As an eternal fan of Gentle Giant I have finally concocted something amateurish like this: 

Gentle Giant Playing Cards: 

Glad to hear it. Thank you! 

Kerry Minnear was my obvious number one. At first, I wanted Kerry and Ray - two main creators of music (and two main improvisers and virtuosi, probably) in the band - to be Jokers. Then I've realized it would hurt Derek, and Phil as the eldest one... it's somewhat disrespectful, I thought. 

Here we get it, the complete 54 card deck of GG-themed cards: 

I've finally made it! 

What about a spin off of TPATG cards, like the ones they found on tour and based the album art off of - but with more GG themed images?!

Sure https://dropmefiles.com/549609" rel="nofollow - !  There's the archived folder. In that 7z archive you will find everything, outttakes, original cards that I modified and even the video that you've watched on YouTube. 

As of now, the cards are only in electronic format. I've never printed them on paper yet. 

Certainly, you may notice there are graphical flaws here and there. It was rather constructed as the draft, as the say it alpha version of what it should be. 

I am glad that there's not only me who enjoyed the result. 

My biggest problem is that I love making sort of picturesque collages but I am not a painter in the least. I also like playing music but I don't have any knowledge on how to play properly. And if with music it more or less works at times , I don't have decorating skills. I'm not even a half-decent graphical designer, etc. 

So, now I'd better stop. Who knows what will happen even in the near future then?.. 

Thank you for your warm words! 

Days had to be passed for me to realize that the national card game of the places I am from is called The Fool - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Durak" rel="nofollow - Durak !  

that is geeked out even for prog fan standards... 

here..  have a B&J wine cooler salute..  oh I wouldn't touch one... but seems appropriate 

You don't need a painter. You need a graphic designer. That's my second job. I do this stuff AAAALLL day! PM ME we'll kick around some potential ideas! 

I think, there must be some ripe potential fruits. We'll discuss it, I suppose. 

Anyway, I can tell you all what has led me to such a situation . 

I have invented a new card game called Knots. One may say, it has very complicated rules, though I'd say that bridge and especially his Russian colleague called preferans have much more complicated rules. 

What's my game like, if in short? 

Telling you without specific playing card games' terminology. 

Two players, 54 cards deck (Red joker, Black Joker), 27 cards given to each at once. Every player discards all jokers to which the opponent must discard one card for every joker. Then the turns begin. Each turn requires that one player (goer for the turn) puts one card - to which the opponent (beater for the turn) puts one, too. 25 turns per deck, that is. No trumps, no bidding. No winners or losers of the tricks per se. Simply, there're 10 points for every turn, each player gets its portion of 10 points according to the very obvious scheme: thus, if the beaters card is senior and of the same suit - the beater gets 10 points, the goer - 0 points; if the beater's card is senior but of the other suit of the same color - beater gets 6 points, goer 4 points; if the card is senior but of the other color - both get 5 points, et al. Then, at every turn, the balls are counted - the difference between the values of the played cards. The game lasts until one of the players reaches 1,000 points. Winner's gain is calculated so: twice the loser's points plus twice the winner's balls minus values of the cards left unplayed. 4 decks are used, as there are maximum 8 rounds possible. At rounds 3,4,7,8 cards of the players are mirrored (hello, bridge the sports!). 

While the rules seem complicated, believe me, they are very fair, just, honest, mathematically approved, whatever. For example, if one of the players, by luck or by cheating, gets all the senior cards of high values in all rounds, his/her victory is practically inevitable, but the winning score, winning profit would be rather miserable, as it depends on the points of the loser. On the other hand, if the player wants to spoil the party of the opponent that is rushing to victory by losing every possible thing - ther's a factor of winner's balls (no pun intended). Then, like in boxing, KO at the beginning of any round is not what the audience paid its money for - similarly, when the new deck is being played, it is better for a winner to play it to the end. 

All in all, I had an idea of creating a computer program of some sort to play versus computer's AI. There the unique set of cards would add to the atmosphere. 

That's great! But I think I'll use my raw style cards for this game of mine. I am also going to create the same game for Sega Mega Drive/Genesis 16bit video game console (1989-1998, RIP). There it would obviously require very special skills, so it'll take me time to create the game with SGDK, as I have no desire to kill myself by using old day ASM. 

However, although it may look like pure showing off for showing off's sake, recently I decided to change the deck's conventions, as it were - not only the faces of the cards. 

The game is going to be GG-deck-specific and I am not from the English-speaking world, I am from the formerly-Soviet world of Eastern Slavs - hence my modifications of the names of some cards. 

Suits: 

♠ - Pins 

♣ - Ways 

♦ - Cogs 

♥ - Hits 

Values: 

2 - 10 

Valet 

Dame 

King 

Ace 

Black Ensemble 

Red Ensemble 

Russian names for Jack is Valet and for Queen is Dama, which have actually been borrowed from French long ago. In French it's Valet and Dame. 

Soviet media mostly used the French-derived word ansAmbl' for any music bands. So do I the original word ensemble for jokers.

Thus, I have paid some respect to my roots, totally removed the possible occult links. Pleased the French players, too. 

Ace Of Pins by Motorhead, King Of Pins by whoever painted the album cover for Gentle Giant... 

Shut up and take my money!

As of now it's all uncompleted and exist only in electronic format. 

