FanArt_ink.Ride

MTGinktober rolls up on Day 28, "Ride," starring Huatli and her Raptor!

Heading into this one, I was going to draw Liliana riding a zombie, but that felt too similar to our season one entry for Transport, so I switched to a backup idea, an Akira poster spoof. The only tricky thing was deciding who was most famously a rider, possibly someone from Kaladesh associated with vehicles--but no one leapt to mind so that avenue was out--or Huatli and her dino pal, though we'd be stretching the strict expectation of a vehicle. But Huatli's my homegirl, so I was amped to get her her second MTGinktober appearance (also one of my most popular 2017 pieces).

I knew this would be an illustration with a ton of potential, as my Dragon Ball spoof went quite big, but wow, this one went huge on Twitter, the biggest response of anything I've posted there yet.

Fun Facts: I actually studied Akira in college, at Tokyo University, in fact. I watched the movie innumerable times, and yet I still don't quite understand it or even remember it terribly well! It's quite strange, but I guess college pressures you to churn through so much stuff so intensely over such a short period of time that sometimes it's hard for even stuff you analyze closely to stick with you. One of the deciding factors on doing this piece was it was a salute to my old senpai, the Tokyo Werewolf, who loves Akira.

Easter Eggs: Plugging in stickers was a treat. We've got Akira's air force star patch, an Ixalan sticker, Akira's Canon becomes Vance's Blasting Cannons (runner up was using "Common," but the double M was too lengthy and Catlacan additionally too obscure), and Citizen becomes Azcanta (Citizen is an obscure token in Magic, so I was entertaining keeping it as is). In lieu of a capsule logo on Huatli's back, since there's no reference for her from behind, I just mimicked her front design.

Not normal,

Reuxben