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Description

This is a cover illustration I did for Estonian sci-fi magazine to accompany my story that got published in the same volume. The story was called "Death Poem" and it explored the concept of samurai's death and the message of death poems. The story basically covered the last hour of life of Ishida Mitsunari where he reflects back on the choices he had made and the reasons why he let himself taken alive - something that was not honorable for samurais who preferred to choose their own place and method of death. But for Mitsunari, it was the only option to keep his oath - to protect the son of his now dead master (Toyotomi Hideyoshi). So as long as he was alive, there might have been possibility to keep that oath - so he clings to life as long as possible, believes that nothing is written and everyone makes their own destiny. But in the end, he is still forced to write the death poem and he reflects over his life, his friendships and failures to what are the lines that he will leave to history.

It was very interesting story to write (and also very interesting experience to create an image that is so away from my usual style). Even though it has supernatural elements and it goes probably under "alternate-history", I did a lot of research and read lot of articles/books before setting to write what I had in mind. Mitsunari, for me, sounded like a very misunderstood person and history seemed to concentrate so much on his mistakes - I really started to think what if they were not "mistakes" and conscious decisions after the Battle of Sekigahara? And I also needed the supernatural element for the story to be suitable for that magazine so I included the "ghost girl" who shadowed events in Mitsunari's life - and when they finally have a confrontation at the end of the story and Mitsunari asks why she cursed him on her death moment - because he was just one of many lesser samurais present at the execution of Hideyoshi's nephew's family. (Historically interesting fact - the girl, Koma, was 15 years old and had just arrived to Kyoto, never actually met the man, to be Hideyoshi's nephew's concubine when he fell out of favor. When Hideyoshi ordered everyone of his nephew's family to be executed, there were pleads to spare the girl as she literally had no connection to the man or family but the messenger with pardon arrived too late - she was executed with the rest of Hidetsugu's family). And then the ghost girl confesses that she did not spend her last breath for cursing Mitsunari but Toyotomi line and the fall of Mitsunari is just a side-effect of that curse - he spent his life trying to protect Hideyoshi's son.

As I mentioned, it was also really challenging for working on this image, being so different from my usual style. I wanted something in a style of Japanese ink paintings as I literally love the aesthetics of these pieces. While living in Japan, I was frequent visitor to my favorite art museum and the ink painting collection they had there never ceased to amaze me. I also wanted to have roughness and maybe even anger on the image. The original cover image had the name of the magazine on it and I realized the design does not work without text on the left top corner - so for this version I slightly reworked it with the actual death poem Mitsunari wrote. (Another really nice challenge was going over the death poem with some experts in Japanese language trying to decipher the clever usage of kanjis and meaning behind the last words).

I know this is different but I hope you will enjoy it

warmtail | Marina | helgafo | + some purchased burshes

Description

This is a cover illustration I did for Estonian sci-fi magazine to accompany my story that got published in the same volume. The story was called "Death Poem" and it explored the concept of samurai's death and the message of death poems. The story basically covered the last hour of life of Ishida Mitsunari where he reflects back on the choices he had made and the reasons why he let himself taken alive - something that was not honorable for samurais who preferred to choose their own place and method of death. But for Mitsunari, it was the only option to keep his oath - to protect the son of his now dead master (Toyotomi Hideyoshi). So as long as he was alive, there might have been possibility to keep that oath - so he clings to life as long as possible, believes that nothing is written and everyone makes their own destiny. But in the end, he is still forced to write the death poem and he reflects over his life, his friendships and failures to what are the lines that he will leave to history.

It was very interesting story to write (and also very interesting experience to create an image that is so away from my usual style). Even though it has supernatural elements and it goes probably under "alternate-history", I did a lot of research and read lot of articles/books before setting to write what I had in mind. Mitsunari, for me, sounded like a very misunderstood person and history seemed to concentrate so much on his mistakes - I really started to think what if they were not "mistakes" and conscious decisions after the Battle of Sekigahara? And I also needed the supernatural element for the story to be suitable for that magazine so I included the "ghost girl" who shadowed events in Mitsunari's life - and when they finally have a confrontation at the end of the story and Mitsunari asks why she cursed him on her death moment - because he was just one of many lesser samurais present at the execution of Hideyoshi's nephew's family. (Historically interesting fact - the girl, Koma, was 15 years old and had just arrived to Kyoto, never actually met the man, to be Hideyoshi's nephew's concubine when he fell out of favor. When Hideyoshi ordered everyone of his nephew's family to be executed, there were pleads to spare the girl as she literally had no connection to the man or family but the messenger with pardon arrived too late - she was executed with the rest of Hidetsugu's family). And then the ghost girl confesses that she did not spend her last breath for cursing Mitsunari but Toyotomi line and the fall of Mitsunari is just a side-effect of that curse - he spent his life trying to protect Hideyoshi's son.

As I mentioned, it was also really challenging for working on this image, being so different from my usual style. I wanted something in a style of Japanese ink paintings as I literally love the aesthetics of these pieces. While living in Japan, I was frequent visitor to my favorite art museum and the ink painting collection they had there never ceased to amaze me. I also wanted to have roughness and maybe even anger on the image. The original cover image had the name of the magazine on it and I realized the design does not work without text on the left top corner - so for this version I slightly reworked it with the actual death poem Mitsunari wrote. (Another really nice challenge was going over the death poem with some experts in Japanese language trying to decipher the clever usage of kanjis and meaning behind the last words).

I know this is different but I hope you will enjoy it

warmtail | Marina | helgafo | + some purchased burshes