Cat's Eyes

This is my submission for the East Asian Monsters prompt here on TWD. Yes, I know it's been a while since I or anyone else has posted but hey, new posting! Exciting no?

I had no idea what I would do since my knowledge on East Asian Mythology is somewhat limited. Thankfully one of my friends lived in Japan for a time and has a ridiculous amount of knowledge on the subject of folklore and mythology. She suggested that I do what is known as a Bakeneko and while reading up on the creature (essentially a magical cat) one of the legends in particular caught my attention:

"Another famous bake-neko story is about a man named Takasu Genbei, whose mother’s personality changed completely after his pet cat went missing for many years. His mother avoided the company of friends and family and would take her meals alone in her room. When the family peeked in on her they saw a cat-like monster in the mother's clothes, chewing on animal carcasses. Takasu, still skeptical, slew what looked like his mother and after one day his mother's body turned back into his pet cat that had been missing."

This image popped into my head after I read the description. It's still a rough draft, just like everything else I do heh, but hopefully I'll be able to clean it up. 

Cheers. 

Everything My Tanuki Balls Touch Turns To Gold

Warning

Mature Content

Giant Scrotum Below

This is my submission for both Asian Monsters and Everything I touch is gold.

Am I proud of this illustration? No.

Have I been pressed for time and thus rushed this piece just to keep up cause I felt bad? Yes.

Will I make up for this in my next submission? Hope so.

Kappa

I spent a long time working on this painting. Since the new year I've been trying my hand at more traditional media because I wanted to challenge myself. I hadn't used physical paints since freshman year so it has been taking a little adjusting. There is certainly a lot more clean up involved.

This was done with an acrylic paint on watercolor paper. Pretty soon here I want to try painting on an actual canvas. I did do a little cheating and add the tint of the water over it in photoshop. I also smeared the paint that is above the water line to give it the impression of refraction, and then added some effects to make it once again look like paint strokes. I think its fairly seamless.

As you may have guessed, its my submission for the topic "East Asian Monsters" and shows a Kappa lurking in a river, watching a monk passing by. A kappa is a traditional monster from Japanese folklore. They are mischievous creatures and among other things have been blamed for drownings. The indentation on the top of its head is supposed to be a source of their power and as such, they must kept full when they are away from a water source. If it is made to spill it, then they become immobile. Kappas are said to obsess over being polite and if you give a bow to a kappa, it would be compelled to return the courtesy. The kappa will spill the water in its head it will be unable to leave the bowed position until filled again. Folklore says that a kappa will serve for all eternity any human who refills his head. They are also very fond of cucumbers.

I'm posting two versions: the original painting and the then the one with the features I added in photoshop.

ah long, ni hao

I'd wanted for some time to attempt drawing a Chinese dragon, or long, by referring to the 'nine likenesses', and so I figured this was my chance. :D this picture got waaaay out of hand pretty early on, but I'm glad it did. I haven't finished a big illustration like this in a long time, much less one done for myself, and I couldn't be prouder.

the nine likenesses are: "horns of a stag, head of a camel, eyes of a demon, neck of a snake, belly of a clam, scales of a fish, talons of an eagle, paws of a tiger, and ears of an ox."
-click for source.



some long fun facts I picked up - some I knew already, and others I found while I was bouncing around the net looking at stuff:

- long are carp that have managed to leap the Dragon's Gate, a waterfall along the Yellow River in China. the fish that make the jump are rewarded by being transformed into dragons (someday I want to make a proper picture of this). "the carp leaping over the dragon's gate" is a Chinese metaphor for someone that has worked hard and succeeded at his endeavors -- specifically in ancient times for someone who has passed the imperial examinations. this is also why we have magikarp and gyarados, hahah.

- long are water creatures and were believed by farmers to bring the rains, so sacrifices were made to the Dragon Kings to ward off drought.

for the record, I loved Mulan and still do.

- generally speaking, Chinese dragons have five toes on each foot, Korean dragons have four toes and Japanese dragons have three toes.

supposedly, according to the Chinese, dragons originated in China and as they moved further away from home they lost toes until they had not enough toes to walk properly; according to the Japanese, dragons originated in Japan, and as they moved further away from home they gained toes until they had too many to walk properly. I'm not sure how true this is, but it amuses me. some sources claim that in China only the Imperial dragons had five toes while all lesser kinds had four.


