#4 - Drawings, and Other Challenges

Well, it's happened. The aspect of this project that I mentioned, that it was a 'walk of gratitude' has started to set in. The last few nights, I've been looking at images of gravestones. It was both glum and thought-provoking. Something that, if done distastefully, should not be game-ified. 

I think it was when I took a couple of sample images and was re-sizing them to fit on a 2.5''x 3.5'' card that I started to feel off about it.  But on the other hand, my mind was telling me that hard subjects can be turned in to meaningful experiences. They can be respected and celebrated.

The first step to overcome this, to me, was to not use direct images, even for temporary art. Even with names and face engravings blurred. Even turned to black and white and made grainy. 

I'm not much of an artist, but I sat down last few nights to draw a couple of samples. I traced the outline of a Magic Card, drew a line in the center to separate text from the image, and made some sketches:

I am glad to be working with some of these muscles. I never was able to take any sort of art/drawing classes, so what I am doing is very...without training or finesse.  Sketching things with dimension, perspective, and geometry is probably the hardest thing I've done recently!

A few design options that this exercise caused me to consider:

Should the image/text split be 50/50? Should it change from card to card? I can't think of a reason as to why the images can't fit in the standard amount of space. I don't know what the longest amount of text on a card would be, quite yet. This hinges on whether or not I use the reverses of cards for puzzles, flavor text, etc.

I must also decide if I want most or all of the fonts and placards to be standardized (they definitely will for prototyping), or if I want it to be more realistic (likely one of the last steps, if at all). Graves have a variety of font styles, sizes, accompanying designs, and engraved portraits, set on different materials and colors, either directly on stone, or on placards with different borders/styles/colors of their own.