LuDiva's First Steps

I was a beginner tarot card reader looking at the Rider Waite Smith deck. I was excited and really looking forward to stepping back in. I hadn't touched tarot cards since highschool... you know back in the late 1900's. So when I started my magical journey, I definitely wanted to start learning how to read tarot cards again!

Cue the frustration...

I would pick a card, look in the book and then look at a website, and then read a blog and they all had slightly different interpretations and meanings. For a beginner, it was a bit frustrating. I didn't relate to many of the symbols and meanings in the images as well. Out of this frustration came LuDiva.

I'm all about the soft illumination of the moon and how it subtlety reveals the night around you so I wanted to create cards that spoke to that energy...Lunar Divination cards!

LuDiva (Lunar Divination) would follow the same premise as the Rider Waite Smith deck, but in a way that would be easy for me to read and interpret quickly. Some decks have words and information printed on them, but it looks crowded. Tarot cards are also pretty big. You can't just toss them in a small bag or carry them in your pocket either.

I needed small, easy to understand and beautiful!

First I plotted all of information I needed:

Areas

Names

Meanings

Then I worked on the imagery! I'm was able to come up with concept images for all of the cards...26 in all. 13 positive and 13 negative, with 2 of the cards being yes and no cards. LuDiva was originally meant to be used with dice... Yeah, dice lol! There is more information on that in the booklet I would like to make for the deck!

After creating prototypes and using them, I decided she was ready to be brought to life in a more official way. I searched high and low for an artist who could capture the vision I had for LuDiva. It took a lot of vetting, but I found Kelsey Lindsay (insta: @lunarloontattoo_n_) using the Upworthy app!

The process from start to finish with her was smooth like butter! She kept me in the loop with updates and if I hadn't heard from her, all I had to do was send her a message and she would get back to me right away! She even worked through an injury...I would have been fine waiting, but she wanted to make sure I received my illustrations as soon as possible. Her attention to the details I needed made it so that only a couple of cards needed SLIGHT revisions.

The most important part was complete and I am eternally grateful...

I'll post the next steps soon!