainstorming it at this point, though. Thoughts and suggestions are welcome!