Kakita Hideshi

Card art for Alderac Entertainment's Legend of the Five Rings CCG, The Heaven's Will Expansion

Kakita Hideshi - Crane Clan Duelist

A bit of back story:

I've played L5R as a semi-successful tournament player for about 8 years. I've actually played the game since the day it previewed at GenCon. My long running goal has always been to get a Shadowlands tainted Crane Clan duelist made into a card. Obviously I would've liked it to be Shimekiri, my kabuki, but you can't be picky about these things.

There have only been two Crane with the Shadowlands trait: Hoturi the Heartless, a non-tourney legal peep who I've always considered to be my card, due to me saying to Rich Wulf "RICH, HOTURI...TAINTED EMERALD CHAMPION! THINK ABOUT IT" and then him saying that I'd finally have my tainted Crane when the Thousand Years of Darkness was first conceived. Still, he was not legal to play in competition.

So when the THW art assignments came around, Todd Rowland, the Brand Manager and AD, assigned him to me. Todd and I have a long history together as Shadowlands players, having worked on numerous fan projects together. I was ecstatic to say the least. I pretty much had free reign to do as I pleased, so long as he looked like he was just showing the first symptoms of the Taint. Obviously I drew him as the pre-Taint Crane version of my character Shimekiri (Go ahead, compare Hideshi's face with the one on the Kotei t-shirt here: [link])

So while Hideshi doesn't technically have the full-time Shadowlands trait, he is still the guy I have been waiting to have in the game and do the art for. Here's to waiting/hoping for his Experienced version (and Nancy/Gisei on the Story Team DOES love her tainted Cranes), when he will don the kumadori and become the coolest L5R character EVER and the world will know both pain immeasurable and pleasures unspeakable.

I have to thank the awesome Steve Argyle for a lighting paint-over and helpful tips (thus his name on the piece) and my 9 year-old nephew Micah Honig for wielding the stylus on the Wacom and doing some background coloring.

Photoshop CS2