So here's what I have so far, and I'm not completely satisfied as yet. Please do provide critique and suggestions. I tried to emulate some of the style of the original two cards for Evil and Good. Jon New was particularly helpful in providing me quality graphics of those to study. The background is different as well, as I was not able to extract enough of it cleanly from those other cards. Have at it, and let me know your thoughts.

NOTE: the graphic is actually at full printable resolution (meaning 300dpi). So if you wish to see it larger, simply right click and save or select "View Image" if your browser offers that option.

Fantastic JC. I know where to come if I want some custom cardbacks now!

I really like what you have done with it. Perhaps the sunrise needs to be a bit clearer as it appears to be smudged a little. I did wonder about the texture on the leaves, but realised that when printed you probably wouldn't be able to make out so much detail in them.

I wonder if you have tried it with a brown wash in the background instead of the blueish one? It might make it that little bit more "earthy".

When it's done it might be nice to add it along with the others, to the card creation plugin of SE, so that people can print off their own "true" double-sided Alignment cards, instead of the "one on each side" that having three types of card makes a problem.

talismanisland said:

So... perhaps some sharper contrast between light and shadow there?

talismanisland said:

Haven't tried printing yet, but maybe I should to check that.

talismanisland said:

Got it. I actually did try that but wasn't so sure about it. I'll get another version in here in the next day or so.

talismanisland said:

Sounds fine. For myself, our group sometimes plays a "secret alignment" variation (we figured out which characters could be two or all three different alignments, then choose one for our current character). Down the line, I'll have to come up with a "back" for all of our aligment cards, as we've been hiding them under our character cards for the time being... and the poor neutrals haven't had a card... yet.

More later, and hopefully others chime in. As much as this card will be included with In the Balance, it would be even better if it were something people found valuable all on its own.

I like. Well done. Artist as well as writer.... Funny, I never realised that the alignment cards were landscape...

It looks like there are a few jaggies on the edges. I tried adding a minimal 1px blur over the inner area and that softened it up nicely.

You could be more precise and use a more specific select or just the blur tool but there are a lot of edges in there..

I can see where Jon is coming from with a brown wash being more earthy, rock is also pretty natural though and I think the grey wash will

probably go better with the green than a brown but would be interested to see.

Hey JC

I like it a lot! Very well done!

@JC

Yes, a new generic "Alignment" back would truly be a boon for the game. Any ideas for it?

As for the smudge, I meant the sun's rays aren't as well defined at the top, and the sun itself. The whiter areas might benefit from a little inner shading too to define them.

Great work though!

Okay, I follow you better now, Jon. One problem I faced when I did contrast maniplution and study of Good and Evil cards is that the designer used an almost top 0 degree angle for shadowing and beveling. With my lighter color scheme (and not being a REAL graphics artist), it made it hard to get those shadow crisp when an bevel is perpendicular to the angle of the virtual light source. I'll see what I can do later today.

Honestly, I'm not sure what the heck I would do for an Alignment card back. Certainly I'm not up to emulating too much of the exact style of commercial backs. (And I still think some of the iconography is too obtuse.)

Maybe begin with the icon layout on the "Harmonious" spell, as a central starting point? Then enlarge a little, and take it a bit more (half way) towards the icon style on the alignment cards themselves? Backgrounding and fill in would be up in the air. I've already constructed a layer system of corners and borders for custom card backs that is solid and clean (with parts lifted from card backs you supplied), so at least that part is done.

Okay, here we go again. All cards are at 300dpi - right-click and select "View Image" to see full resolution. Top card is the previous version. Middle card is a tweaked version with suggestions from Jon and a few minor changes of my own. And last but not least... a preliminary "sketch" towards building a new alignment card "back." ALL COMMENTS AND SUGGESTIONS WELCOME!

That's awesome work again JC.

I really like the start on the Alignment back, but I wonder if it would be better if the logo was landscape as the cards currently are? Neutral would be the one to be towards the top I guess.

As for the colouring of the other cards, I can't stop thinking that the Good "icon" should have been blue in line with the card border, rather than yellow. This makes it that there is no "rule" of Alignment cards as you can see below (old Neutral image of course!) as not all borders are the same colour as the main icon.

I think it would have been better for the Good icon to be blue with its surround being yellow. Therefore the cardback could have been RGB which make more sense to me. Hey ho, I guess we have to go with what we have been left to work with!

I am not so sure of the brown background for Neutral, now, but I wonder what it would look like with a green background and a brown border instead? The shading is much better though. In fact, I seem to be liking the original colours more and more! They match the centre background more and if you just add the new green that you have added to the "tendrils" and the shading I think it will be a winner!

talismanisland said:

Like minds! But I wrestled with that a bit for two considerations:

1. all other card backs Portrait layout, so it seemed best for when cards are stack at the table to do the same
2. doing landscape would force a reduction in the art design to about 60% of its size; a significant battle with detail clarity

talismanisland said:

Yeah, I noted that too; Good is definitely looks like the breach in design now that there are two alignment cards with icons that match the border background in color. I'll try a Good icon done in blue next time. Also keep in mind that colors I put into the "sketch" are just high contrast for the sake of visibility and not necessarily the way a final rendering will look.

talismanisland said:

Umm... so should I try to do the Good icon on the card back in blue or yellow/gold?

talismanisland said:

I think too much green in the background would make the leaves and jewels less distinct (I don't like what was done with Evil as a color scheme... other than cliche, it has this problem even worse). But I'll try a couple more color and tint shifts as suggested, then put them up for comparison so we can see what looks best side by side.

talismanisland said:

Awk! You kill me, guy. But I'll do one of those as well and we'll have look.

Okay, had a little time before doing the yard work. Here are some notions for the Neutral card based on previous suggestions. I am moving the alignment card "back" to a new topic, so when people view this topic there won't be quite so many graphics loading... well, sort of.

