Pictorial Review: Rare Playing Cards - 3 Colourful Astronomy

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Pictorial Review: Rare Playing Cards - 3 Colourful Astronomy

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* * * More Rare Playing Cards - Colours and Patterns Feature! * * *

Rare & Colourful Playing Cards

Because I have family members, relatives, and friends who are professional and amateur artists, over time I've seen a lot of art, and I've also learned to appreciate and enjoy it. So I also love artistic playing cards. I love playing traditional card games, and while I'm happy to play a card game with a standard deck, for me the experience becomes all the more pleasant when I'm using a beautiful deck of cards. I also enjoy collecting decks of playing cards that have a high degree of customization, and are of a high quality all round. Fortunately such beautiful and rare artistic decks are readily available from online retailers, and my own favourite source is Rare Playing Cards. They sell hundreds of stunning decks of playing cards which are not easily found or purchased elsewhere. Not only are these playing cards of high quality card stock, but they also have many decks that are just the thing I love: vibrant colours and patterns.

And that's what this series of reviews is all about. I've picked some of my favourite decks of playing cards that showcase bright colours and engaging patterns. I love rainbows, I love colours, and I love arrangements of colours that are interesting and captivating, especially when colours and patterns are arranged in new or eye-catching ways. So let's show you some rare playing cards that I'm excited about, quality decks with colourful playfulness, colourful art, and colourful magic!

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* * * Rare Playing Cards with Colourful Astronomy * * *

Colours are beautiful during the day time, but what about at night? It's time to introduce the Starlight series of decks! Colours can look entirely different against the inky black backdrop of a night sky. This series currently consists of four decks, and I'll cover the Starlight Black Hole (#2) and the Starlight Shooting Star (#3).

Starlight Black Hole deck

Colours are beautiful during the day time, but what about at night? That's what the Starlight series is all about.

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The very first Starlight deck featured a colourful pattern of glowing stars. Following its success, Collectable Playing Cards released a sequel called the Starlight Black Hole deck. Both decks were designed by Juniardi Satyanagara, but the Black Hole deck takes the original stellar concept in a new direction, as a swirl of glowing stars fades into the dark unknown of a black hole, while a stellar pattern also decorates the entire tuck box.

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The back design has a swirling shape that amplifies a sense of motion when used for twirling, and even for fans and spreads, and the colourful artwork here has a full-bleed style. The use of a black canvas as the background of both the card faces and backs gives possibilities for an unusual yet beautiful palette of colours to shine.

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The court cards feature a burst of light emanating from a straight forward and classical design that is set within a starry night sky; as well as adding aesthetic beauty, this also ensures they can easily be distinguished in dim light.

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The colours work together beautifully, ensuring that the indices have visual clarity, while employing a colour scheme not commonly seen.

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Much like the Memento Mori deck, the traditionally black suits of Spades and Clubs feature purple pips, while the traditionally red suits of Diamonds and Hearts have pink pips on the indices.

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The Joker looks as if he is a magnificent vision who has stepped straight out of the night sky!

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The design of the border-less and colourful card backs means that card flourishers can capitalize on the colours that go to the very edge of the cards, and maximize the effect of these glowing colours in fans and spreads.

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This deck of playing cards was produced by USPCC, in their standard air cushion finish. It also comes with a double-backer and ad card.

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Starlight Shooting Star deck

The third deck in the Starlight series (of which I am just featuring two) is the Starlight Shooting Star deck.

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In some ways this stellar concept is the reverse of a black hole, because it represents the birth rather than the death of a star. Now the card backs show a star-burst effect, emerging from a black hole surrounded by vibrant and colourful swirls of twilight.

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In the Shooting Star deck the court cards don't feature the stellar white we're used to seeing in a starry sky, but are aglow with an even more lively neon pink.

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Like the previous deck, the style of these court cards retains a classic feel, but instead of a silent stellar background unmoving white stars, now the jet-black background is producing shooting stars.

