What's with the sudden tarot obsession?

Probably because the Alice in Wonderland hype became boring?

(More serious, I guess one company started, it went well, others followed suite like it always is - srsly atm I think every company had their Alice in Wonderland phase)

 

Ha, funny, I *just* saw another company doing the tarot theme and had this exact thought, then I saw this post!

 

The first company I saw with that theme was Souldoll, that was quite some years ago (2010) and they still release dolls under that theme: *Special ball jointed doll for you, SOULDOLL* (last time 2016). I think they were the first.

 

Yeah, I feel the same way. Tarot could be a really amazing, creative theme for a company to go with, and while I love the DZ Tarot dolls (I have The Moon), you're right, they don't exactly go with the theme of the cards.

 

I just saw that Crobi doll will be releasing some new tarot card dolls. They look so cute.

 

I'm pretty sure Souldoll had the first Tarot-themed dolls - at least before DZ.

And Tarot are popular and universal. I'm not surprised to see more and more pick it up and make their own versions of the large arcana.

 

I wonder if something like this would work? That's a printable meant for stickers, but printing sheets of card stock with a reasonable pattern, then printing the reverse side with the card images and cutting them out, could make a cool doll-scale deck.

It's not as elaborate as some, but it was the first one I found that's delivered as a digital file, making it easy to resize as desired.

Edit: Here's a Rider-Waite version, too.

 

Now if only if they would make tarot themed slim MSD clothing for sale seperately from those tarot dolls... i really like the whole tarot theme going on but i'm more interested in picking up more clothing rather than the full sets they selll ;A;

 

Haha, dang those are expensive. I should just release my fortune-telling cards and tarot decks as digital downloads. XD

Have you checked out DollHeart? They were doing tarot themed dress sets, too.

 

I just wish they would stick more to the theme AND actually do all pieces!
It always seems like they start and then realize it's too much. I mean, Souldoll has been going at it for years now and is still not done

 

Someone sent me quite a small deck of tarot cards with a doll I purchased secondhand; think it was these. The art is from this well-known deck. Each card is about 3.5cm long and they look realistic (to me, at least) with both 1/3 and 1/4 dolls.

 

To be honest seeing all the Tarot-inspired dolls leaves my soul so happy. The creepier, the better. Dollzone's take on the subject is especially bewitching to me. Seeing as the trends come and go - as someone above mentioned the boredom of Alice in Wonderland theme - I wonder what will come next as a grand hype.

 

My kids are all named after the archetypes in Tarot. I didn't know it was thing!

 

ahhh i definitely need to check that out then, thanks!

 

I have a doll-sized Tarot deck that I found at Barnes & Noble, attached to one of their miniature books. The cards are about 3cm long. I haven't seen it at B&N lately though.

 

I own the tiny Waite deck that evilhamster13 mentioned, and it's lovely. Incredibly detailed. One of my favorite doll props that I own. You can get it on amazon for about 7-8 bucks.

That said, a tarot theme is pretty common among artists, so it doesn't come as a surprise to me that doll companies would latch onto it. They've done Alice, fairy tales, and the Wizard of Oz, at least one company has done the four directional guardians (Loongsoul), and Luts has done the "Journey to the West" cast, so I guess it was just next in the queue of "things artists commonly make in sets".

What I'd really like to see are either dolls that accurately match the themes, or dolls based on the minor arcana instead of the major. Let's get abstract, here, people.

 

Or at least the court cards.

 

Love the idea of doll-based Tarot cards - I'd definitely be in the market for something like that!

In general I think it's one of those cyclical popularity cycles (not necessarily doll related, but I remember a general mainstream tarot trend around 2000), so maybe it's just time for tarot cards to crest that wave again.

Although when it comes to dolls, Souldoll has been doing a tarot series for at least 7 years (I have their "Strength" tarot doll from 2010), so I don't think it's something that just appeared out of nowhere even when it comes to dolls.

 

For DIY tarot cards there's a company called PlainCards.com that sells blank cards and has software if you want to print them from a computer.

The first rule with a deck, like dolls, is buy one you like. You're going to know the right one when you see it.

I think they still make the tiny deck with a book, it generally works for most dolls.

 

The main problem I've found with tiny decks is the thickness of the card stock. The ones I have would make a stack 6 inches tall, in human terms. Hard to shuffle!

