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12.10.2008

The Four Winds Linework

I've just finished designing the personifications of the Four Winds. Now in the story the heroine has to go to each of the 4 winds to ask for help in finding the castle east of the sun and west of the moon to save her prince beloved. I wanted to design the characters of the 4 winds and dug a little bit into asian and eastern european mythology. In China, the four cardinal directions of North, South, East and West each have a guardian assigned to them. The guardians are represented by animals and each have a color, season and element attributed to them. I tried to take all of these things into account when designing the characters. The four guardians are as follows.
The East's Guardian is the Dragon. He is the Keeper of the Kingdom and his season is spring, his color(s) is blue/green and his element is wood.

The West's Guardian is the White Tiger. He is the Lord of Limitless Vision and his season is fall, his color is white and his element is metal.

The South's Guardian is the Phoenix. He is the Lord of Spiritual Growth, the Expander and his season is summer, his color is red and his element is fire.

The North's Guardian is the Tortoise. He is the eldest and is the All Knowing Lord. His season is winter, his color is black and his element is water.




1 comment:

Matt Leese said...

I can't wait to see them all finished. You are really on a roll with these things.