12 of Swords -- the Professor

The Professor of Swords grew up watching stories of the Ethiopian famines in the 1980s and decided to make it his life's work to feed people. His grandparents came from life as sharecroppers during Jim Crow and find it odd that the first member of the family to go to college would get a PhD to go back and become a farmer, but the Professor has tenure plus 17 published papers on wheat and rye genetics (and counting) to refute the comments.

Given the general public's distrust of genetic modification in particular and university agriculture in general, in his more cynical moments the Professor likes to joke that his machete handles monkeywrenchers as well as weeds. Deep down, though, he's afraid for all the good he's trying to do the world that he might actually have to use it that way someday.

12 of Cups -- the Bartender

The Queen of Cups has agreed to provide a few answers to some questions you might wish to ask of her.

• Yes, she loves her job, even if it's loud as hell and she has to stifle giggles at guys ordering blender drinks and cougars ordering Sexes On The Beach.
• Yes, she's single. No, she's not interested in you. (But she might let you be her friend if you're a good regular.)
  
• At least a buck a drink.
  
• You'd be absolutely floored by her day job. (Hint: she's got a Master's degree. Do you?)
  
• Do they look real?
  

11 of Swords -- the Journeyman

When the other kids were tossing footballs around and shooting baskets, the Journeyman of Swords was in martial arts class, doing kata or sparring, or dueling with bamboo garden stakes with his somewhat reluctant big sister. Now that he's in college, he's going through the trials and tribulations of a varsity athlete without gaining any of the glory, because fencing is the one activity he enjoys more than anything else. He realizes one day he'll have to go out into a real world where playing with knives is frowned upon, and he's fine with that; he's already studying stickfighting with an SCA master to keep his hand in the game long after his eligibility runs out for college competition.

And he isn't really a lefty. Just a big fan of The Princess Bride.

10 of Cups -- The Barista

The Barista of Cups stands in a moment of quiet after the morning rush, sipping a latte while her supervisor counts coffee bags in the back room. She doesn't plan on doing this the rest of her life, but despite the occasional entitled asshole, she loves her job, especially because, unlike that corporate coffee shop down the street, she doesn't have to cover the dragon tat that took her eight months to complete and she can wear her beat-up art studio jeans instead of those uncomfortable chinos. When she says have a nice day, she usually means it... unless you're one of those people who orders the triple grande hazelnut mocha with nuts and whipped cream and never tips.

The picture was outlined by hand in pencil and ballpoint pen, scanned in, and colored and edited using the Seashore paint program for MacOS X/Cocoa.

Welcome to the Lesser Arcana

The images in this blog are intended for a playing card project I'm working on, essentially a Spanish-suited deck of cards with more contemporary images substituted for the court cards. It's not a tarot deck, though I may do that later on.