d3-14:

So, I’m also honored to be among the contributors to BATTLES WITHOUT HONOR AND HUMANITY, a yakuza-eiga inspired art show, curated by Sloane Leong. It jumps off on the 15th with a screening of one of my favorite films, Suzuki Seijun’s Branded to Kill.

My piece is a GratNin take on the Yakuza theme. It’s a movie poster for a film that never existed. An episode of Zatoichi subtitled Rising Sun Blues. It stars Nina Simone as a fated gambler drawn back to the infamous Rising Sun Gambling house. When a genius swordsman needs money to buy medicine for his ill lover, he takes a contract to collect the bakuto debts from the elusive Nina or return with her head. Drifting, blind, busking swordsman, Blind Lemon Jefferson is the only thing between Dylan’s sword and the sweet voiced, pioni fregrance’d Nina he meets while hustling the bakuto at the Rising Sun. 

So, I worked out the sketch on the computer…

I print that out as a magenta sketch and ink it…

Then I will tell you that I devise my swatches… but this colour family is pretty much a go to for me.

The rest is cake… I usually like the under-colour version nearly as much as the lined version.