Peter Mohrbacher

Oracle of Watchers - Prep

Hey guys,

I've got a few things in the pipe right now and I'm thinking about what happens and when. The plan was to have a big summer sale right around now and then launch the Kickstarter for the second Oracle deck right after. As of right now, things are running a bit behind but not by much.

One of the most meaningful changes I've been considering is in relation to the content of the Oracle of Watchers deck.

2022-07-05 17:50:31 +0000 UTC View Post

The Devil Card

It represents being seduced by the material world and physical pleasures. Also living in fear, domination and bondage, being caged by an overabundance of luxury, discretion should be used in personal and business matters.

Af, The Devil - WiP 3

Finding ways of making something look really dark while simultaneously trying to make it readable on a card is really hard. When you look at a dark digital painting on a screen in a dark office, the subtleties read very easily, but when you try to print it out on a tiny card, everything turns to mush. Whenever I'm working on a painting, I'm always trying to consider what the piece will look like when I print it out small.

At some point I started to realize that Af was looking a little t...

Af, The Devil - WiP 2

I mean, red is the only option right?

I love painting pieces in red, white, and black. Maybe this goes back to my teenage obsession with the White Stripes.

This is shaping up to be a real gross and grimy piece. Tons of fun to work on :)

Af, The Devil - WiP 1

The themes of the devil card led me really quickly to illustrating Af, Angel of Anger. His self inflicted suffering is a perfect fit for my interpretation of this card.

For this piece, I wanted to reveal his eyes and having him looking right at the viewer, inviting them to relate to the discomfort Af is experiencing. Everyone seems like they are trying to make rational choices to avoid suffering, but there is always a shadowed part of us that leads us back towards harmful choices. In Fr...

The Hermit - IX

The Hermit suggests that you are in a phase of introspection where you are drawing your attention inwards and looking for answers within. You are in need of a period of inner reflection, away from the current demands of your position.

Asbeel, The Hermit - WiP 3

Having spent a little time away from this work in progress, I'm getting a much clearer sense of what I want out of it. At first I wanted to see how far I could push the flat looking graphic elements, but now I'm starting to crave more detail in the background. As this piece pulls into the station, I'm going to experiment to see if I can find a balance between the more simple graphic elements and more detailed bits of rendering.

Asbeel, The Hermit - WIP 2

Oh, I forgot to mention that this is the Hermit card for the new Tarot. Maybe I'm a little forgetful too...

The Hermit is classically depicted carrying a lantern in addition to a walking stick. In this case, I had a geometric lantern design that was originally made for Archangel Gabriel. In my head, this is how it looked, but pulling up the old painting from way back it appears even more abstract. I guess the design has been evolving in the back of my brain for the past 8 years.

<...

The Hermit - WIP 1

Asbeel is one of my favorite characters from The Book of Watchers, but I haven't gotten a chance to depict him in his prime. Until now!

Before the Watchers fall, Asbeel was a font of wisdom. His stories were a great source of amusement and inspiration to those around him. His greatest flaw and his downfall was his trusting nature.

I'm building off a portrait that I'd already painted of Asbeel smoking his pipe, so I had a huge leg up in putting this piece together. It's a mashup o...

April Digital Rewards + Discount Code

Damn! I'm mega late on this one. Sorry about that!

Behind the scenes, I've been producing a ton of new stuff. It's been amazing to be creating so much, but it's been keeping me away from things like posting on Patreon, email, and business development. Now I'm ahead on art and behind on everything else. That's annoying but it also means I'll have new content to roll out while I'm on summer vacation :)

Thanks so much to all of you for supporting me. I am super excited to share wha...

The Magician

When the Magician appears in a spread, it points to the talents, capabilities and resources at the querent's disposal to succeed. The message is to tap into one's full potential rather than holding back, especially when there is a need to transform something.

Tarot title/cover idea

I was thinking about the name of the tarot deck and I began to worry that "Angelarium Tarot" just didn't have a good ring to it. Instead, I was thinking about the name "Tarot Angelus". Pronounced like An-gel-ess.

Tarot Angelus

Let me know what you think. I mocked up a logo real quick.

-Pete

Raziel, The Magician - WiP 3

I'm still considering color/lighting tweaks, but I want to push this piece toward final. Solidifying all the elements that I have laid out. There were plans to make some of the elements in this piece more flat and textural, but I'm not sure that's what it needs.

In the past, I was worried about making sure that each piece I finished would be unchanged  after I posted it. That was driven by the fact that I was selling prints of each piece as I was completing them. But now that these...

Raziel, The Magician - WiP 2

I'm at a little bit of an impasse trying to pick out the color palette for this piece :(

There are a number of interesting options to explore and none of them are fully clicking for me. For now, I'm going to pick away at other issues with the piece and kick the can down the road. Hopefully, I'll become attached to one approach or another as I slowly make my way toward a final painting.

Raziel, The Magician - WiP 1

Raziel won the poll yesterday so The Magician is the next card I'm going to paint up. I was rooting for The Hermit, so I'm going to probably do that one next.

I'm mulling over a few different options for pushing the stylization on this piece a little more than usual. With material this familiar, I get an opportunity to really stretch my legs on the execution of the painting. I want to start incorporating more flat and textural elements to pop out against the more rendered bits. If that ...

