The Black Tortoise of the North 北方玄武

Genbu (or Xuan Wu in Chinese) is one of the Four Symbols of the Chinese Constellation, along with Seiryuu (Blue Dragon) Byakko (White Tiger) and Suzaku (Red Sparrow). Genbu represents the North, the winter season and the element of Water (if this confuses you, it's because I made a mistake on the element of the previous two. My apologies).

Genbu is the third in the series now. For those who have been waiting for me to finish this, thanks a lot for your patience. I spent quite a bit more time and effort painting Genbu in comparison to the other two, so I hope it shows.

It was a bit of a love and hate relationship painting this though. At times it got VERY frustrating to paint. Not so very smart moves on my side mostly, since I painted the shell at the very last minute and since this is all painted in one layer, I had a lot of trouble painting around the head. But overall it was a lot of fun. I had a lot of opportunities to paint details and though I know it’s not perfect, I think I learned a lot.

I came up with an initial sketch fairly early, but it took a lot of tortoise and turtle pictures before I got a good idea of how to paint it all out. The shell is kind of inspired by a multitude of tortoise shell photo's I've seen and honestly I think it’s a weird mixture of everything and anything. As for the rest, I made the snake a viper (love those critters) and the head of the tortoise is sort of based on an Alligator Snapping Turtle, though I think you wouldn’t be able to see much resemblance now

I have a whole lot more to say actually, but I know when to shut up Click download if you want to see the full size. It's a large file, but the details can be seen better when you do. I'd appreciate it very much.

~Vyrilien

Medium: Painter 2, Photoshop CS2 (dodge tool here and there, but that’s about it), Wacom Tablet

Time taken: No idea, but I’ve been working on and off for two weeks.

Other parts of the Series:

Byakko:[link]
Seiryuu:[link]
Suzaku: [link]

And a hidden Fifth...

Huang Long: [link]