wonderful, i had a very long response written and my comment got eaten.  so, i'll paraphrase.

*ihaveasoultoo - i agree with you about the static pose.  my original sketches were much more dynamic, however i must confess that i went with the more static design to be more on the safe side and to keep the character on model.  my original art also had his mouth open and his tongue out, but with the shortness of his beak i couldn't make that look right, so i scrapped the idea.

i will respectfully disagree with you about the bird itself.  yes, i did my research and several pages of sketch studies.  however an egg shaped bird is quite difficult to anthropomorphize and i wanted him to be holding a weapon, so i went with a short, fat stance instead.  i am also familiar with the coloration of a kakapo.  i went with green and yellow to keep it simple because the tattoos are so busy.

i was not trying to depict a photorealistic kakapo here; it's a cartoon character.  keep that in mind, please.

theLolo - i am sorry you feel that way

gabri3l - i do agree that i could have pushed the tattoos to be a bit more authentic.  i started to have troubles especially in the face, due to the difference between a human head and this fellow's.  future versions will most certainly be more accurate.  that is a goal of mine :)

and to everyone else, thank you for the kind words.  they are appreciated!

I do love the idea, but I find it really bland >:

I think he'd look really awesome if he was in a Haka pose or something that should be threatening (since that's the idea of the Haka, it's a war demonstration to scare the other tribe, or as the case in modern culture goes, opposing rugby team):

http://manolobig.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2009/06/the-all-blacks-will-need-their-haka-to-motivate-th1.jpg

There's a video below too to look at more poses and something that's very distinctly Maori (people over the world usually potray them sticking their toungues out, as the leader in the video does)

Also, he doesn't really look like a kakapo to me, more just just a generic bird.

http://hatupatu.files.wordpress.com/2010/01/kakapo11.jpg

Kakapo are big and heavy, with round fat bodies. They also have fuzzy faces (while this guy has a fuzzy face, it's the same sort of fuzz you'd give to any furry creature and looks more like thick fur than thin strands) and have very short and stubby beaks. Also, while they are entirely green they don't all come in a single shade. While I can see slight variation in the stomach colouring to the rest, it doesn't really look enough to me. Plus there should be even more variation in the feather colouring itself, there's darker patches on the tip of itd wings which look like random triangle markings. To me, this looks like a green feathery penguin, mostly because of the body.

Just a little critique, feel free to prove me wrong on whatever you want

Need to be honest. I don't understand how this is getting a score this high. The pose is very static and uninteresting and doesn't tell a story. And it's a rather boring shape overall. The tattoos seem to be the only things that make this different from a photo of a bird. A lot of the other characters are much more imaginative.

Love the idea, just dont feel the tattoos look maori enough

i like this a lot. I usually don't like designs with huge backstories but i like his story and think it's really planed out well. and it's a bird so that's a plus too.