For a pin-up that I'm working on for The League of Sequential Storytellers, I'm making several friends and myself into old-age Japan characters. This is my friend Tim's character that I designed. His, by far, is the most detailed and intricate of the pin-up characters. I had a heck of a time refering to different pictures of samurai armor and came up with one of my own design. Tim is the kind of guy that likes swords and blood, which is no small wonder why he pretty much fell in love with the anime/manga 'Berserk'. With that in mind, I designed his character to be a warmongering ronin whose place is on the battlefield.

Because of his bloodlust, I figured he needed to especially look intimidating and fierce so I chose to make his suit of armor fashioned after the oni, the demons/ogres of Japanese mythology (The larger kanji on his breastplate to the left, as well as the one on his helmet, translates as "oni" while the second two to the right stand for "ronin".). They were monstrous brutes with horns, curled fangs, and typically carried an ungodly huge club. I couldn't really portray anything recognizably "oni" in the design of the suit, but the helmet and face mask gave me a lot of freedom. Also, this character will wield a huge sword, not as big as Gatsu's but still pretty large. I want to keep it where it's so huge it lies between believable and unbelievable.

If I get around to it, I'll also include Tim's girlfriend, Ester, into the piece as a lady assassin skilled with shuriken (throwing weapons, particularly in her case throwing needles) and war fans as well as acupuncture and the martial art of Dim Mak (it's a style specialized in striking pressure points on the body, especially famous for it's knowledge of so-called death spots). It would be a nice compliment. Brute force and elegant skill. Both deadly, but opposite ends of the spectrum.