Update on fulfillment estimates
4 days ago
– Tue, Feb 18, 2025 at 12:41:15 PM
If you're like me when I back a Kickstarter project, you have probably forgotten what we originally listed as the estimated fulfillment date for the pattern deck. Since we said March 2025, though, and that's just around the corner, I want to update you all on where things stand.
Alas, we will not be able to ship out decks next month, as we are not yet ready to send them off for printing. We're getting very close -- part of the reason for these updates every other week is so you can rest assured that the project is moving forward at a good clip -- but we're not quite there yet. For which we apologize, and we hope you can be patient a little while longer.
So when is the deck likely to ship? I'm reluctant to give a specific estimate, because while I'm very familiar with book publishing and the like, decks are a new field for me. We definitely want to take the time to order a proof deck before we finalize the printing, to make sure everything looks its best -- especially since we also need to check the box, the included instruction booklet, and so forth. I'm not sure how long that will take. So all I'll say is that we are very determined to have this in hand no later than July, when we'll be Guests of Honor at BayCon, and I think there's a good chance we'll have it sooner than that. (I certainly hope so!)
Again, we apologize for the delay. There's no single cause for it; instead it's the pile-up of many smaller delays, some of them not even related to the project, but rather personal in nature. We'd rather give you something as good as we can make it than rush the process just to meet the deadline. And I am confident it will be worth the wait!
--Marie
Sneak peek: The Face of Stars!
18 days ago
– Tue, Feb 04, 2025 at 01:30:28 PM
Since in our last update I decided to post the finished art for Warp and Weft, on account of that being the first of A.C.'s cards I'd shared, it seems only right that I should do the same thing for the first of Avery's cards! This one hasn't yet been composited with the border, but here is the art for The Face of Stars . . .
I absolutely love the colors on this one, how it manages to be both dark and bright at the same time -- entirely fitting for the card in question!
Until next time . . .
--Marie
Sneak peek: Warp and Weft -- again!
about 1 month ago
– Tue, Jan 21, 2025 at 11:08:19 AM
So far, I've shared with you concept thumbnails, pencil sketches, and inked drawings of the cards as the art progresses through the stages of work. Now that we're in the new year and the completion of the deck is starting to come into view on the horizon, the time has come to begin sharing the full art!
This doesn't have the calligraphy yet, but it is very close to what the finished card will look like. And although I've been keeping a list of cards shared in updates to make sure I don't repeat myself -- I want you to get glimpses of many different parts of the deck -- in this case, I think it's appropriate to loop back and show you a card you've seen before, so you can compare the original thumbnail to the glorious result!
This was Warp and Weft, many moons ago:
It didn't require really any revision, as we loved the design and the graceful intertwining of the fingers. And look at it now!
I love the warmth of it, the glow, the cloud-like detailing on the cuffs, and the iridescence of the ribbon linking their hands, evoking dreamweavers and aža (which, of course, plays a role in the wedding ceremony alluded to by this card).
And as you can see, this is a huge milestone in getting the deck ready! In the next update, I'll share something from Avery's side -- just gotta decide which Face or Mask I want to pick first . . .
--Marie
Happy New Year + lettering update!
about 2 months ago
– Tue, Jan 07, 2025 at 11:32:55 AM
Happy New Year to you all! I know it's hard times for a lot of people, but I still hope that 2025 brings you many good things.
For our first update of the year, I think I should talk about the lettering! As you may recall, hand-lettering in place of a computer font was one of the stretch goals we achieved. Originally we tossed that into the list just because it's nice to have something unique; this way there's no chance that anybody will look at our cards and think "oh, I saw that font on a book cover/in an advertising sign/etc. the other day."
But I realized it offered another opportunity, too. You see, while much of the worldbuilding for the Rook and Rose books was very much a joint effort between me and Alyc, pattern has always been my baby (as numinatria is Alyc's). And while obviously I've been taking point on a lot of matters related to this Kickstarter, and I'm the one writing the guidebook . . . there was nothing in the deck itself that was my contribution. I do photography, not any kind of drawing or painting.
. . . but I used to do calligraphy. And I was more than willing to put in the hours scraping the rust off those skills to be able to point at the lettering and say, I did that!
