Here, you can view all the Alt Arts in The Tag Mill archive, and learn a bit more about the thinking behind the creations. As makers, we are inspired by cyberpunk aesthetics, digital culture, typographic design, and popular culture.
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2024 Collections
Grey Area
Grey is the new Black! I had a lot of fun creating this 6 card set of neutral faction netrunner alts.
The collection includes playsets of
The first pieces I made in this set were Hedge Fund and Sure Gamble, which I initially drafted for Netrunner’s Run Together 2024 scheme. You can read more about that excellent project here and check out other creators’ brilliant works.
This set features redrafted and remastered versions of my Run Together cards.
I wanted to create something that felt manipulative for Hedge Fund. The idea of a puppeteer immediately resonated with this ambition, so I got to thinking a lot about shadow puppets and the question of “who is pulling the strings?”
Whilst sketching puppets (that was as sinister as it sounds…), I was thinking about concepts that hold double meaning across artistic expression and the economy: speculations can be financial and fictional; performances can be metric and theatric.
Instruments are made to be played
Sure Gamble draws on some of the established references in the original artworks: female figure, a casino, luck. I zoomed the focus of the portrait right in, to show the eye of Lady Luck herself, perhaps. She’s got a poker chip installed in her iris, and if you look closely you might notice there is something a little bit more technical helping with the card counting predicting.
Fortune is fickle; luck is learned.
After tackling these economic staples, I was thinking about which neutral cards dominated the curent state of gameplay. Regolith Mining License seemed like a must, and I have personally been enjoying B-1001 as a surprise.
It was at this point that I got really into the idea of black and white cinema, and especially references of early cinema and film noir. The B-1001 is full film noir aesethic high contrast silhouttes, The Big Combo goes cyber; different century, same hat. The setting behind the subject is adapated from a photograph I took in Salvador, Brazil, which felt fitting for The Automata Initiative. The door gave the depth of focus I wanted for this composition.
Regolith Mining License felt more irreverent, an ode to le Voyage dans la Lune and The Mighty Boosh in equal measure. I also did a load of research about the nature of moon regolith, its texture, its nature, the fact we do actually want to mine it. I learnt a lot about the moon. The Man in the Moon is a famous person – can you guess who?
The theme for the collection was coming together, in terms of punchy visual style and bold shapes.
Then came two cards with more eclectic and visually busy demands on my imagination. Bahia Bands challenged the trend of clean lines with a riot of colour and endless detail. I loved getting lost in the magic of the night scene, drawing all the houses, flying all the enchanted Bahia Bands into the starry starry night, and I even got to draw a cute Smartware Distributor tribute. This led to a busy composition, but I love it.
Finally, there is Subliminal Messaging. This card has so much text to fit in!
I really wanted to make a character a la Max Headroom but 2020 – what other way than a podcast? I did toyed with using Max for a Gaslight (hence the red hair) but I wanted to make something fun, and gaslighting isn’t that. Plus the idea of subliminality ties in better with the idea of a podcast media. This card was also my first experiment with different kinds of titling for the card name. The red and black is meant to be a bit like a Jenny Holzer.
As my first full collection of Alt Arts, I am pleased with the set, sure it is a little esoteric, but it is a whole lot of fun!
Thanks for reading and hope I have inspired you to pick up a pencil and sketch something cool.
The Tag Mill 