Hinweis
How This Deck Was Made — The Real Process Behind the Nacre-Like Digital Deck
Let me state this clearly from the start. The cards on this site are not physical objects made from cut and inlaid shell. The images were generated by an image model, and the card borders were composited to standardize all 78 cards to the same dimensions. This article is an honest record of that process and its limitations.
What This Deck Is
It consists of 78 digital cards. Each file is an 832×1248 JPEG, used for on-screen display and print previews. No physical card deck has ever been printed or sold.
It is not a piece of nacreous lacquerware. No shell was ground or cut, no lacquer was applied, and no drying was managed. There is no workshop, no production notes, and no humidity logs. In this deck, 'nacre' refers not to a material but to the visual texture of the imagery.
The nacre-like sheen within the cards is painted into the images, and the shimmering light when you tilt the card on screen is a CSS effect. It is not a material reflecting light but a screen designed to appear that way.
How the Images Were Made
For each card, I wrote a scene description in sentences and used an image generation model to create the image. The pose and gaze of the figure, the attire, the terrain of the background, and the direction of the light source were all specified in text, and from the results, I selected the one that best matched the card's meaning.
The generated images were composited into a card frame. I measured the coordinates of the inner window of the frame and cropped all 78 images to the same position and dimensions, so even though the artwork varies from card to card, the borders and margins remain consistent.
When recreating the same card, I keep a record of what was changed from the previous scene description. The prompt is the production log, and the resulting image is the output of that record.
What Was Taken from Nacre and Dancheong
I referenced the patterns and light textures used in nacreous lacquerware, particularly from Tongyeong and Wonju. I did not replicate the craft process but translated the color flows and pattern density that appear when a finished nacre surface catches light into the imagery.
The five cardinal colors of dancheong served as a reference for dividing the card palette. I did not apply blue, red, yellow, white, and black directly but adjusted them to avoid oversaturation or dullness on screen.
I also referenced the animal and plant symbols from minhwa and the Ten Symbols of Longevity. Motifs like the crane, deer, turtle, pine, and plum blossom—long-used emblems—were incorporated as background elements in the cards.
Attire and Iconography
The clothing of the figures is based on late Joseon dynasty attire. kurze Jacke and langer Mantel, gat and satgat, braided hair, and shoes were specified according to each card's status and situation. Since silhouettes differ by class and occupation even within the same period, I noted the attire separately for each card.
Some cards reference Rider-Waite-Smith iconography, while others keep the iconography but change only the background and attire. The criterion was singular: does that image convey the card's meaning more accurately?
I do not assert that the historical attire is definitive. I refer to uigwe, paintings, and extant artifact plates, but when sources differ, I do not push one as the answer; instead, I note which one I used and why. Unverified elements remain as conjectures.
Rules Actually Followed
Only one symbol is placed at the forefront per card. The nacre sheen serves as the background, with the figure and symbol as the protagonists. Each card's scene description specifies the attire, background, and light source, and if the generated result deviates from that description, it is recreated.
Before publication, code checks are run. It verifies text length, paragraph count, forbidden words, internal links, structured data, and the sentence count and length of translations. This check is a mechanism to prevent sentences from becoming irrelevant to the card, not a guarantee of factual accuracy.
The card interpretations and this page's text are drafted by AI, then fact-checked and copy-edited by the operator before publication. Card names, meanings, and translations are managed in locale-specific data files.
Limitations and Corrections
The limitations of the image generation model remain. Regenerating with the same description yields different results, and details like fingers, fabric patterns, or background elements may be distorted. Therefore, each card was generated multiple times and selected from those.
Since this is not a physical material, the colors do not actually shift with light angle. The on-screen shimmer is a visual effect, and it disappears when printed.
The initial version of this page included a description claiming that humidity and drying times were recorded in a workshop. That was untrue, and the page was completely replaced on November 14, 2026. If you find any incorrect descriptions, please email info@aikorea24.kr, and I will verify and correct them.
Zieh selbst eine Karte
Lege das Bild aus dem Text diesmal auf deine eigene Frage. Dieselbe Karte antwortet auf eine andere Frage mit einem anderen Satz.