 

I made a doll-sized deck of tarot cards printed on a slightly heavier weight parchment paper. I wanted them to look old, and I wasn't particularly worried about them being shuffle-able, since they'd not be used for actual readings but as a prop. The deck is still thick, but not absurdly so for my SDs. ^^; Squished, it comes in at a thickness of right around 0.5 in, or 1.1 cm for my Metric friends. They look rather better in-scale than the wee tiny Tarot Nova deck that I picked up some years back. ^^; The fiddliest part was making sure the backs lined up correctly with the fronts.

(For paper nerds, I used 24 lb/90 gm/m2 parchment paper that I picked up at an office supply store. It's standard letter size, so it goes through copiers and printers nicely. It was a bit spendy for 100 sheets, but I get a lot of mileage per page and test prints are my friend...)

 

@KiyoshiSenshi Plain Cards does full size tarot but they come perforated on card stock sheets that fit in printers. There'd be enough in the frames to make doll sized cards too. They have a free software that you can use your own pictures with.

For larger dolls printable business might be an easy solution, you can buy those at office supply and box stores.

Something Awful's Photoshop Phriday did tarot cards a few years back, the Modrian, Mothra Airstrike, Stupid Tent, Butterface and so on. If I remember correctly someone on Worth 1000 made an entire suite of spatulas.

 

Tarot cards have been popping up in various manga/anime series, especially by CLAMP for years and years; the most well-known, Card Captor Sakura, was a take-off on tarot-type or meditation-type cards. So it's no mystery that Souldoll started their run of Tarot-based characters years ago (I own the Magician myself).

What's a mystery (IMO) is the longevity of the BJD companies' fascination with Alice in Wonderland!

There is a miniature set of Tarot cards good for SD size that's found in B&N (it's usually found in those mini-items/books sections). There was also a super-mini Rider-Waite set that would turn up in various dollar-bin-chatchkie sections a couple of years ago, like the super-mini regular deck of cards.

 

Yeah, at such a tiny size trying to accommodate the printer offset can be frustrating. Even 1mm tends to be noticeable.

Instead of using an individual card back design, you could also use a teeny tiny repeating pattern all over the back of the paper or an irregular pattern like marbling.

 

I considered that, and I decided that wasn't quite what I wanted looks-wise for this deck, and I'm a crafts masochist. XDD For other decks I'll do the repeating pattern though.

(In my defense, I had found this antique card back that just happened to be the same proportions as the card faces I was using...it would have been criminal *not* to put them together!)

 

Perhaps tarot cards, like Alice in Wonderland, are easily recognized as "mysterious" and "unusual" Western things without having more than the basic knowledge of what they are like Americans seeing what they take as a ninja, Samurai, Sumo, or Geisha.

 

@Osaka parchment is a great idea. Thin but stiff, with a nice antique look. @Doll-Mage I like your suggestion of an overall back pattern. Sounds much easier!

I've always been puzzled by the Alice in Wonderland thing too. And the fascination with princes, and butlers.

 

"The Wizard of Oz" and various fairy tales have been pretty consistent inspiration points for a lot of doll companies as well, something magical and recognizable, but also open to each company's unique spin.

(My very favorite "inspired by" were Dollmore's Orlando Ray and Orlando Joey, which were inspired by Virginia Woolf's 1928 novel Orlando , to judge from their little story.)

 

Of all the books in the world it's a coincidence Orlando would pop up as it has connections to several threads of what's going on in my life right now, wanting to read it being one of them.

Now if you keep pulling the same card out of a well shuffled deck the universe might be trying to tell you something. What does the concept of a Fool mean to you and your personal culture? If I ever get around to making my deck I'd have certain personal symbols for cards, it's not the Hermit without the Zoso symbols.

 

I have the skull head that SD offered as a gift with their version of the Heirophant. I have NO idea why they chose that sculpt to go with that card as it would've been far more appropriate to go with Death. But whatever. It's a gorgeous sculpt and I'm thrilled to pieces to have him. I do love their take on the Hanged Man and am sad that I wasn't able to get him.

Like others have said, I do wish that the dolls offered under a Tarot theme actually had something to do with the card instead of what seems to be a random decision to have the doll look a certain way and slap a Tarot designation on it for the coolness factor.

 

I love Tarot, and I am planning making or buying a pagan outfit for Lumina! I've been collecting tarot for about 15 years now, and I also have my own interpretation of 'The Fool' on my forearm

In a way the attention the occult is getting is really good as its becoming more accepted, I'm reserved in regards to whether ultimately it will be good or not but who knows?

Blessed be