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Maui, Hero of Mankind

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Celebrating the release of Moana this week, I present you Mr. Demigod extraordinaire, Maui! I am a dummy! 

---Maui, Hero of mankind-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
A demigod and culture hero from Polynesian mythology, whose deeds are accounted in numerous tales in almost all of the region's islands. A trickster figure, Maui is a cunning and sly human with great strength, wits, and magical powers of shapeshifting, and is armed with a giant magic fish hook called Manaiakalani as his iconic tool. He's raised by spirits in the heavens after being abandoned as an infant by his mother, but returns to the mortal realm and his human family after reaching adolescence. Although initially suspicious of him, his family takes him back after he proves he is indeed their child. Maui is responsible for great deeds that helped improve the life of humans, including: Lassoing the sun and beating him until he agrees to run slower across the skies so that the days would be longer; stealing fire for mankind from the fingers of the fire goddess Mahuika; creating many islands by pulling them from the bottom of the ocean with his magic fish hook; lifts the sky to its current position so that men would walk along the earth; defeats the eel god Tuna Roa and by planting his insides creates the first coconut tree... And many others. As his final deed he tries to obtain immortality for all men through a ritual involving the goddess of night and death, Hine-nui-te-po. By transforming into a gecko and crawling all the way from her genitals through her body and exiting her mouth, Maui would reverse "the flow of birth", killing the goddess of death and freeing men from it. Unfortunately, as soon as he enters her body, his friends and brothers which had accompanied him start laughing from the ridiculous sight, awakening the goddess who kills Maui with the obsidian teeth inside her, condemning all mankind to her abode after death.
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His design is pretty straight forward and basic, and I considering the kind of stuff I've posted already, I was
afraid some random dude on a white background was going to be a bit underwhelming, so considering his
adventures and what he's done are a great part of who he is, I've included some background illustrating
some of his adventures. The main focus here was on imitating some traditional Polynesian patterns and motifs.

Maui himself is on par with traditional depiction, apart from his done, as far as appearances go he's just a
normal human. There's a lot a bird references in his stories, he even turns into one sometimes, so there's
some feather motif on his hair. He's also got some traditional polynesian tattoos, and a cape made of leaves
and flowers for some flair.

In the background we have some of his episodes illustrated. One of the most famous ones is his lassoing of
the sun, but we also have Tuna-Roa, the eel god as a guest, and on the background we have the goddess
Hine-nui-te-po. I originally intended to give her a proper design, but couldn't due to lack of time, so she's
reduced to this silhouette-like creature, really a shame. :( (Sad) 
The Kereru bird and the gecko, two of Maui's transformations in his stories, are included accompanying him as well.

...Well, that's it from me this time!
Hope you all liked it, and see you all next time! :D (Big Grin) 
Image size
2520x3468px 14.66 MB
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Comments35
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AngelOfBeauty88's avatar
He looks epic! .... And now I've got 'You're Welcome' in my head again! XD