M. Szal
In honor of my presidential portrait series, I have decided to make the secret page of designs I created for President Biden – public!
I will not say if I liked him or Trump better, you will have to wait and see how I paint them at the end of the series. Also, check out my political designs on my portfolio here. I will post some process shots of my Washington portrait soon.
These are some animated .gifs that I created with Sequana and Ace Malagurio, my representative character in The Flying Dutchess.
I have also completed some new animated backdrops, which will also be in my updated portfolio. I have been working on several new logo ideas with mountains at work, inspiring my latest animated background creations. It has been stressful at work with our lead mechanic out with a hand injury, yet I have a newfound respect for him since I have been filling in for him with some of the advanced mechanic jobs. All the hardest jobs from other stores get sent to corporate. I enjoy the challenge, yet it can be very taxing. I have also ordered a new batch of redesigned decks with no text and changed several cards. I am not sure if it will still be called The American Game either, yet when the cards arrive I will blog about the new information.
I was blessed to start a new job at the corporate headquarters of Adirondack Tire a few weeks ago. I am so happy to get to work on cars and do graphic design, combining two of my unique skill sets. I worked at Warren Tire for almost a year and never met the owner. I worked at Adirondack Tire for one day and met the owner plus his son.
I only have my son Roman visit during the summers, so seeing Sean and Larry together makes working for them a pleasure. It is so nice to see the owner preparing his son for his future role in a direct fashion. I gave everyone at corporate unique decks of the American Game for Christmas.
However, I have gazed at the cards on the wall for a few weeks now and have decided to make some minor changes. The Los Angeles card that might evoke a connection with the Los Angeles Chargers is changing completely. A few other cards will have minor edits, and I will update the master portfolio page. If you would like to exchange your deck for the updated version, please email me at mattszal@gmail.com, and I will gladly send you an additional deck for no extra charge. Thanks to everyone who has supported my work and family by purchasing a deck. God Bless you. I used the cards to do a reading for my cousin Ryan on Christmas Eve. We discussed the upcoming book that I am writing to accompany the deck.
This book shall be in the fashion of The Pictorial Key to the Tarot by Waite.
The above image is a highlight reel of the 13 cards encompassing the entire hearts suit. I have decided to go back to the original design for the suit symbols (the previous version had outlines for each symbol instead of solid-filled). I made my first deck more than five years ago, using a plain bicycle deck and spending a lot of time drawing and painting directly on each card. After the ink and watercolor dried, I laminated the cards so the colors/images would not deteriorate with excess shuffling.
It is refreshing to work on a large design project with such a fascinating concept for the entire deck. Yet, each card is designed one at a time and requires a lot of dancing with compositions and colors. I have been looking at different printing companies, yet since the deck has a spiritual/metaphysical component, it is essential to use the best materials. The use of such old emblems from 5 centuries ago was to give the deck a timeless and mystical quality that seems to contain some ancient, forgotten truth or wisdom. The images felt very familiar when I first looked at the Rider-Waite Tarot Deck. After reading ‘The Pictorial Key to the Tarot‘ by Waite, I started to appreciate how much deeper each card could be dissected and the deck’s use of symbols/visual metaphors. I am considering writing a booklet to include with each deck that explains which card represents which thing beyond the surface level place or zodiac sign.
Even if the decks take a while to sell, they have a long shelf life. The residual income will help support my creative projects and eventually fund my philanthropic aspirations. After the deck is sent to the printers, I plan to start a series of oil portraits of all the Presidents of the United States, from Trump to Washington.
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.
NFL Football season is back once again, so I thought I would share some more information about a project I have worked on for the last couple of years (there are three different deck versions in total).
This video covers much of the physical process behind the making of my “football tarot” cards. I used emblems from the 500-year-old book Devises Heroiques. Each emblem has a conceptual or actual reference to a modern-day NFL team. For example, I used an emblem with a bear for the Chicago Bear’s card.
Below is an example of what the emblems look like in the book version:
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
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