- linking to this story/idiom because the site tells it better than me:
"In the Southern and Northern Dynasties Period (420-589), there was a painter called Zhang Zengyou. Once he visited a temple and painted on the wall four dragons, but gave none of them eyes. The onlookers felt that this was odd, and asked why he hadn't painted the eyes. He answered, "Eyes are crucial for dragons. With the eyes painted on, the dragons would fly away." Nobody believed this, so Zhang Zengyou took up his brush and added eyes to two of the dragons. No sooner had he finished than the two dragons flew into the sky amid a thunderstorm. The two without eyes stayed painted on the wall.
This idiom is used to describe how, when writing or speaking, one or two sentences will enhance the contents."
-画 龙 点 睛
(I'd like to make a proper picture of this someday too.)

- by the Chinese zodiac, the fire dragon is my hour-of-birth sign. :)

..and that's not even a fraction of what I'd love to do for this topic *_* soooo many beasties, so little time.
being home is really making me realize how much Asia inspires me. ♥

demonic chinese ladies

i was really excited when tris picked the topic of asian monsters. here's a big sketch dump i did. since everyone wants to do something japanese, me and shelley thought it would be cool to draw chinese monsters. chinese mythology is really vast and not a lot of westerners know too much about it.
狐狸精 or huli jing, is a fox demon. its where the japanese got their kitsune from. not much different from each other (actually pretty much exactly the same), huli jing is a fox spirit, sometimes with nine tails. they can transform into ladies and seduce men. supposidly, a huli jing seduced the last emperor of a chinese dynasty and brought his downfall.

fun fact, huli jing is actually a slang for "whore" in cantonese. obviously came from the fact that they were fox demon ladies who seduced men.

here is 白蛇传, lady white snake or in cantonese bak seh. this is a very popular chinese tragedy about a scholar who marries a mysterious lady. it turns out she's a demonic white snake who can transform into a lady. she's actually a good person and really wants to be with this scholar, but a demon hunter hunts her down and imprisons her into a tower for all eternity.


僵尸 or jiang shi is a chinese vampire. originally, they sucked "chi" which is life force out of a human. western influences made it drink blood. jiang shi is really just a reanimate corpse. supposidly priests could control them by sticking a yellow piece of paper into their heads, with the word 符 or fu on it. jiang shi are the result of improper burials or unfair deaths such as suicide and murder.

interesting story.
supposidly back then, transportation was dangerous and expensive and chinese people could not afford to travel long distance to bury their dead. yet for some odd reason, everyone had enough money to hire a taoist priest. according to the legend, taoist priests would reanimate a family's corpse for them and actually lead them to their proper burials. jiang shi like bamboo for some odd reason and a taoist priest would dangle a bamboo stick in front of it and lead it on at night.

bottom line, it sucks to live in the chinese countryside....

or the malaysian countryside. i have a lot of friends living or from malaysia. they all speak cantonese so i do plan on visiting malaysian sometimes. apparently, malaysian vampire stories come out of the impoverished countryside. i drew a pontianak (don't know the chinese writing)
it first appears as a lovely lady. then it reveals to be a grotesque severed head with its entrails sticking out (what). its supposed to be a soul of a lady who died of childbirth. it has a knack for babies and little kids and it goes around chasing little children. shelley told me they used to scare her as a kid.
in fact, ALL malaysian vampires only prey on babies and little kids. that's just depressing.



lol i plan on submitting a second wave, a lot more happier stuff. not all chinese monsters are scary. i don't know. me and shelley were talking about chinese vampires, so i thought why not.

a gift real special, so take off the top

I expect to make a lot more (and better) posts regarding our current topic but I got this idea in my head and had to doodle and post. 'tis the season, after all. happy holidays everyone.



the box is made out of his balls, of course. eat your heart out, Lonely Island + JT!

if you're scratching your head in puzzlement, see this and this.

New Topic!

Ok, so I guess its my turn to choose the topic before the system changes and as always it should be something fun, so....

East Asian Monsters... it could be something entirely crazy and I know how we all like that. There are some pretty strange Japanese monsters (Yokai) but it needn't be limited to just Japan. It makes it a little more challenging to make it area specific but you know you will find something there that piques your interest.

And of course there are no limits to posting on an older topic, so if you who want to post an introduction, you still can.