“Urashimako“ - Piece for  Giant Robot’s “Underwater“ themed

“Urashimako“ - Piece for  Giant Robot’s “Underwater“ themed show. Original is black ink with grey & red copic. This dark greeen grey is added digitally. The composition is actually a remake from one of my old drawing because I wanted to see how I improved since then. The inspiration / theme is from Japanese folktale of Urashima Tarou.  

“Urashima Tarō (浦島 太郎) is the protagonist of a Japanese fairy tale(otogi banashi), who in a typical modern version is a fisherman rewarded for rescuing a turtle, and carried on its back to the Dragon Palace (Ryūgū-jō) beneath the sea. There he is entertained by the princess Otohime as a reward. He spends what he believes to be several days with the princess, but when he returns to his home village, he discovers he has been gone for at least 100 years. When he opens the forbidden jewelled box (tamatebako), given to him by Otohime on his departure, he turns into an old man.” - Wikipedia

So I drew deep sea creatures, added kimono, tamate bako and some literature books of Manyoshu & Nihon Shoki in the corner. My intention for the clothes on above was to illustrate 4 walls of season ( at the palace ) that was mentioned in the story but I couldn’t articulate well as I wanted. This was my challenge to actually draw a cityscape in copic and I think I did good job in small details but as overall - the values weak I think and making less dynamic. I actually scanned the line art beforehand and made a color composition in Photoshop ( which I never do ( and I know I should do it every-time) but I still felt need more practicing doing that. One concern is that copic is not archival so it will fade over time no matter how you take care of it so I need to start thinking about another material I can replace with it. It’s so hard because I love copic too much.

Listening to : SORARU - Yurayura