My post here is mostly unrelated to the fine Noah Bradley spider stronghold art work I’m posting which was finally all spoiled. What has occurred to me is that I can post a lot of artwork the game has 16 years of it, but most of it is not work we’ve been AD for. Really only a sliver of what we’ve worked on has been spoiled. I’ve toyed with spoiling some art here for the first time and that’s going to happen one of these days much to the bosses endless frustration I’m sure. 

That is why my posting has gone down a bit I really want to talk about work I know well. But worry not we’ll keep at it, but things will surge when Emperor Edition starts to spoil more, and even more so when EoW starts to spoil. EoW? Huh wonder what that stands for. ;)

So here is Heart of Rokugan from Wen Juin, one of our fine artists who has really proved he is reliable, creative, talented and quick. Wen Juin is the sort who we can go to and say we need an emergency piece and he will get us a great illustration with in days. This is actually a prime example of one of those sorts of pieces. The original Heart of Rokugan done by [REDACTED] suffered from several issues, being late, low quality and essentially incomplete, and the biggest issue a non-Asian character at the center of it. It suffered from a lot of problems sadly. So we issued a replacement from Wen Juinn. As you can see the results are a really cool action piece with a great warm colors of a setting sun. 

You people have a fever and the only solution is more Mario. This young lady suffers from pyromania of the highest disorder. She enjoys long walks on embers, incinerating wild flowers, deep conversations about propane and propane accessories and fire fiery fire killing mcfirey. Spoiled for the Elemental Destruction theme she got spoiled so fast that the color correction we asked for from Mario hadn’t even arrived. So here in all her glory is %^$#$#%##@$%^$#$ #$%^ with her final colors.

The detail on her is just amazing, the coins on her headdress have kanji, her eyes reflect the poor sap she is immolating. The casual way in which she kills is chilling. No remorse or pity she visually conveys total cold hearted ruthlessness, and its amazing. 

Ikoma Shika illustrated by Sergio Camarena (if anyone can find his website I’d love to link to it) and premiered in the Gen Con Lion Demo Deck and will see reprinting in Emperor Edition. Shikia is a beautiful example of dappled sunlight, atmosphere and composition. Shika crouches low in the woods to observe the enemy from her shaded vantage point ready to bolt at a moments notice. She is an example of a piece of art that really drew us in and established Sergio as someone we wanted to see more from. The whole piece is wonderful and she feels like she has a story which is such a huge part of L5R art, that you feel it is a character who has a background.

On the right I’ve included the color sketch and you can pick up some minor changes, the bow is made larger, arrows in the quiver show up, the terrain is still roughed out, but on the whole it required very little in the way of changes beyond the finalizing process. Notice how he adds an additional branch to close the empty space around her, and that every line really leads your eyes to her.

Sergio is a great fellow and you’ll be seeing plenty more of him to come as he’s fun to work with, energetic and loves to bounce ideas around.

Start off with a bang the “Iron Crane” from Mario Wibisono for Legend of the Five Rings upcoming set. She has gotten a lot of attention since we premiered her. The art description originally had her with a Daidoji mon tattoo on her wrist but due to the armor it ended up being covered, we moved it to her back which is just noticeable. Her two eye colors were selected to offer the story team some fun to play with. Notice the upper position she is in relative to the army behind her showing status and authority, and the twisting motion of her hair as she turns from them to us ready to set out. Her identity while not revealed yet, has caused a lot of speculation, much to our twisted delight. 

Mario has a photo realistic style with high detail and attention paid to lighting, fabrics and textures. He’s truly one of our favorites.