Crane Samurai

Gracefully cutting through wind and snow

This crane samurai started out as a bad pun and a quick sketch based on the Legend of the Five Rings card game by Fantasy Flight. I thought the idea was neat and decided to turn the initial image into a full painting after playing around with the character’s pose and adjusting the composition to take advantage of the crane’s curving beak and the swirling snow effect emmanating from the sheathed blade.