It's not just a matter of getting my precision back, though. While I used some standard calligraphy styles as practice, the pattern deck shouldn't be lettered in gothic or uncial or italic. It needs its own style -- which means everything from choosing letterforms (should the lowercase a be a single-story closed bowl, or a two-story a with a hook on top?) to considering the angle of the calligraphy nib.
This is a new challenge for me! I've never actually developed a lettering style before, only replicated the ones I'd been taught (with variants creeping in accidentally as I forgot the orthodox specifics). But hey, never let it be said I'm afraid of research. I dove down a rabbit hole of the history of Western calligraphy, looking not only at familiar things like the ones I listed above but at secretary hand, court hand, and other such obsolete styles.
WOW was that a trip. For many of the older writing styles, you can barely even tell what letter you're looking at -- or sometimes you just have to take the word of the person who glossed them. That's an R? I would have assumed B. I don't even know what that one over there is. Needless to say, I wasn't going to use any of those for the lettering; we do want you to be able to read the names of the cards!
But I'm glad I did the research, because it gave me the epiphany that proceeded to guide my work:
Ligatures.
We almost never see these anymore in English, except for the rare æ or even rarer œ. (And the ampersand, which started life as a ligature of "et," the Latin word for "and." But that one's morphed a lot over the centuries.) Broadly speaking, a ligature is any situation where you join two letters together -- sometimes by literally smashing them into each other, as with æ, but also by linking them with an additional line.
Like . . . a thread?
Pattern is, as its core, about the connections between things. Which makes ligatures the perfect feature for the lettering on the cards. And you almost never see them in computer fonts, because they're so situational; the line springing off the top end of an s to the neighboring t only shows up when those two letters are adjacent. A very few fonts will include special options for them, but most don't bother.
And because this is hand lettering, I don't have to be consistent -- in the ligatures, or in the letters overall. Sure, it would make my life easier if I drew one perfect copy of every letter and then just copy-pasted them into place, but I like being able to customize each card. So you'll see different ligatures in different places, depending on the overall shape of the word and which letters look best joined together this time. You'll also see variation in the letters themselves; the capital S in The Face of Stars is not quite the capital S in The Face of Song, and The Mask of Worms got some extra spirals because c'mon, it's worms.
I haven't finalized anything yet. Alyc needs to composite the lettering together with a card and make sure what I'm doing will be fully legible at the appropriate size; I've been keeping that in mind as I make my choices, but I want to double-check before I commit to lettering everything. Still, it's been a deeply pleasurable process so far, and it's absolutely making me feel like I, personally, have contributed something to the cards you'll hold in your hands.
--Marie
Sneak peek: The Face of Weaving!
2 months ago
– Tue, Dec 10, 2024 at 12:56:48 PM
I'm not sure what neuron misfired to make me say the last update of 2024 would go out on the 7th, when today is the 10th. Possibly I accidentally looked at January instead?
Anyway, today's sneak peek is for a card that took a fair bit of revision. This is the set of options Avery originally sent us for The Face of Weaving:
I have to admit, I was intrigued by the top right, even though in general we've been taking the approach of making the Faces more human-looking and the Masks less so. But overall, there was a bit of a problem with this set, which is that the designs are more evocative of knotwork than of weaving. That's not inappropriate to Vraszenian culture, of course . . . but this is The Face of Weaving. We wanted the design to really reflect that.
Since we liked the two middle designs the best overall, we suggested that the facial lines be made more like the grid of a weave, as if the face itself is fabric. The result looks a little sharp in the two sketch samples Avery sent us, but it'll be subtler in the painted version:
Much closer! Now our tweak was that, for the card that is supposed to evoke community (usually in a positive sense), neither of those faces looked that friendly. So Avery did one more mockup, slightly softening the features and also adding in the sixth face from the original set:
We really liked the shifts between a closer weave and a more open one on that new addition, and the friendliness of the features. So the ultimate answer was to use the face on the lower right there -- its features and its weaving pattern -- but with different braids.
And that's the last update for 2024! I hope you all enjoy whichever holidays you're celebrating, and I'll be back in January . . . with your first look at some of the finished art!
--Marie
