Hare_KuniConcepts_Pointers

More sketches they passed on for what would become the Kuniyoshi piece.

This one was fun, just like they are sorta competing with each other for the viewer's attention like Shonen rivals or something.

4/20/16

Reuxben

Hare_Ultimatum_Down

And old concept for an old dealio.

I liked the subtle blood splatter, the idea is he just got done beating up the background guy.

4/17/16

Reuxben

Hare_KuniConcepts_Ukiyoe

This was the sketch they went with for the Kuniyoshi piece.

I knew it would pigeonhole me but, hey, man, what are you gonna do, ya know?

4/4/16

Reuxben

Hare_Ultimatum_LtShadow

A sketch they passed on for the Ultimatum piece.

Felt nice and contemplative.

3/22/16

Reuxben

Hare_KuniConcepts

A trio of concepts we didn't use for the Kuniyoshi piece.

I really liked the kinda stereotypical shonen anime arrangement on the left. It was to have Mario Bros.-style clouds, even.

The middle was neat, but it would have been grueling to get everything lined up perfectly, so I'm actually happy they didn't go with that one!

The last one was just pure goofy shonen; made so many sketches for this, just wanted to mess around.

3/21/16

Reuxben

Hare_Tok.Ultimatum

And our final Hareruya player card, this one for Kenji Tsumura.
Fun Facts: He's famous for the card Cruel Ultimatum, it seems (wasn't really plugged in during Alara block cuz college), so they asked to put him in that card. I met him at the Born of the Gods prerelease, but he didn't know I was the guy who did the piece. We were formally introduced later.

Here's the background. See also inks and pencils.
In case you want to know how I did against him, I tried to target his hydra with Retraction Helix, he kindly indicated that's probably not wise, I tried targeting my own guy, he kindly indicated that's probably not wise, I waited until next turn for the summoning sickness to wear off. Long story short, he won.

Easter Eggs: Chicken drumstick and McDonald's fries.

2/5/16

Reuxben

Hare_Tok.Ultimatum_I

Here be inks for the Kenji token dealio.

I knew I wanted the bg to be fully painted, so just had to ink the foreground.

2/5/16

Reuxben

Hare_Tok.Ultimatum_P

Pro Tour Oath of the Gatewatch is minutes away, so thought it'd be a nice time to throwback to an ancient Hareruya piece, a player card for Kenji Tsumura. The other two in the set are here and here.

I remember time was tight on this one, so went for cel-shaded rather than fully painted on this one, though we started with a pencil base.

2/5/16

Reuxben

Hare_Tok.Kuniyoshi

One of my earlier assignments was for a Hareruya player card set. I mighta gotten pigeonholed by the ukiyoe style in this...

Again, studied a bunch of ukiyoe pieces for this, especially for the outrageous posing and hands. Kenji is famous for the peace-sign thing, and Saito for hats, so I wanted to include those. I had to include their uniforms, but other than that, could do whatever, so I tried to give them old-fashioned vibes otherwise, particularly on the footwear, which was quite fun. I saw facial hair rendered as grey-blue in my research, but it looked really bad in this modern interpretation, so we painted it black.

The Great Wave off Kanagawa riff is probably played out by now, but it felt kinda expected, if I'm doing a this style. The subtler element I'm probably more proud of is the sun, which I wanted to be prominent since that's the shop's mascot. And then the little hanko red-ink stamp I designed went through a couple iterations; I wanted it to be generally illegible, since I don't like screaming my name on stuff--just dumping the url on my posted work irks me, so I try to minimize even that.

Fun things that came from this were first, actually seeing these guys reenact the pose, and then later, giving Christian Calcano a good chortle with these when he randomly stopped by Hareruya some time around a GP. No, I don't whip out work whenever I meet people, but he asked to play Magic with me and tokens just tend to come up as you play and talk. He was playing Abzan and I was playing mono-stupid-rookie-mistakes.

I've played a few pros by now, and he's the only one that didn't sorta command an intimidating presence--it didn't feel like he was a "murderer," as I call them: he really puts you at ease when you play, despite painting bricks with your face. Only other guy like that is probably Saito himself. You're like haha, guess I had no chance after all! Other pros I can think of, it's more like you're there but not really in the game. One guy though...misery...

Anyway, as far as I know this was a pretty limited printing, though whomever did get to see it enjoyed it, but the only way to get these was via a random lottery pack thing, where you buy a random, custom-made, all-rare pack that may also include a tag redeemable for these or other fabulous prizes.

1/31/16

Reuxben