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In many ways the overall feel of the Shooting Star deck is similar in style style to the Black Hole deck, but vibrant pinks and purples are even more dominant. So if the previous deck wasn't quite psychedelic enough for you, perhaps this one will be! Once again, fans and spreads do a good job of displaying this energy and vibrance.

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The numbered cards have the same combination of colours as the court cards, although the pink glow is even more emphatic and evident against the inky black darkness. Notice again how in contrast to the pink pips used for the traditionally red suits, the traditionally black suits feature purple pips for the indices.

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Unlike the previous deck, this time there are two different coloured Jokers, one in purple, the other in pink.

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Once again, this vibrant and colourful design really makes the most of fans and spreads.

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It even looks beautiful when fanned with the card faces! It's a beautiful deck all round!

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Those who can't get enough of the colours of the night sky will be pleased to know that the Shooting Star deck doesn't mark the end of the Starlight series. Following the first three decks came a fourth deck, Starlight Lunar, and a Solar deck is currently in the works as well.

* * * Recommendation * * *

So are these colourful decks from Rare Playing Cards something for you? This isn't the first time I've sourced cards from Rare Playing Cards, and I continue to be impressed with the playing cards they offer, and the spectrum of colourful playing cards featured in this article has only confirms my conclusions:

Colour: I'll start with the obvious: there's a whole lot of colour on display here! There's something about colour that can produce a vibrant sense of energy, enthusiasm, excitement, and life. There's no doubt that the kinds of decks like the ones featured here produce similar results, as a result of the diverse and bright colours they use.

Patterns: Colour on its own is merely one element of design - it needs to be accompanied with an overall and pleasing aesthetic design, which makes good use of the canvas of a playing card. Designers need to consider carefully the effect of lines and patterns not only in terms of how a single card will look on its own, but also the cumulative effect of a series of cards when displayed in concert as part of a fan or spread, or when in motion. The striking and brightly coloured patterns on some of the card backs featured above are especially at their best when causing a cumulative effect in ribbon spreads and other moves, producing a stunning overall result.

Cardistry: Many of these decks were created for the explicit purpose of being used for card flourishers. Certainly card flourishers tend to be fussy about the decks that they use, and for good reason, since the visual aesthetics of their art-form will be magnified when combined with colours and patterns that accentuate the movement of cardistry. Decks like these are perfectly suited to this purpose, and these and many others make excellent choices for this art-form, especially because of their excellent use of colour and patterns.

Eye-catching: Many a deck of beautiful playing cards will catch the eye, but this will especially be the case when there is an eye-catching and colourful design. There's no doubt that playing cards like the ones here will be quickly noticed, and become an instant conversation piece when arriving on the game table.

Creative: I just love the creativity that has produced designs like these. The firecracker styled tuck box of the Firecracker deck; the amusing and cheeky charm of the Bosmind deck; the colourful geometrics of the Momento Mori deck; the explosive pinks and purples of the stellar Starlight decks; all these are the kinds of creativity that I love to see in a deck of playing cards, and really appreciate and enjoy.

Quality: The quality of these decks is consistently wonderful. These are not cheap quality playing cards like the ones you'd find in a corner store, but have been produced and printed by reputable printing companies like US Playing Card Company and Expert Playing Cards. There are all industry leaders, and respected for their consistently good card-stock and finishing, which proves to handle well and will be long-lasting.

If you're looking for an eye-catching and colourful deck of playing cards that is a looker on the table, and a quality product, the selection you'll find at Rare Playing Cards is hard to beat. It's great to discover stylish and stunning decks of playing cards that showcase the colour spectrum, and given that there's an extensive range of fun decks to choose from, almost everyone is going to find something that they'll love. I'm very pleased to recommend the decks I've featured in this review!

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What to learn more? Check out Rare Playing Cards

Direct links for the decks featured in this review series:
- Colourful Play: Brosmind deck, Drawing Scratch deck, Firecracker deck
- Colourful Cardistry: Memento Mori deck, Thick Lines deck
- Colourful Astronomy: Starlight Black Hole deck, Starlight Shooting Star deck
- Colourful Art: Mondrian deck, Red Stripe deck, Prime deck

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