Today’s yokai is another request, and a good one at that! I’ve been painting a lot of cursed women, so it’s a fresh change to paint a cursed man.
This is Wanyudo, a horrible being from Hell, said to be the soul of a tyrant daimyo who was known for drawing them on an oxcart. Now he roams the road between Earth and Hell, stealing the souls of anyone unfortunate to get too close and dragging them back to hell. The wheel is a pretty important symbol in Buddhism, which may also carry other connotations about this demon’s eternal punishment.
I like this yokai because it’s so Dante-eqsue. I guess the image of Hell where tormented souls are forced to relive their own crimes is not just a Western thing. Very cool monster!
Wanyudo
A few people have asked me if I’ll be selling prints of these. The answer is most definitely yes! Not until November though… October is far too busy with painting yokai every day to make up prints of these, but some time in early- to mid-November, I’ll start putting prints up on my Etsy store. Thanks for your support!
I think this one appears in a Wii gamed called Heavenly Guardian (US title)
There’s a monster in the game that looks like an old lady in a flaming wheelchair that tries to run you over.
Good call. I think they also appeared at one point in Okami (not sure what the English title is). A lot of the strange monsters in video games actually came from Japanese yokai… I’m finding this out more and more as I look at them and think back, “Hey, I remember fighting that guy on NES back when I was a kid.”
Great picture! I think you really captured the terror inflicting stare of this yokai. Glad to hear you will be putting these up for purchase, don’t suppose you have thought about combining all of them into a single large poster or something similar? Would be great to be able to get the full set somehow. Anyway shame to see the end of the month coming up but still looking forward to seeing your final few!
That’s a good point, but I don’t know how I would fit them all onto a single poster, as they all have different backgrounds. I’ll see what I can do about that, though — there may be some interesting way to combine them together.
Great stuff, you really captured the horrific nature of this Yokai. Glad to hear you will be selling prints however have you thought about combining all (Or at least a few) of the pictures into a single piece such as a poster or something similar? Would be great to be able to get the full set of these. Anyway keep up the great work, I am sorry to see the end of the month arrive as it will mean no more Yokai. 🙁
Brillian art work on an great subject. I love the little modern twists pt into the pictures. I’d love to see you to a Ryu / Tatsu such as Mazuchi.
Thank you. 🙂
This project was pretty popular, so I plan on revisiting it very soon. Probably after Christmas I will start painting Japanese kami and other creatures, so there will definitely be Ryu.
Brilliant!
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