First Look: Silent Playing Cards

From Alpha Playing Cards (Instagram: @alpha_playingcard), Silent Playing Cards features stunning illustrations by artist Lee.K (Instagram: @leekillus) featuring grayscale portraits rendered in a combination of oil paint, charcoal, pencil, and ink. 

The Seoul-based artist builds up layers of contour lines over a charcoal base to define facial features in a remarkably expressive and emotional style. The illustrative works have made the artist an Instagram star, propelled by widely shared images such as a portrait of BTS member Jimin, whom the artist has cited as a muse.

Four unique designs are on offer during the Kickstarter campaign: Silent Gray, Silent Focus, Silent Mirage, and Silent Deluxe, each with custom illustrations on all card faces. The cards are made with professional-level attention to detail and come in luxurious piano lacquer collector’s boxes.

Silent Gray is a collection of Lee.K’s artwork, with each card face featuring a striking illustration. The cards are made with graphite, charcoal, pens, markers, and oil pastels and come in a beautiful pearl paper card box.

Silent Focus is inspired by the artistry of cardistry and imbued with professional-level touch. The face cards retain the conventional suit and value, while the backs feature larger color blocks to better capture the trajectory of the cards. The character portrait’s eyes are used in the illustration, making each back unique.

The set comes with six card boxes that can be arranged to form a complete picture, and a special red version with red golden edges is limited to 1000 decks.

Silent Mirage uses grating techniques to create a magical effect, thanks to technical support from ARK Playing Cards. The exclusive collector’s box includes a collection certificate and two decks of playing cards, which are not sold separately. 

One deck features a black border inspired by the frames in art exhibitions, giving the feeling of a gallery experience and drawing focus to the stunning illustrations. The other deck breaks the performance limit of the original size of a playing card by combining four cards to showcase Lee.K’s illustration in stunning detail.

Silent Deluxe is a luxurious piano lacquer collector’s box that is dedicated to collectors with the ultimate pursuit. This is a limited edition collection box of only 300 sets. These cards and the box itself feature gold foil and gold edges, making them collector items of the highest level.

What sets this fascinating deck apart is the use of grating art, a blend of digital and traditional printing technology. The technique creates an incredible change effect in the card box, such as slides, where a special film displays multiple pictures on a single plane. The illustrations transcend the limitation of a single plane, making Silent Playing Cards unique and different from other playing cards.

Silent Playing Cards will launch on Kickstarter on 7th March 2023. The decks will be printed by APCC in China.