L5R: Ginawa (1999)
Pulling Back
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The original artwork for Ginawa is available for a limited time.
The Legend of the Five Rings card game featured a number of characters, established mostly in the first set, which were central to the storyline for the game’s first few years and at least the entire first story arc. I had the opportunity of creating a couple of these, and obviously other artists created others. I played the game some in those years, and liked Bryon Wackwitz’ portrayal of the character Ginawa. A few years later, I was asked to illustrate the character later in his story arc.
While it was the case that players really enjoyed the storyline doled out through and alongside the game, I confess I didn’t follow along in this regard. In instances where I needed to either re-portray my own or other artists’ characters, I usually just had a quick phone call with Art Director Matt Wilson and he relayed any key details to me. Matt was no longer AD for the game in 1999, but whatever context I received I no longer recall.
It was known that character cards contained a framing circle within a rectangle, and this was useful for centering the character and making the card type identifiable. Bryon’s portrayal, as most, brought the character forward to fill as much of the frame as possible—given that these are reproduced small, this is a standard and good solution to increase detail and readability. I decided to take an opposite approach here, to set the two portrayals apart clearly, and pulled the camera back. I knew of course that the full figure would not appear, but the top half of the figure or so would, and this would still create a composition with a smaller figure than usual. It was for my own pleasure that I also pulled the image taller than needed or requested, so I could get the full figure in.
Working on these card games has meant that it’s unusual to show a full standing figure, since the reproduction is so small. That’s unfortunate, but in instances like this, I did it anyway.
This was done in the era where the final drawing was straight to the board and painted over, and as I have access to no other preliminary works, I include another full-figure character from the L5R Roleplaying game, which I rendered in charcoal as an interior illustration.
Much as I enjoyed working on this game at the start of my career, I was about to retire from it. After this I did one final piece for the game and then that was it.
The original artwork for Ginawa is available for a limited time.
