Hugin of the Fylgjur

Final character design for an ongoing project focused on redesigning the film Seven Samurai by Akira Kurosawa with a Viking context in mind.

Tasked with inventing the Vikings' equivalent of the Japanese Samurai, I focused on characteristics I believed to be central to the Samurai identity, namely servitude to a higher authority and a sense of nobility and honor upheld in that service. Going off of this, I chose to create a fictional order of totemic warriors who take on the mantles of the animals associated with the Norse god Odin. For this character, who mimics the role of Kambei Shimada from the original film, the animal whose mantle he dons is that of Hugin, one of the two mythical ravens of Odin who travel across the world to collect knowledge for the Aesir king. He is well past his prime, but when forces of destruction arise threatening nearby villages, he cannot help but to take up arms and strive to protect the Norse people.

I cast Sir Christopher Lee to play Hugin.