macksarts:

This was an illustration assignment for my graphics class last semester. We had to do card suits on anything we wanted. So I chose to do my own characters and combine the aesthetics in the time periods of their stories. Looking up the meanings for particular cards also influenced what characters I chose for each one. The characters and cards are as follows: 

Markus Rivera – The King of Hearts: The King can sometimes represent foresight,  and hearts represents the joy of social interaction. However the King of Hearts is sometimes refered to the Suicide King and represents self destruction out of selfishness and worthless causes. This particular aspect reflects Markus’ experiences with depression and his ultimate suicide in his early life. 

Annabella Rivera – The Queen of Hearts: The Queen represents compassion and the beauty of love. Heart again, represents the joy of social interaction. This suit reflects Annabella’s compassion for her brother in bargaining her life to save Markus. 

Julio Correa – The Jack of Spades: The Jack often represents patience. The spade represents eagerness to discover. It also represents change, which is an essential force for better or for worse. This relates back to Julio’s experiences in coping with his older brother’s death and his drive to be a force of change to help people so that they don’t have to suffer alone like his late brother. 

Cecilia Starling – The Joker: The joker can represent Life or Death. In life, it represents evolution, beauty, harmony, and infinity. In Death, it represents stagnation, chaos, ugliness and nothingness. For Cecilia, I went with the life aspect because it reflects her strong values in embracing life through all its hardships. She treasures every ounce of time she has with those she cares for, because they can and have been taken from her so suddenly. 

The King, Queen, and Jack characters are all siblings- Julio being the little step-brother. The clothing of each character relates back to the clothing styles seen in America in the 1970s. The colors however are from the classic neon themed aesthetics of the 1980s and the last card, which is the back of the playing cards, is reminiscent of the kinds of geometric patterns seen from that time on clothing and on carpets.