Angelarium RPG and the 2022 - 2023 Roadmap

Hey guys,

I've been teasing this other places so I figured you Chosen few should get a bit of extra info. The plan for the next 12-18 months is to work concurrently on both the Tarot and an official Angelarium tabletop RPG guide.

Angelarium RPG

I've begun the process of partnering with an experienced table top roleplaying publisher to create a 5e compatible module for Angelarium. I'm not going to share too much about it until we have an MVP (minimum viable p...

Which card next?

I've got sketches for a number of cards. Pick from my top 3 that I have ready to start!

Jewelry Preview

These are being created as part of a partnership with Badali Jewelry. https://badalijewelry.com/ 

The original plan was to release these via Kickstarter sometime after the books shipped but the level of tarnish on this piece should give you a sense of how long that took. With a jam-packed release schedule planned for this year, I've decided to just start taking orders for these on Angelarium.shop instead of crowdfun...

The Hierophant

Hierophant stands for tradition and convention. It can represent marriage in an arranged setup. It can also mean a teacher or counselor who will help in learning/education of the querent.

Armaros taught mankind stone smithing and the power of names. Through him, they attained a direct line to the power of Angels, Seraphim and Watcher alike.

Heirophant - WiP 2

I've been getting requests for a long time to do more pieces in a red and white color scheme. This felt like a perfect opportunity :)

The Heirophant - WiP 1

I'm coming at this piece late in the month due to a couple of personal trips I've been taking. Work life balance has been falling on the side of life for once. The upshot of my leisure is that I have been producing a ton of sketches for the tarot project that I'm feeling very happy with. More on those soon :)

I'm casting Armaros as an evil stone carving Pope for this deck. He is the gatekeeper between mankind and Angelic magic in the Angelarium fiction, so I felt like he was a good fit ...

Downloadable Rewards + Discount Code + New Releases

Thanks as always for the support you give me here. This is a link to where you can see the complete collection of high res and layered files for every painting up until now:

https://www.dropbox.com/sh/qj1bbq1putlz0os/AABCiWE8xlx-5HT_mRcZEBbpa?dl=0

As some of you might know, many of my older items have returned to the shop now that I'm finished with the migration. Deskm...

The Empress - Alternate

I've been feeling a bit frustrated by the process of creating each card in the absence of context. Overall, I would like to have these cards share a unique style that is a little bit different from how I've illustrated other parts of the project.

So, I've been building a little bit of a style guide for myself to begin the process of creating a unified look for the tarot cards.

With that in mind, I revisited the earlier take on the Empress card with a little color experiment. Place...

Empress Card

The Empress is traditionally associated with maternal influence, it is the card if you are hoping to start a family. She can represent the creation of life, romance, art, or new business.

Symphonic Portal

I teased this a while back and didn't want to drop the thread. This was a very cool collab and it's finally getting released at the end of this month. I wanted to share the final product with you guys before it gets shown publicly.

This is an alternate take on Yesod with original scoring :)

Created in collaboration with 8Temporal Productions.  Music by Ethan Algazi - Performed by The Budapest Orchestra

Upcoming Video about Angelarium

I met Ben, the creator of a Youtube channel called Tale Foundry several years ago at a Patreon meetup. We've stayed about doing an Angelarium lore video for his channel and it looks like it's finally coming out soon. I've even helped him out a little with a custom painting for his thumbnail.

Keep an eye out for its launch sometime in the next month or so: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCusb0Sp...

Chibi Angelarium - Enamel Pin Set

Hey guys,

Wow! What a relief to be promoting something new!

You guys have been privy to a lot of unreleased content over the past few months, but to the outside world, it looks like I haven't been making anything for the past 6 months. I'm so excited to finally be launching something fresh.

The first of many releases scheduled for this year! 2022 is off to an exciting start :)

2022-02-10 16:46:16 +0000 UTC View Post

Empress Card - WiP 1

Next up in the Angelarium Tarot is the Empress card.

I'd experimented with some solutions to this card for a past project and looking back on those pieces now, they definitely don't feel Angelarium enough to be included in this project. Trusting my gut has worked for me more times than it has failed me and my gut is telling me that these paintings are not a good fit for what I'm making right now.

I like the big head with the starry speckles on it from the previous color version, s...

January 2022 - Digital Rewards + Discount Code

Wow! 2022 really feels like everything is back on track after a couple of really weird years. Might as well kick the new year off with the Patreon rewards posted on time.

You can see all the progress shots, high res, and layered versions for the last couple of Tarot cards on the Dropbox here:

https://www.dropbox.com/sh/qj1bbq1putlz0os/AABCiWE8xlx-5HT_mRcZEBbpa?dl=0

Chibi Angelarium - Pin Preview and news update

Having wrapped up so much stuff in 2021, I'm left with the freedom to make new stuff this year!

I want the first new thing I make to be an easy one, so I'm making a fun new collection of enamel pins. These are the 6 final designs that will be coming to Kickstarter in a couple of weeks. I'm still working out the packaging and preview images, but I wanted to share the progress so far since I'm excited about it.

The product for the next Kickstarter after this one is already done as...