Usagi Yojimbo 40th Anniversary

The Usagi Yojimbo Dojo will be publishing a 40th Anniversary Usagi Yojimbo Tribute book this November. It will be by fans and for fans of Stan Sakai's Usagi Yojimbo. Limited to 500 copies, available upon request for free (just pay postage) while supplies last. Since this will be a non-profit labor of love, any and all contributions to help cover the costs of printing are appreciated GoFundMe: https://www.gofundme.com/f/the-40th-anniversary-usagi-yojimbo-tribute-project

To request a copy email Steve Hubbell: usagiyojimbodojo@yahoo.com
with subject line "Usagi Yojimbo 40th Anniversary book"

To the left you can see my finished pinup for the book, and below I go through the process of creating it.

This piece started long before I knew about the 40th anniversary tribute book with a commission request by a fan who wanted a Mouse Guard Usagi crossover piece. I drew Usagi on copy paper, scanned him and placed him into a Photoshop template for the size of the commission, and then printed that out to use as reference to draw the branches and Guardmouse.

These drawings were scanned back into Photoshop and given a quick color blocking to help me see the difference between the leaves and the ground and the branches, etc.

I printed that above layout and taped it to a back of a sheet of Strathmore 300 series bristol.  On my Huion Lightpad I could se ethrough the bristol surface down to the printout to use as a guide while I inked. The pen I used were Copic Multiliner SP 0.7 & 0.3 nibs.

There was a lot going on in terms of depth on this piece and I wanted it not to get too busy, but still have bursts of texture and value so the viewer's eye could clearly see all the forms. 

The original was then sent off to the fan who commissioned it.

Then Steve Hubbell reached out about the tribute book asking if I could contribute something. I was so slammed with freelance work, commissions, and Convention prep, I didn't have time to create something new, so I made a plan to take the square commission and get it tall enough to fit a standard comic size. To do this I drew two birds and photoshopped in a cobbled together background pattern based on some Japanese patterns to become top and bottom border designs. Once the pencils and patterns were digitally assembled, I inked the two bird pieces in the same process as the main commission piece described above.

The original inks for these birds are available for sale in my online store:
mouseguard.bigcartel.com

With all the inked drawings scanned, I started the process of color flatting the piece.

This is the first step of coloring that is essentially a professional version of coloring-in-the-lines. It's all about establishing color areas, that the fur is a different color than the clothes, or the leaves, or the branches, etc.

In this step I also established color holds (areas where I want the linework to be a color other than black) on the leaf veins, Usagi's scar, the ground texture, and two on the decorative pattern behind the birds.

The final step was to render the image which I did mostly with the dodge and burn tools, but also a paintbrush and some special layers to created the dappled shadows on the scene.

Again, to request a FREE copy of the tribute book email Steve Hubbell: usagiyojimbodojo@yahoo.com
with subject line "Usagi Yojimbo 40th Anniversary book" and cover shipping. You can also charitably donate to the GoFundMe to help him with the costs: https://www.gofundme.com/f/the-40th-anniversary-usagi-yojimbo-tribute-project