UnitedCardists.com - The forum for Cardistry, Magic, Custom Decks and All Things Playing Cards.

The artwork is great, very good job.
But I would love to see some color on that!

Loving it also. + 1 for a bit of color.

dougfrye - 2nd look. You could put the indices and a text of what we are looking at on it's side here. Left handed ppl play cards too you know. Look at those big fat court boards! I like ppl who break the rules.

Hi Everybody!
Could my Chinese-speaking colleagues please help me out?
We’re getting close to launching the Chinese line art project! The most likely time is next Tuesday at 9:00 am Eastern time in the U.S. We have changed the name from Mah Jongg to Middle Kingdom, as the art’s connection to the game wasn’t clear. We have received USPC’s approval to use the Bicycle brand.
For the campaign site I would like to fix the consistency issue I’ve had with the names. I would like to use the same version of Chinese for all of the names. I realize there are several but I’ve settled on Mandarin. I would like to list the names using western letters but would gladly post the ideograms if I had them.
We’ll be posting promo art and a video soon; I’ll let you know 

Thanks!
Doug

Hearts
Kh- Pangu
Qh- Ho Hsien Ku
Jh- Fu Xi
Diamonds
Kd- Cai Shen
Qd- Lan Ts’ai-ho
Jd- Lu-Hsing (one of Fu Lu Shou, the three gods of prosperity)
Clubs
Kc- Tai Di/Shang Di
Qc- Xi Wangmu
Jc- Yu Shi
Spades
Ks- The Yellow Emperor
Qs- Nuwa
Js- Qianlong guard

If you want to use Western letters (Romanization) of Mandarin, I suggest you use the Pinyin system developed in China. It is quite consistent and is being used more than the old Wade-Giles system. Most of the above names are in Pinyin except:

Ho Hsien Ku = He Xiangu
Lan Ts'ai-ho = Lan Caihe
Lu-Hsing = Lu Xing

I don't see a reason that you can't use both Chinese characters and Pinyin. I am not a native speaker so I can't help you with the written characters. However, Wikipedia is a good resource and you can copy and paste characters from that. I'm sure most native speakers would prefer the use of the traditional (or non-simplified) characters over the more modern, simplified ones.

I'm very excited about the project and urge you to post more design photos here. Many projects have been significantly improved by getting feedback here before they launched. Also, posting the KS pre-launch page helps some of the heavy hitters here plan out their strategy and gets the buzz going before things go live. Best of luck.

Thank you very much! We're planning to have a standard deck with black line art on a white background; a second deck with white on black, and stretch goals for limited edition (1500) vellum tucks for the white and black decks. Here is the link to the art as it stands; more to come soon.
https://www.facebook.com/creativevienna" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
Best,
Doug

I'm loving it. Thank you for working the yin/yang symbol into the back of the card. I was just thinking today about how I wished someone would do a yin/yang or eight trigrams deck.

Thanks for the positive vibe! We plan to launch soon I'll start a new topic and will distribute the link to the Kickstarter site here and on the new topic.

Hi Flashcards- Here's the preview link. You and the others on this string are the first after my brother to get it All comments welcome
Doug

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/17 ... n=efd57e59" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

I had a problem with this page. I clicked the Pledge for mixy Brick tier and it said, you can't yet.

Launch so I can!

Looking really nice! I really like the black deck and hope that the stretch goal is reached! Look forward to the launch...hope we can get a heads up on the date and time of the launch

As I said before the artwork is amazing and well put together, the only thing really missing in this one is COLOR, would look fantastic with the shiny purples/yellows/blues/greens that were normal colors for that time... This may throw me away from pledging, will see.

Sorry for the problem with the page. As of now the plan is to launch Monday the 26th at 9:00 am Eastern Time in the US.

shermjack- The current plan is to launch at 9:00 am Eastern Time in the U.S. next Monday, the 26th.
sms69x- I appreciate the comment! We decided to stay with line art (and thus no color) for this project but we have a gold add-on if we're lucky enough to get that well funded.

Doug, thanks for the link. The project looks fantastic. I wouldn't mind seeing a little color in the card back, though. Maybe some green highlights in the dragon? The black deck looks awesome so I really hope that funds quickly. I'm really excited about this project. Be sure to give us plenty of advanced notice of the planned launch time. I want to set my alarm so I can get in on one of those sweet early bird deals. The screen saver sounds intriguing. Is it possible to add that to some of the EB tiers? Also, it would be great if you could make available some lo-rez "Middle Kingdom Supporter" buttons so folks can change their KS avatars and show their support for the project.

Also, if you haven't finished your jokers yet, I would love it if you would consider making one of them Zhong Kui, the demon slayer ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zhong_Kui" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false; ). He is one of my favorite historical Chinese figures and a good guy to have on your side

Best of luck with the project. I'm sure it's going to be a success.

Thanks flashcards The planned launch time is 9:00 am Eastern Time in the U.S. this Monday, the 26th. All of your suggestions are good; I'll collect the community's feedback and we'll see what we can do!
Best,
Doug

I'm going to post a new topic announcing the launch now. Thanks for the input everyone!

The Middle Kingdom Black Deck is now live on Kickstarter. The black deck is featured with plenty of early birds. Add-ons include a gilded black deck, a gold and a black coins, 3D figurines, an adult coloring book, and the white deck that recently funded on KS. For once I got in early (top ten) and got an EB for two decks. I'm also pledging for the gold and black coins which look awesome. I which I could afford some of the figurines but they are a bit pricey for me. I've been excited about this project from the beginning and was pleased that the creator came to UC for input. Best of luck to Doug and crew for a successful campaign.