All sales of “The American Game” cards are on hold until the new redesign is finished and the new designs have arrived from the printers. We apologies for any inconvenience.
I have changed the cards several times, and I am on 5 different redesigns for the entire deck. The deck was officially released on Thanksgiving, which is when all pre-sale orders shipped. Thank you so much to everyone for supporting my artwork and designs; if you have any thoughts or comments on the designs, please email me at mattszal@gmail.com.
In light of Judge William P. “Bill” Brandt’s military service, I have removed the last press release about him in honor of Armistice Day. One of the officers I was close with and who I designed things for in the Department of the Army (with U. of S. Carolina back in 2017-18) emailed me that Judge Brandt served in the United States Air Force for several decades.
During his distinguished military career, including active and reserve service, he has served in numerous flying, staff and command positions all over the globe–including Operation Enduring Freedom and Operation Iraqi Freedom.
https://www.judgebillbrandt.com/about
World War One is my favorite conflict to study in history, along with the Napoleonic Wars, the English Civil Wars, plus the civil war between Sulla and Marius in ancient Rome. We get Veterans Day from the original Armistice Day, which is the anniversary of the eleventh month and the eleventh day that the armistice was signed to end the First World War. I would also like to thank my uncle John Szal (Captain in the Marines) and my old roommate Wes Ellett, who went to TCU on the G.I. Bill after serving in Iraq, for their service today.
This is a Flying Dutchess character concept I made based on an English Admiral that uses the Tarrant County District Attorney as a reference – Phil Sorrells.
In other news, I am working on the 4th different version of my “American Game Deck” of cards, which will be available for sale on my website starting Thanksgiving. Each card has a different NFL team, a different zodiac sign, element sign or special major card, which all equal 52 playing cards like a traditional deck for playing poker or spades. The NFL teams only have the city name and team colors since their logos are copyrighted. I have selected +500-year-old emblems mostly from Claude Paradin’s Devises heroïques, first published in 1551. I have redesigned the emblems to coordinate a theme idea and color palette to represent each of the 32 teams. So you could shuffle the deck in strange ways to help you pick your predictions for some sports gambling at West Gate in Las Vegas, then play go-fish with your friends while you watch the games.
I want to elevate American culture to an almost metaphysical place and have this deck hold a space similar to the traditional Rider Waite Tarot Deck. These timeless emblems from centuries ago still have a familiarity yet an elusive quality that makes each one feel eternal. See the “Atlanta Card” for an example. It has the official CMYK red of the team with an emblem featuring a falcon-like bird (Atlanta Falcons). Some teams are doubles, such as New York and Los Angeles. Yet, with color and imagery, I attempted to make each design fairly easy to distinguish. The teams are the number cards and the four elements (32 teams + 4 elements = 36) – Earth, Wind, Fire & Water.
The royal cards are the 12 zodiac signs and four unique cards from special emblems, which I thought would increase the mystique of the deck as a whole composition. Some cards have emblems with related imagery, like Capricorn, which has an actual sea goat on which the sign is based. Other cards are more subtle references, such as Taurus, which features an emblem with a “Dexter Dei” (hand of God) with a sword and a trowel, which makes a shape similar to the horns of a bull.
My business, Magick Mechanic, has finally been created as an actual LLC although we have been DBA since December 2022. My business partner Will and I have big plans to expand in the DFW area along with Los Angeles and New York. The basic idea is to provide people with an affordable option that is more convenient since the mechanic travels to where ever the car is located. We also purchase cars that no longer run and tune them up for resale. Our first two project cars were a Monte Carlo 2002 and a 1998 Grand Marquis. We have since sold both cars after buying them in a condition where they will not start or run.
I learned a lot while working at Warren Tire and National Tire & Battery for the last few years. I don’t blog much about my mechanic work since I mainly use my website for my creative projects. Yet, I hope to have a broad skill set like a “Renaissance Man.” If they were alive today, Leonardo or Giotto would have been animating things on the computer, working on cars, and painting or drawing in traditional media.
After moving from South Carolina to New Orleans in 2018, back to DFW in 2020, to California in 2022, and briefly back to DFW last year – I have decided to move to Upstate New York for a while to be closer to my mother here and her family.
It is nice to be back in the Empire State. I lived in Brooklyn in 2010-2011 while attending Pratt, the Art and Design school. Although, Upstate is quite different than The City (quite a bit colder).
The move will afford the opportunity to continue my work on The Flying Dutchess and focus on my animation career. I started a part-time job in retail and have met several new friends.
New familiar for the Japanese character, Hoshy! This cute little guy is a white coated snow otter that is super curious and loves getting into things he shouldn’t. I made this rough walking sequence for him and he is named after one of my oldest friends, Alex Dutton – who’s social media name is “Addix”.
I had the pleasure of interviewing famous installation & fiber artist, Susan Lenz, almost a decade ago. This is a YouTube video of the interview which was for her show in 2014 at the Tapp’s Art Center, with its incredible director Caitlin Bright.
Howdy everyone, I thought I would give all my blog readers a sneak peak at some of the new The Flying Dutchess (TFD) content in the works.
The idea of having a “broom-craft carrier” is influenced by WW2 style aircraft carrier’s with planes that take-off and land. Instead of having the flying units (mid-ship mages) run off the deck, an opening door in the rear allows magick users to fly in and out as well as hippocampus (Greek: water horse) drawn boats/individual riders.
I have also been working on several aquatic scenes with ocean animals such as this seal, dolphins and turtles to name a few. Every magick user in the series has a naval dirk that they use to cast spells and a flying animal plus a land/water animal that fly on the end of their broom.
The first battle of the Anglo-Dutch war takes place near the Straits of Dover ( also called the Battle of Goodwin Sands). This is Dover Castle which is visible from this area. It has a magickal shield that protects it from attacks in the air and sea.
These images show off the new style of the series (it has gone through several different stylistic variations), which is an 8-bit/16-bit retro Game Boy Advance aesthetic. This image below is of Astrid casting a spell with her naval dirk, in the finalized look for the show.
Visit the www.theflyingdutchess.com for more content and updates along with the instagram account: @theflyingdutchessoffical
Hello everyone, hope you are all thriving and doing well. Just thought I would give an update about my new YT channel that features StarCraft 2 videos/commentary along with some Adobe software tutorials. Part of the StarCraft material will include coding bot with python which has the capability for A.I. & machine learning principles to be executed, then fine tuned.
Photoshop Class: Moving Backgrounds & .gifs part 1 of 2
I may post some highlights from my work on here, yet you can follow the account on YT and also twitter: @magick_academy
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