Mystical Cats Tarot, Mischief Managed!

Well, it's been a long time coming, we signed the contract in fall of 2011, and now the art for Mystical Cats Tarot is done and ready to ship.

Mystical Cats Tarot art ready to ship, Willow approves.

My knuckles feel like I've been in a fight! Why? Or remember my post about peeling the backs off my thick illustration boards for the cover art so they could go around the drum scanner?
Cringe-Worthy Preparation of Mystical Cats Tarot Cover Art

 Well, I did that to all the rest of the cards yesterday.  Whew!  

If you ever have to do this, that rubber shelf lining really saved the day and allowed me to do it my myself while my dear family screamed in fear and ran out of the room!  I had Sweeney Todd playing on the TV while I worked. Muahahaha!!  

First I split the edge of the illustration board back from the art.  

Super important!  Place the art side down and peel the back from the art, not the other way around, this prevents bending the actual art.  ALSO, if you know in advance that you publisher uses a drum scanner and you will need to peel illustration boards, use Crescent brand, not this Canson that I had!  Crescent peels so much easier, this Canson was a real bear to peel, I ended up with bruised knuckles and even skinned a couple of them repeating this process for 78 cards.

I added some non-skid shelf liner to my triangle too, this helped me keep the art flat and undamaged while I wrangled the backs off.  I peeled a bit at a time and scooted the triangle along as I went.

Now the back is off and the art is flexible enough to curve around the drum scanner!

This isn't even all of the backs...this isn't even half.  Shampoo, rinse, repeat, infinity!

So now that I'm done with that, it's time to eat a bit of lunch and head off to FedEx and get these kitties in the mail!  My partner in crime for this project visionary author Lunaea Weatherstone is finishing up the book and then Llewellyn will do their magic!  Of course I still have interior illustrations to do, but that comes a bit later.

Watch for Mystical Cats Tarot in May 2014!  Be sure to pop by our Facebook page to see some sneak previews and be sure to "like" our page while you're there!  https://www.facebook.com/MysticalCatsTarot

Bright Blessings,

Mickie