The Year of The Rabbit

Final painting

This image started with 2 thoughts:

• draw a romantic image for Lunar New Year,
• experiment with tall, vertical image. 

On my sketchbook, I made this note:

• Rabbit!
• Heavier lineworks.
• Color with markers?

These are the possible themes I thought I would like to explore. With those notes, I started drawing a few exploration thumbnails. I drew a rabbit flying down among clouds (see 1). I probably thought the clouds could be rendered with heavier line works. I then explored placement of the rabbit relative to the moon (see 2). Next, I added a trail of clouds, roughly "S" shaped (see 3).

Exploration thumbnails

At this point, I decided on 1:2 size ratio—that is, the height of the image is twice the width.

Learning from previous mistake, I sketched another idea (see 4) just to convince myself that I really wanted to go with the initial idea. Once convinced, I drew the rough composition (see 5). 

Second round of thumbnails

When transferring this thumbnail to large paper, I found it difficult to finalize the shape of the cloud trail. I wanted to have some characteristics of Chinese paintings, but I also wanted the lines to look appealing.

I introduced 2 new elements to sweeten the image: peach blossom petals and butterflies. I chose these elements because they are common in Lunar New Year imagery. I also hoped that they would strengthen the feeling of Chinese painting.

Pencil of the final image

Next comes inking. I was really worried about inking long curvy lines. The drawing is just slightly smaller than A3 size, larger than my usual drawings. I decided to stick to drawing pens and concentrated on drawing long strokes with shoulder as pivot. The first few lines were nerve-wracking! Soon I grew confident with this process and actually felt sorry when all the clouds were inked.

Inked final image

I started coloring with color thumbnails. I painted these in sequence, left to right.

• First I painted object colors. The sky is blue; the moon is pale yellow; rabbit is grey. The exception is clouds. They are pink because I wanted a romantic feeling.
• Next I painted with the idea of glowing rabbit. I liked the contrast; but I found the feeling not romantic.
• Then I painted with the idea of romantic. This is subjective, so this scheme is probably the most difficult to understand. The sky is pink; the moon is pale white; the clouds rabbit is orange and the clouds are orange-pink.

At this point, I compared the 3 schemes and made notes to myself. I left the painting and returned to it the next day. I painted the final scheme, the one on extreme right. This is my choices of combining ideas I found from the previous 3 schemes.

Color thumbnails

While painting, I added cherry branches to break up the space and add depth. To enhance the feeling of Chinese painting, I drew a "DennyIskArt" seal instead of my usual signature.

I am happy with the final image. To me it feels like a romantic Chinese painting for the Year of the Rabbit :)

On a cold winter's day, a bowl of hot ramen is bliss!

Final painting

The idea behind this painting is simple: in cold winter, entice audience with something warm.

I started with warm bath (see 1). I felt that a good composition would require a lot of effort, so I moved on to the character being close to giant warm dessert (see 2). Note that I attempted to include Little Star characters until this point.

Thumbnail of initial ideas

Next I decided to draw new characters so I can get an easy, symmetrical composition (see 3). I did not know yet what food I was going to draw. I considered soup, tom yum, and hot dessert; and decided to go with ramen because it is probably the most recognizable item.

I learned from "Red Amanita in the Rain" process that I have been lax with composition and color planning. So I continued with more composition options: star-shaped frame (see 4), circular frame (see 5), "speed lines" (see 6), and steam shapes (see 7). I liked all these, but decided to go with steam shape because I thought it would be more unique.

Second round of thumbnails

I went at it a little further and sketched the ornamental shapes (see 8). All these culminated in this pencil work.

Pencil of the final image

I was really happy with it. I thought the composition worked after all the effort I put in... I soon realized that the image was essentially a ramen packaging design! Lol. But I was okay with that. Maybe a familiar look was not a bad thing.

Inked final image

Coloring is another aspect that I had neglected in the last 2 images. I started with color thumbnails (not shown here), but ended up with a straightforward scheme: warm foreground, cool background.

Rough color scheme. The kids still look like zombies :)

I started painting the ramen because I wanted the focus of the image to get more work. I then progressed outward to the children and background. One of the new things I wanted to try was adding drawn shapes and symbols to flat areas. So I added some snowflakes. With restraint, I drew only 3. I wanted to draw more, but I felt it would only make the image busier.

I also attempted to control color saturation, though probably I did not do so well in this aspect. Still, I am happy with the final image. More planning definitely paid off.

Eliciting Emotion and Emotive Conjugation

Here is a trend that I personally find concerning.

By now it it generally recommended that writing should elicit emotion. In fictional writing, this is great; in factual reporting, this should not be done.

One method widely used in reporting is Emotive Conjugation. The same behavior is written differently to portray a person positively or negatively depending on the writer's intention. For example:

• I am firm, you are obstinate, he is a pig-headed fool.
• I am righteously indignant, you are annoyed, he is making a fuss over nothing.
• I have reconsidered the matter, you have changed your mind, he has gone back on his word.

You can read a longer explanation on Wikipedia.

Emotive conjugation is divisive. As readers, we should be aware of it use in media and keep ourselves neutral. We should extract ideas from content we consume, reflect on these ideas, and form our own conclusions.

This is not easy to do in the age of social media. We consume so much content that we hardly have time to reflect and to form our own conclusions. However, this is why this is important to highlight this (and the reason I am writing this post).

What are your thoughts on this topic? Feel free to chime in in the comments.