To skull or not to skull?

...that is the question.

This is a t-shirt design I came up with a little while ago for a local MMA event and I've been thinking about a symmetrical skull design over some flourishy rusty blade type stuff in this style as a concept design. Evidently it would be very agro and offend every anti-skull person's sensibilities, the only thing is, I honestly think I could work it and turn it into a skull deck to end all skull decks. Y'know? Taking this route however would clearly be opting for a very specific style and capitalising on a current trend, but I do believe plenty of people would want a truly dark and aggressive well executed skull deck, and I could be the man to give it to them.

Would I be satisfied as an artist with this outcome though? I personally love the whole skull thing, if it's done right, but would I be happy that I had kept in keeping with tradition or would I be completely selling out to a trend? That said, would selling out to a trend prove ultimately more successful?

I'm gonna design a skull deck, as one concept, whilst also designing at least one completely non-skull deck in a more traditional style as well, to keep both sides of myself (and everyone else) happy.

I had a brief play with one idea I had of using crosses as a secondary decoration, the blank spaces would be filled with flourishy stuff of course but this was a very rough and quick design that I didn't put a whole lot of effort into. I have some scribbles with much better skull layouts on them that would require some more hand-drawn stuff which I haven't yet got around to doing, one in particular with some nice eagle/angel wings on it which I think would look sweet (gotta love the wings on the back of a deck of cards).

The skull deck is definitely getting designed, and so is at least one other non-skull deck. I have a feeling I might be designing a few before settling on one to print...

Designs coming soon, and "the skull debate"

OK, I spent way longer than intended reviewing those other custom artwork decks, I really want to take what I can from that and start getting some of my own designs up! For the next couple of posts at least. It's good to check out the competition, guage how good my finished designs have to be, study the host of decks that mine will be rubbing shoulders with and going toe-to-toe with, learn from the successes and shortcomings of those decks, but for the next few posts I will focus on the sketches and concepts I have been coming up with over the last week or so.

Also, a very interesting point arose on a forum called The Magic Cafe, where a poster named Artie Fufkin said:

Most enduring designs aren't "things" as such.
Even those well known cards with "things" on them are somewhat non-threatening.

Think an angel on a bicycle.

Personally, I think cards with very, very long lives generally don't have any"thing" on them, but are pure design.
Like Bee's, Tally's, Steamboats, etc.

Skulls have been done, and done, and done.
I really can't see any of them being considered interesting for more than a few years before they fall off the radar. 

This gave rise to some very interesting perspectives in me, and brought to light a very important point: namely, should I have skulls in my deck or not? And maybe, the challenge for me is to create a timeless deck that will strike that elusive balance between the new style and the old school, and still have skulls on it.

The thing is, Artie is totally right in what he says, and I had already considered his point even before he made it, but, I do love skulls and I am confident that if I chose to include them in my deck design they would rock. The point is should I include them in the first place?

Let's ask skully...