Edwin David - Hida Yamadera - With Yamadera we wanted him with the new sword he picked up and a touch of his corruption madness mixed with his berserker frothiness.
Shen Fei - Yasuki Peddler -Mix Traveling peddler with Of Mice and Men characters and you have the recipe for this. Envisioned were two brothers, the brains and the brawn, working the business.
Edwin David - Doji Dainagon -Stylish and courtly presence. Dainagon has a bit of a following. We had hoped to get Rebekah Norris back for the art but she was unavailable so Edwin David stepped in for us. He did a great job at capturing the vision that Dainagon is a brain and a beauty in the court, armed with her words and her charm.
Alayna Lemmer - Daidoji Market Place - A bustling downtown market outside Shiro Daidoji. Alayna put in one or two of her prior characters for fun, can you find them? Peaceful and orderly was the goal for this market.
Set the Fields Aflame -Midnight Illustration (Sam Manley) -We more or less said find a castle you like and burn it and all it’s surroundings to the ground. Mission accomplished I’d say.
Touch the Emptiness - I believe I told Ed this was the inflict migraine of death spell.
Direct the Path - I’d watched a judo match around the time this was getting made and wanted to show of some of the formal martial arts in a match. I different battle field for honor to be gained on and for opponents to be messed with.
Lessons Never Forgotten - Edwin David - I wanted a little RTOJ moment for a yojimbo having to bury her charge. The description asked for grief but we didn’t lean it towards death by age or violent death. In either case it wasn’t really the point, I wanted to show a yojimbo doing the last task for an honored friend.
The New Foundries - Noah Bradley - A massive structure build into the side of a plateau we wanted to give the Foundries a scale and a unique visual with bursts of chemical light and flares of alchemy fire lighting it up. This was I think my favorite of the three strongholds.
Agasha Kurou - David Horne - This one went through a few tweaks on the look, pose and design on the bottles. I really liked the result, Davids style is so crisp and clean, and the tossing the chemical grenades. Originally we wanted him to be summoning a wall with a shattered bottled but it just wasn’t flowing in the sketches so we went for the moment before. Yes that’s right, exploding wall grenades.
Asako Hayate - Randolph Williams - Randolph was a new fellow we tried out, his style is very traditional and old school. I had been obsessing over rivers and boat homes and got this idea of an Asako who lived in a boat and traveled the rivers of the empire.
Asako Jirou - Stu Barnes - This one was fun. I basically told Stu I wanted an inquisitor using his air spells to bind a captured fugitive in the air. He added the upside down part and it was awesome.
Isawa Hinata - Marc Scheff - Originally having a range increase trait on her we had Marc show off how she was increasing range attacks with fire, and lots of it.
Natsumi - Alex Tooth - A water Ryu Natsumi was given to Alex because he has a flowing style and I wanted to see a water dragon ryu out of him.
Shiba Kudome - Edwin David - Kudome needed to be powerful and fiery, Edwin took on the always tricky use of fire, red armor and red lighting and gave us one tough looking samurai.
Keitaku - Steve Argyle - I really pestered Steve on this one, it has so much lore poured into it, I wanted it to get some great attention. In the full size notice the blades pattern of fire, the flame motive worked into the saya. Steve on the swords made an effort to give each it’s own location, and even arranged the silks in such a way that he felt matched each clans attitude.
