Yabusame warriors - Illustration
I was pretty mindful of my values during the whole process so that it wouldn't feel messy despite the large amount of details I wanted to portray.
After 6 months at Paradox interactive as an intern I wanted to show my improvement and combine it with my burning passion for the theme of ancient Japan. This illustration is part of a bigger project I'm making for my portfolio and I'm very exited to share that soon as well.
The artstyle is inspired by the gorgeous painterly art direction of Crusader Kings 3 and I really enjoy trying to capture a traditional media feeling with digital means.
The idea for the illustration itself came about as I found myself fascinated by Yabusame, the Japanese traditional skill, practice and rite of shooting whistling arrows from a galloping horse. The tradition is present in modern day but out of curiousity I wanted to know where it came from. I then found out that samurai would start having duels on horseback shooting arrows at each other back in the Heian period and that mounted archery was practiced a lot during the Kamakura period as millitary training to keep samurai prepared for war. Yabusame is the name of what is today an art practiced in Japan for entertainment purposes where they dress up in traditional clothing and gets three arrows to shoot at targets. I got really inspired to create something based on the origins of mounted archery in Japan and this is what came from it.
