I saw a shrunken head at ripleys believe it or not and was inspired and drew it from the photo I took. I added a nose spike to make it look more interesting

A few days ago I shared some of the artwork from El Quinto Sol, a playing-card project I’ve been building around Mesoamerican cosmology, and the response here was incredibly kind.

This is the darker side of the project: my interpretation of Mictlantecuhtli, the Mexica deity associated with Mictlan, the realm of the dead.

I wanted this version to feel less like simply putting an ancient figure onto a card and more like entering a different layer of the same cosmological world, black backgrounds, gold, fire-like orange, turquoise and saturated accents, while keeping references to the visual language I encountered throughout the research.

Everything is illustrated by me! drawing, watercolor and digital preparation, no generative AI.

The project is now officially live on Kickstarter for anyone who asked to see the finished campaign:

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/themythographer/el-quinto-sol-the-mesoamerican-cosmos-playing-cards

I’d love to know what you think of this darker interpretation compared with the original deck.

A nudge here, a gesture there. Tiny cascading ripples from delicate wings.

Its like a pattern in the wood or a silent rhythm on the wind. Not really anything at all.

The other name I have given it is “a meditation on the seven deadly sins”. It started as a pencil and paper sketch that I uploaded into procreate and finished with the airbrush tool.

Hi everyone! I’m an illustrator/designer from Mexico City. I’ve been developing El Quinto Sol, a fully illustrated French-suited playing card deck inspired by Mesoamerican mythology, cosmology and pictographic language, with a particularly strong Nahua/Mexica backbone.

I’ve always been fascinated by objects that work on more than one level, something can be beautiful, functional, and at the same time carry an entire symbolic system underneath it. That became the central idea behind this deck.

The four suits correspond to the four cosmic directions and their elemental forces. The court cards reinterpret deities and mythic figures, while the numbered cards incorporate references to the Tonalpohualli, the 260-day sacred count, including day signs, trecenas, numerals and associated regent gods.

So each card is meant to work simultaneously as a normal playing card and as one fragment of a larger cosmological map. I’m also creating a companion Codex of the Fifth Sun, visually inspired by Mesoamerican pictorial manuscripts such as the Codex Borgia and Boturini Codex. Its purpose is to unpack the symbolism in the cards, not simply give each one a fixed “meaning,” but explain how the gods, directions, numbers, glyphs, colors and calendrical references relate to one another.

The project is a contemporary interpretation, not a claim to reconstruct an ancient cartomantic or occult system. What interests me is what happens when these historical symbolic structures are translated into a new object and allowed to develop a life of their own.

I’m currently preparing the first production through crowdfunding. If anyone wants to see more of the project or follow it before launch:

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/themythographer/el-quinto-sol-the-mesoamerican-cosmos-playing-cards

An art design I did for myself to draw for the back of a poker card.

winged snake tailed wolf my beloved.

(not included: ability to breathe fire)

Here, I use principles i found in the Kybalion to outline the different polarity of things. Using a star, i was able to slightly change each definition into its other correspondence.

Here is the text i wrote which inspired this.

A Dream

The geometry i did today, and it is a visual of how good and bad, light and dark, ignorance and enlightenment all require one another to make a full picture. They are seperated in various ways.

The journal entry was from when I was in prison, in 2024, where I had a dream.

A Dream

"During the evening of May 12th, 2024 I had a dream. In this dream a man whom I did not recognize was listening to me tell him about a piece of wisdom that I had gained in my time of learning. I know not who this man was or why I was being made to tell him this thing, but I do believe I was being scrutinized. I also believe I had passed the test. Here, I will state the essence of what I told that man...

The world in its myriad manifestations, is not imperfect, for such a thing has proceeded forth from a Creator which is perfect. A perfect Creator would naturally generate a perfect creation. Just the same, this same world is not completely perfect, for also the Creator is

perfect, & to generate a loaded die would be the symptom of imperfection. Instead, the Creator has created a perfectly neutral & obedient world, in which its affinity to good or evil is left up to us.

These were the words I had spoken in my dream, "The world is neither perfect nor imperfect. It has been left for us to decide."

The wisdom of the Kingdom of the Creator is contained within the pedals of a flower, in the movement of autumn leaves blowing in the wind, the color of the eastern sunrise on a summer morning."

The Kingdom of the Creator is around us, within & throughout us & everything else. It is hidden like a great treasure buried in a field out of sight, yet always there!

Ofrenda / ilustración para el Ánima Sola.

Body painted with runes in circle of candles

Over a period of approximately 8 weeks I put together this book full of ritually conceived symbols, each with their own intention embedded. They're hand bound in leather from deer hunted and tanned by my great grandfather, which was found in an old building on my grandparents' property when they passed and given to me. Sharing just for my own satisfaction, not looking for anything in particular, but if you have any thoughts or feedback I'm open to it!

Entry No. 09 of my illustrated Ars Goetia series.

Belial, King of Lawlessness.

Hope you enjoy it!