a tribute to one of my most influential artists-cum-idols, shirow masamune.

this is my rendition of major motoko kusanagi, protagonist of shirow masamune's seminal graphic novel, Ghost in the Shell.

it's almost ten years to the day since I read an article in Wizard Magazine about the rising influence of manga in american mainstream comics. in that article were colored pieces from shirow masamune's Intron Depot artbook. in a time when photoshop was hardly as popular an artistic tool as it is now, masamune's color work was by far superior to his contemporaries... and he drew his artworks with WATER-BASED ACRYLICS!

you can say that i pursued self-studying how to color because of shirow masamune's work. talk about influence, man!

anyway, i hope i do the major some justice with this one.



pscs2 with a wacom intuos and intuos 3 (worked on it at home AND at work -- yeah, i was into it that much!), around 12 hours spread over a few days.

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EDIT: Sorry for the re-post, but i just wanted you guys to know (and since a lot of you have requested these), there are wallpaper versions of this deviation in my scraps section.

1280 x 1024 resolution >> [link]

and

1024 x 768 resolution >> [link]


i disabled the comments on those as they're merely resized versions of this one.

to everyone who's commented, added this to their favorites, or even just viewed it, a big THANK YOU.

i you all!