Anyway, I tried my best to make a concept of what it might be like. Perhaps I must return to the elder look of the playing cards when they all had undoubled, one-direction images. I don't know. But even in the pre-alpha-version raw design, yes, I agree, these cards look nice. 

Many thanks. I think I must use the color photo of Tony Visconti (Eight Of Clubs), because even late Martin Smith has the color photo in the deck. It's kinda unprofessional of me to use the only black-and-white photo for Mr. Visconti for no obvious reason. 

My urge for breaking the old rules continues...

New suits for the GG deck of playing cards:

I suppose that my ideas about changed suit signs, suit names, names of some cards... is too much for the start. 

I think, it must be the same suits, same names, same inscriptions on the cards. Just the GG-related images on each of them. 

Let's play the... knots, then 

https://gentlegiantband.com/products/gentle-giant-limited-edition-trading-cards" rel="nofollow - https://gentlegiantband.com/products/gentle-giant-limited-edition-trading-cards

I would buy a pack (even though I can't play cards!) 

I am still hoping someday I will be able to produce my set of playing cards. I have recently printed me a set on cardboard sheets. Anybody can do the same, actually. But to make it all on a professional level... I'd like my playing cards to be plastic, thick enough. I used to have a pack of Charlin Chaplin-themed playing cards by Piatnik. Respectable card makers and all that stuff - but the cards were too thin and fragile to actually use them. Just a nice gift, sorts of. 

As for the trading cards that are for sale on GG's merch site, they are excellent, indeed. A superb idea! I haven't bought them though, because I don't like trading cards. When I was a teenager in the 1990s I collected some Mortal Kombat ones, and that's it. 

When I finally complete my project of GG PLAYING cards, I will make all of you people know and possibly (POSSIBLY) send them to you for free. As of now, they are only on screen. 

In my comprehension, the suits go high-to-low thus: hearts, diamonds, clubs, spades. The black sharp weapon of Spades does not look supreme for me... Too black and too sharptipped, there is. 

So, I tried to rank it all somehow, to my tastes. Kerry Minnear is the greatest one of them all. Their debut album was excellent for its time, excellent due to its incredible versatility. Giant For A Day the album was obviously better genre-wise than Civilian, as for me. 

Unfortunately I could not find the large images for the cards of Two and Three, as of now. I'll try to find them on my PC. 

Unexpectedly, Gentle Giant the band and their output fit putting onto playing cards perfectly!  

There are 8 (2*4) members, overall. Four of them were clearly more equal than the other four - no offence, just pure logics. 

There are 8 (2*4) classic albums in the classic prog style. 

There are 4 more albums in their discography (1 official live + 3 studio). 

There are 2 official DVDs plus 2 outtakes&rarities collections. 

Hardly any other band could play that game called their career that playing cards-alike. 

Ace 

 Hearts - Kerry Minnear (the main composer of the band, the keyboardist, cellist, percussionist, frequent singer in studio, occasional rare singer on stage, PhD in composition at London Royal Academy of Music, the man that was selected instead of Elton John; a very humble, gentle, friendly person; a Christian Protestant believer).

Diamonds - Derek Shulman (singer and as such the frontman of the band). 

Clubs - Ray Shulman (bass guitar, cello). 

Spades - Phil Shulman (winds and some occasional singing; the eldest of the Shulmans, the eldest member in the band, left the band for good very early, but still was the founder and the axis of the band). 

King

 Hearts - Gary Green (guitars, a nice and friendly guy). 

 Diamonds - John Weather (drums, percussions, the drummer you actually see on 75% of their photos and 99.9% of their videos). 

 Clubs - Malcolm Mortimore (drums, played on only one album but that was Three Friends the album!). 

 Spades - Martin Smith (drums, undoubtedly also a nice person that left the band after the two albums where they and thus his playing had yet not reached the extreme heights). 

Queen 

 Gentle Giant (the debut album). 

 Three Firends. 

 The Power And The Glory. 

 Octopus. 

Jack

 Interview. 

 Free Hand. 

 In A Glass House (the first album after the departure of Phil, so it was a crisis for them and they were looking for a new approach, more rhythmic one - therefore, the compositions grew longer and in case of artificially expanded "Way Of Life" it became clear they had not have enough new material; hence my relative dislike of the album). 

 Acquiring The Taste (too monotonous for my taste). 

10 

 Playing The Fool - The Official Live (with all my true respect, it's only concert performances and as such very much the repetition of already made material, and several songs from their concert list had to be cut from this album because of duration limitations). 

 The Missing Piece (for me, As Old As You're Young is one of their all-time classic tunes). 

 Giant For A Day (I find it suspicious that Queen's "I'm Going Slightly Mad" recorded 13 years later, sounds very much alike to the eponymous song from this 1978's album; yeah, and GG's debut also ends with the rendition of The British National Anthem 5 years prior to Queen). 

 Civilian (a new wave attempt, the classic GGiant'ish sound has gone forever). 

9 

 Giant On The Box (DVD). 

 GG At The GG (DVD). 

 Under Construction (2 Audio CD). 

 Scraping The Barrel (3 Audio CD + 1 Data CD incl. mp3's). 

Print, play and have fun! 

Each card in each card what ever what ever... 

So, you may download the pictures from this page and compile yourself the whole 54-card deck now. At least, I did so.