Tall Cards

Is there anyone in the world greater than Joss Whedon?

The correct answer to this is of course, no. There is nobody greater than Joss Whedon. I know it. Nathan Fillion knows it. And a whole bunch of others do as well.

Joss has brought so much good into this world. Buffy, Angel, Dr Horrible, a new script for Speed but best of all, dare I say it, is Firefly. There is NOTHING cooler than a space cowboy.

Ever since the first time I watched the Firefly episode, Shindig - I have wanted to play Tall Cards - the poker type game played by Jayne, Simon and Book. I never did anything about it until a Firefly Craftster swap. That's when I knew I had to make it for my partner.

Unfortunately the episode wasn't very helpful when trying to learn the rules of the game. Luckily for me I live in an age where if you have a problem you head straight to the Google. And that's what I did.

I found an amazing website that provided me with rules and even the cards to play Tall Cards! My only problem was that it didn't look anything like the cards they used in Shindig.

So with a little help from the Firefly Companion: Volume 1, I was a able to create this deck of cards. I'm not sure that my partner will ever play Tall Cards, but I hope she agrees that they

sure are pretty. Perhaps even in the infamous words of a Dr Simon Tam, pretty pretty??

The box: Decorated with different strips from the Firefly comics.

The back of the cards. Thanks to the book these look just like the ones featured in Shindig - the only difference is that mine are not metal (I also darkened the colours slightly because I thought it looked more authentic)!

These are made using altered Pokemon cards. Papers are glued to each side of the Pokemon card and then the cards were cut down. I do wish I had used a smaller card though - the callouses on my hands from all the cutting lasted for ages!

In progress shot.

72 cards in total. The 6 suits are: apple, peach, strawberry, banana, plum and orange. Each suit also has a tortoise, dragon, unicorn and phoenix card (instead of King, Queen etc). All the fruits and animals are painted with water colour crayons.

These are the true colours on the cards. The flash didn't work on the other photos which is why the colours look duller.

The 6 suits.

All the cards in the strawberry suit.

All tied up with string.

The Tall Cards - one for each suit.

The bets. In the episode when Book, Simon and Jayne are playing Tall Cards they don't bet with money, they instead make bets using chores around the ship which they write on scraps of paper. I tried to make my bets look exactly the same, I did add a few chores which would be relevant to my partner as she has school aged children. Garbage, dishes, septic vac, homework etc.

Here is everything all together - including a set of rules, which I burnt the edges of and stained with tea. Nobody ever takes good care of the rules :)

All tied up.

I had a lot of fun making this game and would love to make one for myself. Unfortunately I still remember just how long it took me to make this and I just don't have the time to dedicate to such a large project.

Please link me to your version of the game if you've made one. I'd love to see it!!

And I just have to add.... this game was a featured project on Craftsters 2010 Papercraft Board. I'm so proud! :) THANK YOU!