How long to make a tarot deck? A realistic timeline
How long to make a tarot deck is usually one to five years or more for a fully illustrated 78-card deck, and much less for a minimal-pip deck or a small oracle. The timeline is set by card count, whether you paint every pip, your medium, and the guidebook you owe at the end.
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That range is not padding. Creators on r/TarotDecks routinely describe "7 years start to finish," and the finish line lands as an emotional event: "The Fool is finally finished." A deck is a long project. Knowing what actually eats the time lets you plan one you will finish.
Why does it take so long to make a tarot deck?
A tarot deck is not one artwork. It is dozens. The number that greets you is 78: 22 Major Arcana plus 56 Minor Arcana, and every one of those is a piece you have to design, sketch, and finish to a consistent standard.
Compare that to a single illustration. If one polished painting takes you a week, 78 of them take a year and a half of Sundays before you touch the card back, the box, or the guidebook. The math is unforgiving, and it is why so many first decks stall in the minors.
Consistency stretches it further. Card 60 has to look like it belongs with card 2, so you cannot simply improve as you go without circling back to repaint the early cards you have outgrown. Many makers redo their first several majors near the end.
What actually drives the timeline?
Five things decide whether your deck takes a year or a decade. Card count is fixed at 78 for tarot, but the rest are choices you make.
- The pip decision. This is the biggest lever. In the Rider-Waite-Smith style, all 40 pip cards are full narrative scenes, so you are painting 78 unique compositions. In the older Marseille style, pips are arranged suit symbols, which collapses those 40 into a repeatable layout and leaves you roughly 38 original scenes (22 majors plus 16 courts). See the full split in the anatomy of a 78-card tarot deck.
- Your medium. Digital work in Procreate lets you undo, resize, and reuse. Traditional media does not. Foraged pigments ground by hand, watercolour on 300gsm hot-pressed paper, volcanic ash: gorgeous, and slow. A physical original also has to be scanned and color-corrected before it can print.
- Detail and size. A dense, fully rendered scene at high resolution takes many times longer than a flat, graphic one. Your own style sets your per-card hours more than anything else.
- The guidebook. A first-class guidebook is 78 entries, often upright and reversed, plus intro and spreads. Creators judge published decks harshly on this, so budget it as a real deliverable, not an afterthought. See how to write a tarot guidebook people keep.
- Life. Almost every indie deck is made around a job, caregiving, and burnout. Real calendar time is always longer than your painting hours suggest.
How long to make a tarot deck by deck type?
Here is a planning estimate by deck type, based on what creators report. These are ranges for the art alone, before print. Your own pace will move them.
| Deck type | Original scenes to paint | Rough time |
|---|---|---|
| Full RWS-illustrated, 78 cards | ~78 unique scenes | 2 to 5+ years |
| Minimal-pip (Marseille-style), 78 cards | ~38 (majors + courts) | 1 to 3 years |
| Small oracle, 30 to 50 cards | 30 to 50 | 6 months to 2 years |
The gap between the top row and the middle row is almost entirely the pip decision. Choosing a minimal-pip system is the single fastest way to cut years off a tarot deck without cutting quality. Deciding between the two before you paint is covered in the wider guide on how to make your own tarot deck.
An oracle is faster mostly because you control the count. There is no required 78, no four suits, no courts. You set the list. That freedom is real, though it moves every structural decision onto you.
How do you set a sustainable pace?
Work backward from a rate you can actually hold, then let the calendar tell you the truth. One finished card a week is a common, sustainable pace for a working artist. At that rate:
- 78 cards is about 18 months of painting, before the back, box, and guidebook.
- A 38-scene minimal-pip deck is about 9 months.
- A 44-card oracle is about 10 months.
Drop to one card a month, which is honest for a busy life, and a full 78-card deck stretches past six years. That is not failure. That is where the "7 years" stories come from. Push to two solid cards a week and a full deck's art fits inside a year, if your style allows it.
The trick is to pick a rate you can keep on a bad week, not your best week. A slow rate you actually sustain beats a fast one you abandon in March. Add a fixed block at the end, six to eight weeks, for the card back, title card, box art, print-file prep, and the guidebook, because those always take longer than they look.
Making the progress visible helps more than motivation does. A public weekly card reveal turns your pace into an audience-building habit: one finished card, one post, every week. It sets a gentle deadline and builds the buyers who will be waiting when the deck is done.
What if you are painting traditionally?
Traditional media adds time in two places most first-timers forget. The painting itself is slower because there is no undo, and every finished original then has to be photographed or scanned at high resolution, cleaned up, and color-corrected before it is print-ready. Budget a second pass over all 78 pieces just for digitizing.
It is worth it for the result and for this audience, which prizes hand-made work and is quick to spot and reject AI-generated decks. The extra months are part of what buyers are paying for. Just put them in the plan so the timeline does not surprise you at the finish.
Frequently asked questions
How long does it take to paint a 78-card tarot deck?
For a fully illustrated Rider-Waite-Smith style deck, plan 2 to 5 years or more of real calendar time. At one finished card a week the art alone is about 18 months, and life, consistency passes, and the guidebook stretch that out.
How long to make an oracle deck versus a tarot deck?
An oracle deck is usually faster because you set the card count, often 30 to 50, with no suits or courts. Expect roughly 6 months to 2 years for the art, against 1 to 5+ years for a full tarot deck.
What is the fastest way to make a tarot deck?
Cut the pip workload. A minimal-pip, Marseille-style deck leaves you about 38 original scenes instead of 78, which can halve your timeline. Working digitally and keeping your style graphic rather than densely rendered also saves real months.
Does the guidebook add much time?
Yes. A proper guidebook is 78 card entries plus intro and spreads, often written twice for upright and reversed. Reserve several weeks to a few months for it, and do not leave it until after the art or it becomes the thing that delays your launch.
Can I make a tarot deck in a year?
It is realistic for a minimal-pip deck or a small oracle at one to two finished cards a week, with the guidebook running alongside the art. A fully illustrated 78-card deck in a year is possible but demanding, and rare around a full-time job.
The honest bottom line
A tarot deck takes as long as 78 pieces of finished art take you, plus a card back, a box, and a guidebook, plus the months real life removes. For most indie makers that is one to five years, and the pip decision alone can swing it by years.
Pick a pace you can hold on your worst week, decide your pip style before the first sketch, and count the guidebook as real work from day one. Then the "finally finished" moment arrives on a plan instead of a prayer.
Foolmade lays out all 78 slots for your deck so you can see at a glance what is painted and what is still empty, majors and courts and every pip in its place. It turns a vague multi-year project into a visible checklist you fill in card by card. We never generate art. The paintings are yours; the map of where they go is handled.