Description
– Launched Jun 2022 on Kickstarter, 385 backers contributed €19,251 out of €9,500 goal, to help bring this project to life.
– Check out the official video by Celsius Pictor
– and the official Kickstarter page in the designer’s own words:
– Available editions:
1. Mechanimals Limited, Non Gilded, Limited Edition of 1100, unnumbered
2. Mechanimals Deluxe Edition (Blue Gilded), Limited Edition of 600, numbered seal.
“The great artist Celsius Pictor joins Max Playing Cards to present to the Kickstarter community a true work of art turned into a deck, deeply rooted in the culture and history of playing cards and in its own language and masterfully printed by Legends Playing Cards Co.
“July 25, 1880. In a small inn on Spain-France border along the Way of Saint James, an exhausted pilgrim recovers his strength with a jug of wine after his journey. He takes a deck of well-worn playing cards out from his bag and invite his table companions to play a game. The deck was printed in England, with the tax mark on the Ace of Spades. Each card, from numbered to court, reproduce the already centuries old printing traditions. The pilgrim deals the cards, and the game begins.”
Hi, my name is Celsius Pictor and I am an illustrator and Art Director. I have been working as a professional illustrator for the last 12 years and have collaborated with brands, publishers and agencies all over the world. The best memories I have of my childhood are reading storybooks, legends or wonderful stories like Jules Verne’s in an old abandoned 18th-century mansion near my house, where I secretly entered to read during the summer.
Over the years, all of this has developed into my own artistic style, a very thorough mixed technique that combines collage from old 19th-century engravings recovered from flea markets, with ink and digital color in a meticulous work and detailed process like a goldsmith’s. I select, cut and compose small pieces to give life to a new universe in a recycling and reuse process that respects traditional textures and media.
I’m passionate about details, elegance and storytelling. Random winks, humor and, in general, a delicate love and patience to recreate the pieces. With this premise, Mechanimals was born. It´s a personal project that brings together all my passions, developed over the last years of my career and which I am honored to share with the cards lovers community. With your help, this wonderful project will be real. And it will only be the first of many others.
Furthermore, to make this project a beautiful reality, I have been lucky to team up with a good friend, Max (Max Playing Cards), one of the greatest experts in playing card production. Max always shows incredible dedication and hard work and it’s like he has 10 eyes and 20 arms (he would be a perfect model for one of my collages). With wide international experience in production and consulting, he has been working to ensure not only a high-quality product, but also a high-level personalized service.
Playing cards are a marvel of design and history. They have evolved over many hundreds of years amid endless mystery, symbolism and hundreds of theories. At first each country used its own suits and symbols (pips) but around the 15th century England copied and adapted the designs created in France to later spread throughout the world. Like the suits, the French characters also prevailed in the court cards. Thus, for centuries, Julius Caesar, Alexander the Great or Judith have presided over the most elaborate cards in the decks.
Every aspect of this deck is thought out and illustrated in great detail to create an atmosphere that carries you to a unique historical universe, blending the Renaissance and the Industrial Revolution in a bunch of imaginative and surprising characters. Each card features beautifully illustrated characters that honor the heritage and history of European playing cards in a unique and fantastical way.
We could create a story between them, imagining how King David, the lion of the Judah tribe interacts with the knight Lahire or the beautiful lady of clubs in that medieval city in which they all live, but I would love that you could create yourself a new story each time you spread out all the cards.
Although art is priceless, in this campaign we wanted to unite the refined art of card making with the work of an international artist and make it available to everyone. That’s why Mechanimals will have two editions carefully designed to please the most demanding.
Mechanimals limited edition will be printed only once with the highest quality specifications:
Fully custom and original artwork made using a unique collage technique
Embossed tuck box
Inner printing on tuck
52 poker cards and two jokers
Masterfully Printed by Legends Playing Card Co.
Linen stock, Classic finish
The cards are housed in an embossed tuck case with a design reminiscent of a luxurious skyline from the European Middle Ages. The tuck back is an elaborate coat of arms that combines the mechanics and heraldry typical of tradition. And as a surprise in this collectible deck, the inside of the tuck case hides a surprise: an image of the moment in which the first cards were possibly designed, and that can only be seen in its entirety if the case is disassembled. An inaccessible design just as the artisans of the Gothic cathedrals carved figures on the inaccessible roofs to delight only the sight of God.
For those more demanding, who want to have a unique piece, Mechanimals DeLuxe GILDED edition incorporates fabulous extras.
Fully custom and original artwork made using a unique collage technique
Embossed tuck box
Inner printing on tuck
Embossed and foiled die cut sleeve
Blue gilded edges
52 poker cards and two jokers
Masterfully Printed by Legends Playing Card Co.
Linen stock, Classic finish
The DeLuxe Gilded edition tuck case will be housed in a stunning die cut sleeve. It enhances the elegance and beauty of this deck and shows Domenico Gonzaga, one of the first condottieri who fought in Italy during the Renaissance. Born in central Europe, he abandoned arms at the end of the 15th century to become a patron of art, goldsmithing and literature. From this luxurious sleeve, this Renaissance great man sponsors and protects the Mechanimals deck, with a metallic blue reminiscent of ultramarine blue, the finest and most expensive pigment used by artists from the Renaissance to today.
On the back, four warriors distributed around a pond guard the card. Arriving in Europe from Jerusalem under the command of the great Sultan Saladin, these four warriors stand guard in an environment inspired by the medieval Arab art and atmosphere of the ancient kingdom of Al-Andalus.
I have tried to capture the essence of the history of playing cards in a small stamp, showing in this composition objects that represent the symbology in playing cards: music, pictorial art, the art of war, royal power and military power.
Celsius is an illustrator and art director. After working as an advertising art director for 6 years, he establishes himself as a freelance artist in 2011 and begins collaborating with studios and advertising agencies around the world. His work has been commissioned from Syria, London, Paris, Toronto, Santiago de Chile, New York or Madrid.
He has participated in several collective and individual exhibitions and was the organizer and curator in 2016 of the exhibition ‘The Polyptych of the Enlightened’ in homage to Hyeronimus Bosch, on the fifth centenary of his death. He has illustrated covers and newspaper articles for magazines such as Forbes or Jotdown and his work has been reviewed in Illustration Age or Creative Review.
He has also illustrated and created the covers of more than 20 books and has received several awards such as APIM Best Advertising illustration Campaign 2020, the Bronze Laus in Packaging in 2018 or the Gold Vertex Award in 2015.
For years, Max has been writing about upcoming and new deck releases, and his popular blog, Max Playing Cards, now has more than one thousand articles covering a large range of modern decks. But Max isn’t just a writer and collector, he’s also a creator, having produced several decks including his excellent Bicycle Texture series of playing cards.
Along last years, Max has invested all his know-how about playing cards to help others to make their projects real. As a consultant, he has endless resources to find the right way to design, print, produce, ship, fulfill and sell playing cards. When he is involved in a crowdfunding campaign as a producer, he also helps in every single task, from graphic assistance to customer service. Max is, therefore, one of the best partner to ensure a good quality product and service.
Legends’ card stock was born out of a frustration with the subpar quality of ‘premium’ playing card brands, which are often flimsy and poorly cut. Lawrence Sullivan, an American with a lifetime of experience handling playing cards, took it upon himself to raise the bar on playing card standards. Lawrence’s extensive travel and language skills, coupled with a firm grasp of product sourcing, coalesced into a defining moment in playing card history: the creation of Legends #852.
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