Guide
How this deck was made — the actual process behind a digital nacre-toned tarot
Let us be plain first. The cards on this site are not real mother-of-pearl inlay. The images were made with an image-generation model, and the card frames were composed onto them so that all 78 share one format. This page records the process and its limits without smoothing them over.
What this deck is
It is 78 digital cards. Each file is 832×1248 JPEG, used for on-screen display and print preview. No physical deck has been printed and sold.
It is not najeon chilgi. We did not grind or cut shell, did not lacquer wood, and did not manage drying. There is no workshop, no production notebook, no humidity log. In this deck, "nacre" names the look of the drawing, not a material.
The pearl sheen inside each card is painted into the image, and the light that drifts across a card when you tilt the screen is a CSS effect. Nothing is reflecting light; the picture is drawn to look as if it were.
How the images were made
For each card we wrote a scene description in words and generated an image from it. Pose and gaze, dress, the shape of the background, and the direction of the light were specified in the prompt, and we chose among results the one that carried the card's meaning.
The generated image was then composed into a card frame. We measured the inner opening of the frame and fitted all 78 to the same position and format, so the border and margins stay constant even though the pictures differ.
When a card is remade, we record what changed in the scene description. The prompt is the production record; the image is its output.
What we took from nacre and dancheong
We referenced the patterns and the movement of light in Korean najeon chilgi, especially the workshops of Tongyeong and Wonju. We did not reproduce the craft process; we carried over the way colour travels across a finished nacre surface and the density of its patterns.
The five cardinal colours of dancheong (obangsaek) were used as a way of dividing colour across the deck. We did not paint blue, red, yellow, white and black literally; we adjusted them so that saturation neither dies nor glares on screen.
We also referenced the symbolic creatures of minhwa and sipjangsaeng. Cranes, deer, turtles, pines and plum blossom — old markers — appear as background elements.
Dress and iconography
Figures wear late Joseon dress by default: short jacket and long coat, gat and satgat, a low chignon, and shoes chosen to fit each card's station and situation. Because silhouette shifts with class and occupation even within one period, dress is specified card by card.
Some cards follow Rider-Waite-Smith iconography; others keep the composition but change background and dress. The test was single: does this picture carry the card's meaning more precisely?
We do not assert historical certainty about dress. We consult uigwe, paintings and surviving garments, and where sources disagree we do not declare one the answer; we note which we followed and why. Unverified elements stay marked as inference.
The rules we actually kept
One symbol to the fore per card. Nacre is the ground; the figure and the symbol are the subject. Each card's prompt specifies dress, background and light, and a result that drifts from that description is generated again.
Before publishing, code checks the text: length, paragraph counts, banned phrases, internal links, structured data, and for translations the sentence count and length. These checks keep a text from drifting away from its card; they do not certify that it is true.
Card essays and this page are drafted by AI and published after an operator checks the facts and the sentences. Card names, meanings and translations are kept in per-locale data files.
Limits and corrections
The limits of image generation remain. The same description yields different results, and fingers, textile patterns or background detail can go wrong. Each card was generated several times and selected.
Because there is no physical material, colour does not actually shift with the angle of light. The sheen on screen is an effect; print it and the effect is gone.
The first version of this page said that we had logged humidity and drying times in a workshop. That was not true, and the page was replaced on 14 November 2026. If you find a claim that does not hold, write to info@aikorea24.kr and we will check and correct it.
Draw a card yourself
The picture you have just read can be placed against your own question. The same card answers differently when the question changes.
- A deck drawn in-house — 78 cards in the colours of nacre and dancheong
- Readings that read the picture, not a keyword list
- Keep asking — draw one more card for your next question
- A record you can return to and compare
- Let a friend draw for you with a single link
- Seventeen languages, one deck, one reading