Imperial Tarot - The Harlequin

The Emperor's Tarot (a.k.a Imperial Tarot) is a pack of seventy-eight psychoactive liquid-crystal wafers that are linked to the thoughts of the Emperor. The Tarot, commonly believed to have been designed by the Emperor himself, is used throughout the Imperium as a form of divination.

Dear watchers and watcherettes...

I'm quite swamped as usual, but I'm taking a brief break to show you the progress of the Imperial Tarot and my second card so far: The Harlequin.

This was a tough one, because Eldar, and particularly Harlequins, have a ery distinct 'flavour' that is a bit hard to get. However, I've been lauded for my Eldar by some fans, so I hope I've done justice to these mighty warriors once again.

The mos difficult bit to choose was what colour alette to use. I didn't want togo overboard with colours, but I also didn't want to lose the essence of the character, so I decided to work in some illustration colour basics that balance the whole piece perfectly. You'll see how I chose green, orange, red and violet as my colours. These four are complementary to each other, as you'll know, so there's harmony in their contrast without it looking silly. The adding of a grey wash to put the tones and volumes in also melted them much more, giving the character the eclectic personality it should have without it being a clown. The Gyrinx being black also helps bringing everything to the ground.
The background is desaturated and colourless on purpose, except for the moons which I tried to make a little more luminous; the sky is also muted but blue. "The Fool" Arcana is meant to be an uplifting card; new beginnings, etc. I know there's not much of that in the grimdark future of WH40K, but I tried to get as close as possible.

So, let me know what you think and I hope you enjoy this one!

Nic.-

© Games Workshop Ltd. 2011