Art Attack! #3: Attack on Shi(on)buya!

Hey Steemit!

Happy Leap Day everyone! It's a special day that only comes once every 4 years! It should really be a holiday, but I guess that doesn't make much of a difference since it's Sunday. I actually did a bit of research, and the reason why we have Leap days is to keep our modern-day Gregorian calendar in alignment with Earth's revolutions around the Sun. Because the Earth takes 365 days, 5 hours, 48 minutes, and 45 seconds, to circle once around the Sun, and our calendar only has 365 days, over time our dates will get messed up if we don't compensate with an extra day once every 4 years! Yay, knowledge!

But anyway, it's Art Attack time again!

I'm so glad people liked my shiba painting last week! I didn't think anyone would take notice so yay!

This week, I decided to share a piece I actually did for @seanytan's birthday back in 2018! I believe this was the first time I'd given him an art piece as a present and I was still really pretty new to drawing. I wanted to make something unique, and my first thought was actually a Travel Japan type of poster, something similar to this (since Japan is our favourite country):

Source: juniqe.com

But since I hasn't gotten into painting at the time, the only colouring medium I had were colouring pencils, which if you recall I lamented about in the first post that it is absolutely exhausting!

So I decided to take a different approach. I needed something that wouldn't require as much colouring, but I liked the idea of the Travel Japan poster. I decided to make a list of all the things that Sean likes and make something like a collage. Then I came up with a pretty cool idea:

This was my draft

Sean's favourite city in Japan is Osaka, and an iconic area in Osaka is definitely Dotonbori, with all the flashy signboards lighting up the canal.

With that in mind, I thought what if I changed all the advertisements and signboards into things that Sean likes? So it'll be like a collage, but cooler (maybe).

Using this picture, I drew up a template for the skyline. It took a while to get the measurements just right, but I got some pretty good space in the end.

I actually found my list of notes!

Sketch dotonbori signs
お誕生日おめでとうSeany ❤ 愛しています 😘
The office japanese
Deadpool on unicorn / deadpool w thanos
Mochi sheebs
Corgi
Ddr square w arrows
glico one punch man
Shokugeki yukihira
Soccer
Phoenix wright japanese
Dota logo
Godzilla hiding at top left
Sheebs hiding at top right
Running man logo
Skyrim
Diablo 2
Jay chou

One of the first things I thought of was definitely drawing the glico man sign as one-punch man, and I'm quite pleased with how that turned out.

Next, it was time to fill in the spaces! In my draft I already had a plan of what to draw in which spaces, so it was just the matter of doing it.

Deadpool 2 was constantly being advertised at the time

Thats one third mostly done!

The Office (JP)!

Wright & Co. Law Offices (from Ace Attorney):

Yukihira Soma from Shokugeki no Soma / Food Wars (which we just finished watching at the time):

The Dota logo:

Troll face & soccer:

And with a few more additions, the sketch was done!

Next came my favourite part, outlining!

See what I did there; I put Windows errors on the windows! hehehe.

Some of Sean's favourite shows: Running Man, The Voice of China and The Office!

Outlining done!

Time to add some colour!

I really really liked how Soma and One-punch glico man came out! It's probably the most accurate anime-like drawings I'd done.

This was how it looked like when I showed it to Sean (who also posted about it now that I recall).

To be honest, I actually got the idea for this piece only 3 days before his actual birthday, and it took me quite a long time to complete it, so it was a belated gift (by a few days). But he was also really busy with organising a gaming event at the time so it worked out.

I counted the references and in total I had 23! Since it was his 25th birthday, I thought I'd add another 2 just to round it up nicely.

Can you spot what I added?

You can tell I really wanted to minimise the effort spent colouring, which is why most of the piece is still white. But it makes the colours stand out so I think it's alright. I didn't have any other choice anyways. I'm just glad I was able to find the right colours for everything.

As a whole I think nobody will understand what this piece is about unless either of us explains it, but hey, that's the beauty of a unique gift right.
I'm so glad Sean liked it! I remember he was very psyched about Saitama as Glico Man. ^-^

Sean was pretty much the reason why I started drawing and doing art again, and I'm so glad he encouraged me to do it. Now it's become such a good outlet for me to express myself, and create things I never thought I could. I hope you'll stay tuned to see it for yourself!

Thanks for reading!

To find out more about me, check out my intro post here!

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Posted from my blog with SteemPress : http://tacocat.steemblogs.club/2020/02/29/art-attack-3-attack-on-shionbuya/

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Check out my previous post in this series!
Art Attack! #2: Shiba en Pasta!