Yeah, that's one of them. Even the magician isn't that nicely visible. The hanged man and the tower are also fuzzy.
The other issue is that many of them don't represent what they're supposed to in tarot. For instance the fool doesn't look like jester or buffoon. Yeah, well, you'd say if you know Arthas' tale that he becomes a Death Knight tricked by the Lich King but it's debatable and too context dependent. Same with the elves, they're 100% Warcraft lore based. Not to mention the wheel of fortune. Frostmourne should resemble a star xD?
Judgement while having the wings, doesn't have a trumpet or at least the other parts are barely readable.
There's also discrepancy between the cards, some showing whole body or torso included, while others mugshots.
They're fine as stand alone icons I guess.
While I took the names and broad strokes from real Tarot cards, I did the rest as if these were made in the Warcraft universe. So you're right that they don't 100% fit the real world Tarot, but that was intentional. Plus, you noted the small size, communicating something like a jester and a trumpet wouldn't really work. There might not be a jester, but you can see that the Lich King's helmet has lines coming down to the sillhouette of Arthas like puppet strings.
Warcraft 3 models have really simple and recognizable silhouettes, and the symbols on real tarot cards are extremely complex, especially to put on a 64x64 canvas. Maiev isn't Judgement because of the wings, but because of her severity and carceral role. The wings are a recognisable aesthetic element. Frostmourne is The Star not because it looks like a star (though because it's a sword, it does have 'rays' going out in the 4 directions) but because it's an object of both triumph and loss, power and damnation. According to
this Tarot website The Star represents 'Hope, faith, purpose, renewal, spirituality' when upright and 'lack of faith, despair, self-trust, disconnection' and I think that describes Frostmourne pretty well. Frostmourne was Arthas' salvation against Mal'Ganis, it renewed him, gave him hope, and also his lowest point, because he was so disconnected from anyone else, so deep in despair, only trusted himself, and put faith only in raw power, that he picked up Frostmourne, 'gladly' bearing any curse.
There's discrepancy because they're different cards that had to communicate different things. I didn't want them all to be the same composition. That would've been far too restrictive to effectivly communicate, and also boring to look at.
The Tower wouldn't be hard to make less 'fuzzy'. The Magician I made Jaina look kind of like a spirit cos I couldn't get her in full colour in a way that looked good. I definitely want to find another way to do The Lovers. The Hanged Man looks fine to me.
I just tried out some redos that are a bit clearer but they lose something. I might be onto something with The Lovers though. I'll sleep on it but for now I'm keeping them as they are.
Approved
