🎴XII - The Hanged Man: Gideon (TLT Tarot) // WIP (Patreon)

(Note: The card will be cleaned & finished up once I've established a comfy routine in CSP. The font and banner/decoration are also placeholders for now)

When I started looking into each card and thought about what to depict, there were two cards I knew immediately. To me, they matched the card's so well, that I never thought about what else could be depicted anymore. And one of these is The Hanged Man. I mean...

"The hanged man understands that his position is a sacrifice that he needed to make in order to progress forward - whether as repentance for past wrongdoings, or a calculated step backward to recalculate his path onward. This time he spends here will not be wasted, he does this as part of his progression forward." (Labyrinthos.co)

... if this doesn't speak 'Gideon sacrificing herself by throwing herself onto a fence', I don't know what to tell you lmao.

I knew immediately I wanted to have her portrayed on the fence, imitating the pose of the Hanged Man. But I was struggling so much with the color theme. I was going for a realistic color set first, but I wasn't happy with it. The only other version I really like is the two on the right sides with the purple shadows.

Fun fact: it was a complete accident of putting that red onto the card. I just wanted to change the hue of the floor into a more reddish tone and just loved the intense red (before planned adjustments). I know red is not a common theme for the Hanged Man. At least not in the examples I've seen. But the fence scene was intense, dramatic, tragic, and basically the climax of the first book. I think the red background matches that energy well.

But for now, I think I'll wait until the other Major Arcana are in the final WIP stage. If another card matches the glowing red better, I may go with the purple version.

I'll also have to correct the shadows and other details, but all in all I'm quite happy with this card.