tcg-art-direction

When to use

Use when the task asks for trading card game, collectible card game, deck-builder, card battler, card frame, board, token/minion, graveyard/discard, hand/deck presentation, rarity styling, or Hearthstone-like fantasy card-game visual guidance.

Output

• Target style family and rationale.
• Original card, board, token, and VFX art direction.
• Asset brief using the TCG template when implementation or generation will follow.
• IP-safety notes when named commercial games are used as inspiration.
• Sanity/readability checks for generated or implemented visuals.

Workflow

1. Identify the artifact type: card illustration, card frame, board UI, token/minion, VFX, style bible, or full TCG art pack.
2. Choose a style from references/style-taxonomy.md; default to warm-tavern-fantasy for Hearthstone-like warmth.
3. Read references/ip-safety.md whenever named games, studios, or commercial card-game references are part of the request.
4. Use references/asset-brief-template.md to produce a handoff-ready brief.
5. Preserve gameplay readability: hand, deck, graveyard/discard, battlefield tokens, counters, targeting, and active prompts must remain inspectable.
6. For generated images, compose with generative-art-designer, iterate-art-to-sanity, and enforce-art-language-safety.
7. For UI/vector implementation, compose with board-ui-artist, css-vector-artist, and frontend-developer.

Notes

• Treat Hearthstone, Magic: The Gathering Arena, Might & Magic Fates, and Gods Unchained as broad reference points only.
• Translate references into original materials, shape language, mood, color hierarchy, readability goals, and interaction patterns.
• Do not copy proprietary card frames, boards, logos, characters, factions, iconography, UI layouts, or exact compositions.
• Keep Hephaera outputs reusable; host-project-specific art decisions belong in the host repository.