Hey JC

Sorry to cloud the issue with my rambings! When I mentioned that the Good icon would be better as blue, I meant that it should have been in the first place really. Your cardback icons are great and in line with the Alignment cards as they are. What might be nice in future (though it would only be a nerdy addition) would be if the Good card was remade so there might be some continuity.

As for the cardback issue, I will add something to the new thread.

Anyway... back on track! Comparing the 5 cards shown by flicking through them as layers and choosing favourites I think I prefer "Alignment Neutral 5". I know it is not as colourful compared to the brown and blue variants, but the grey used is in between the greys used on the Good and Evil cards, so it looks rather nice against them. It also allows the green and gold to stand out.

Not to worry, I was just teasing anyway. And I agree now that there's another alignment card in the mix, Good does look little odd.

I was waffling between 4 and 5 myself... but that settles it. Neutral_5 it is!

You can consider that one official unless you can think of anymore tweaking needed. Otherwise, if you're going to add Alignment cards to the SE Talisman plugin, feel free to do so with my blessing. If there's someway to credit me, please do so; if not, don't sweat it.

I can't see all the 5 cards but i really like the number 2 neutral card !!

Those colors are very good !!

Good Job JC !

Hi V,

The pick of a version for Neutral was made a short while back, so I removed the other versions from by web directory.

Do these exist anywhere? I'd love to see them

They were all variations on the one currently in use by JC and in the Strange Eons extension, with different colour themes like grey and brown.

Is that available on your ( ~ awesome ~~ ) site? I've gone through several expansions, but definitly not even half of them. That's a card that I would definitly print out a few of, Neutral cards, it's always coming up. Right now we use a card holder and so it's standing on it's side, silly but effective.

the Neutral card is in one of the IN THE BALANCE downloads. I believe it is #3, but you can check the expansion previews, and I believe you'll see it in one of them.

Excellent, found it! You have a real sense for design and it integrates beautifully with the overall aesthetic of the game. I havn't taken a close look at your Balance expansions yet, they look great and very thorough. Just by your armour stacking post I can tell you would know how to put something this big together o_O

Well, sort of... that expansion is now in revision and headed toward a 2.0 version. Not only for corrections but reductions. Some new things in there just didn't work well in the long run. But overall, its main focus was to make Neutral something a little more than the alignment of no alignment. That part worked out adequately if not superbly.

Below is the Neutral alignment card for the next edition. I think most people wouldn't notice the changes in tones and filters. It is full resolution and reduced in size only in presentation. You can right click and save it.

I think that I like this new one more, I have them open side by side. Definitly the new one the gold detailing really pops, the older one has the fun green outline, but it might get lost when it's printed out. I zoomed out to see how they would look and the new one looks a lot clearer that way. I'm going to print some out tonight and get them laminated tomorrow =D

Hmmm... it has been a while since I looked at them together... but you're right on the detail. What process do you use for printing and "laminating"?

Since this topic is out in the open again I might as well give you my thoughts JC.

I think the neutral alignment card is an awesome addition to talisman and we have used it ever since I found it in strange eons (and the card back is even more awesome).

One thing though... several players have mistaken the neutral card for being good alignment and vice verse. I must say that it looks rather cheerful (more light of spirit than the good alignment card). The neutral card should land more in between the two others in terms of mood and atmosphere in my opinion. Perhaps make the green much darker and change the brass to bronze (or light brown to dark brown).

Hinnyboy said:

I certainly see your point. There were earlier versions that leaned that way. I started with making its style a midway point between good and evil. I quickly realized that led astray from the overall purpose and meaning it really came from. It was designed for use with the In the Balance expansion and only later put out for general use (outside that context).

Alignment may be simplified in Talisman, and honestly meaningless, but in putting in Neutral and allowing places where even it can pray, it had the potential to mean something more than.... the alignment of no alignment (which is how it's treated in Talisman). But again, there was that issue of praying. Either that was a big irreconcilable loophole, or it could mean something. It was never addressed in any Talisman edition, and alignment always stuck to its simple white hats versus black hats... like some old spaghetti western.And any cards that addressed Neutrals directly, merely tried to push them left or right. Talisman suffers from a severe case of bipolarism.

I had to decide what Neutral might actually... really be if it was to be something. I'll give you another perspective to start with that leads into the rest of this post.

There is no such thing as "neutral" where ideology is concerned. If you can pray, or wish, or invoke... or whatever, then you must believe in something. Moreso if Neutral is to have something to which to pray at the Temple. Of course this is all far too deep for a whimsical game like Talisman. But what the hell, that's never stopped me...

In the Balance was a meager attempt to address that there were things in the game that hinted at Neutral being more. It wasn't just some hinterland between Good and Evil, and like many other things in Talisman, simply saying so didn't work. (We can leave that crap to politicians and pudits.) Thereby, in order to introduce small elements in that expansion that might add up to something for Neutral equal to what was available for Good or Evil, I had to redefine Neutral.

Introducing an entirely new alignment would have been rejected by even the severe minority who use fan expansions. I had to stay in the middle ground of Neutral and try to imply that it was something else. If I were to introduce all this as a new alignment, and then rule that true Neutrals couldn't pray because they don't believe in anything, the new alignment might be called "Balance." If you look at In the Balance, and glance at all the Neutral based cards and characters, you'll get a feel for what that really means.

And that's where the Neutral card's final form came from, along with input from a dozen or so people here on the forum and elsewhere. It's a lot more than than just coloring on a range between black and white, blue and red, etc. That's the best (if once again too long) explanation I can give you.

If I were to do a card for true Neutral... it would have nothing on it, not color as all, and likely be a uniformed gray. Not much point in that, is there?