"I'm a professional children's book illustrator by trade. After a solid year of illustrating books, I was looking for a change of pace, so I came up with this project.
I'm a huge fan of Japanese history, and ukiyo-e illustrations in particular. The most interseting thing to me is that even 300 years ago, Japan had a thriving pop culture scene. They published comedy, romance, tragedy, adventure, ghost stories – you name it, they made it. The ukiyo-e prints were intended for mass consumption. They definitely weren't fine art.
Fast forward 300 years, and Japan is still churning out tons of pop culture, including video games. And if you look at Japanese games, you'll find a lot of influences from the old Ukiyo-e culture. "Boss fights", invicible warriors, and crazy adventures were as common then as they are now.
To a large degree, Japan defined the modern video game. And when they exported those games around the world, their ancient culture came with them.
That all sounds a little heady, but I hope that my images take the concept, and communicate it in a fun way. They aren't high art, for sure. Maybe fan art, at best. But that's okay, because ukiyo-e were never considered "art" in their time either. They were meant to be fun.
As for the series, I'm just going to keep making images until I run out of ideas. But for now, I'm having a BLAST!
Prints go on sale Aug 1, and they'll cost between $30 - $40. They'll be pretty big - 16"x20", and will be printed on handmade Japanese kozo paper."
Prints go on sale 8.1.12 on www.kickstarter.com
Check out more at http://www.facebook.com/UkiyoEHeroes
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