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Vyrilien — Genbu
Published: 2008-02-01 13:40:33 +0000 UTC; Views: 60749; Favourites: 1672; Downloads: 8756
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Description
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]
Related content
Comments: 196
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I imagine the creature as a giant black tortoise with a snake for a tail
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Thank you! I would render it differently today, but the design still works
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Interesting question
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specially, am doing a test manga free and for FUN based on the Naruto's manga shinobi world, named Shawella Dzen's saga. For now, we are 8 in the team(majority we are amateurs). All that i want is to have right on this image beacause the story will be show on YouTube in 3 different lang. Genbu have been separated by a dark mystical process did by an old evil god ninja, i'll explain all this in my chapter 0. The snake part have benne seal in a baby futur ninja girl from a clan specialized in the shadow element. You ma take a look on my own page, i show few drawings concepts of my characters. I want the right on it if it cost not too much for me, and probaly i'll buy it if you choose sell it to me. Let'S begin by this, tell me what do you think about all this. I may put you name at the end of the projetc too if you want to be collaborator with us.
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Amazing the relationship between the Chinese four directions and the Native North Americans' four directions. Thank you for sharing the mythos.
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i wish i had a bigass shell to protect my back
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Not in my picture, but sometimes yes! Genbu/Xuanwu is always depicted as a tortoise with a snake coiling around it, but I've seen a lot of renditions where the snake actually appears to be its tail
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I love this picture, I really do its very well done, and I'm jealous cause I can't do these types of pictures: However I thought that Genbu is the god of earth while Seiryuu is the god of water?
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These are really cool! o3o You'r really good at creatures! <3
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Thank you so very much! 
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I can't but notice the shading in the shell and scales. Awesome work!
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Thank you! Personally I don't like this painting so much anymore myself, but the shell and scales still look alright to me too
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Is interesting how you did them, it reminds me to the brush style used in some japanese paintings and the natural texture of turtles. (:
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Thank you for these, you did an excellent job
It can be hard to capture Genbu, but this turned out amazing.
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Genbu was probably the hardest of all of them!
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Have you heard of the story fushigi yuugi. I recommend it.
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Yes I have! I only saw the anime though (didn't read the sequel/spin-off story 'Genbu Kaiden'), but I thought the Four Symbols were awesome in them
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Me too, I only watched the anime. My friend told me that the spin off was bad. But yeah i loved the animation, except the constant repeating of Tamahome's name lol.
Yeah i always get my friend to sing the theme in karaoke, she has a great voice for it.
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Yeah so I heard. I might still give it a try sometime to see for myself though.
Ahaha, yeah, at some point it just went 'Tamahome.' 'Miaka' 'Tamahome!' 'Miaka!' Still awesome though if you can ignore that
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It is? In that case I might try reading it. And thank you! <3
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Hi...I made a hand drawing of this picture...check it out: [link]
Thanks Vyrilien
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This is great. But I just have one question, what's with the viper?
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Thanks
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I can see a resemblance to an Alligator Snapping Turtle, but also looks a bit like a Ceretopsian head.
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My brother has actually been looking for a good Genbu tattoo; we saw this and he fell in love with it. I hope you don't mind if we use this image as an outline of what he's looking for; 
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I really love the details of the face and the head. Nicely done!
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