Believe playing cards by System6Magic are inspired by the Wayang Shadow Puppets of the Island of Java (Indonesia). The deck is planned to be printed by the USPCC.
The Wayang Shadow Puppets are puppets for wayang shadow theatre which is traditional theatre in Indonesia. The word wayang translates from Javanese as shadows. These days wayang is most often associated with the puppet itself or the whole puppet theatre performance.
Founded in 1992, family owned Heritage Playing Card Company (UK) has created a beautiful range of illustrated playing cards to entertain and educate. Each their deck has its own thought-out theme. They found a nice compromise between visual and textual information on playing cards to make them suitable for games, educational purposes and playing card collecting. Their playing cards are sold in more than 20 countries around the world. Many of the decks were printed in three languages (English, French and German).
The Famous Wild Cats Playing Cards [Chats Sauvages (French), Großkatzen (German)] is the deck of playing cards dedicated to different wild cat species living in our world. Heritage Playing Card Company produced these playing cards under licence from Trioview Ltd.
The deck: 52 different playing cards with images of wild cats + 2 different Jokers + 1 information card. Indices and pips are in all four corners. Bridge size. Playing cards were printed in Belgium, supposedly by Cartamundi. They use casino cardboard and have a smooth finish.
Vampire Knight playing cards designed by the South Korean artist DarkAngeL383 (nickname) are dedicated to Vampire Knight anime. Vampire Knight is a manga series written by Matsuri Hino. There were made a twenty-six episode anime adaptation produced by Studio Deen.
© DarkAngeL383
[DarkAngeL383’s gallery on DeviantART]
The King of Spades – Kaname Kuran
Medley’s playing cards designed by the Indian artist Deeksha Kumar. She created them for the company to be given away with bottles of Medley’s bourbon on the occasion of Diwali. It was a limited release.
Diwali or Deepavali (popularly known as the “festival of lights”) is a five-day Hindu festival and an official holiday in India, Nepal, Sri Lanka, Myanmar, Mauritius, Guyana, Trinidad & Tobago, Suriname, Malaysia, Singapore and Fiji. It falls between mid-October and mid-November.
Diwali involves the lighting of small clay lamps filled with oil to signify the triumph of good over evil. People keep on these lamps during the night and clean their houses in order to make the goddess Lakshmi feel welcome. Also they blast firecrackers as they believe that it drives away evil spirits. All the celebrants wear new clothes and share sweets and snacks with family members or friends during this holiday.
© 2013 Deeksha Kumar
Wooden Tuck Case
Tim Luecke was inspired by Martin Scorsese’s 4-hour Personal Journey through American Movies and decided to design a deck of playing cards featuring influential film directors from the past century, along with stylized versions of some of their most famous shots. So it was natural that the first person in Film Directors Playing Card Deck was Martin Scorsese – the Ace of Spades and the King of Spades.
Tim Luecke is an Intern at Marvel Entertainment, Student at Fordham University and, as he says, “art person at heart“. His project is active. You can see below several finished playing cards (two editions of them).
© Tim Luecke
The King of Spades – Martin Scorsese
Martin Charles Scorsese is an American film director, screenwriter, producer, actor and film historian. He is widely regarded as one of the greatest directors of all time. He founded a non-profit organization dedicated to film preservation in 1990 – the Film Foundation. Then Martin founded the World Cinema Foundation in 2007. He is a recipient of the AFI Life Achievement Award for his contributions to the cinema, and has won an Academy Award, a Palme d’Or, Cannes Film Festival Best Director Award, Silver Lion, Grammy Award, Emmys, Golden Globes, BAFTAs and DGA Awards.
The Ace of Spades – a stylized version of Martin’s Raging Bull (1980) with Robert De Niro.
PLAYING CARDS + ART = COLLECTING 