Fun_ToTheHorizon

Finally colored those old lines. This was a character named Jinjin that I came up with a few years ago for a design challenge.

In her original version, she had more of a frog-style hat, but here we went more squid like.

I was coloring her without consulting any references to her original color scheme, but I was pretty sure she used heavy reds, so I knew I wanted to avoid getting too close to Vicky's color scheme.

I inked this digitally, but the original pencils were traditional. As far as what I wanted to portray here, I just knew she had to be vaguely Asian, but other than that it was just about going with what felt summery/islandy and adventurous. She doesn't smoke, though, she likes lollipops.

Jinjin was named for one of my mentors in college. The character herself and her story were inspired by an incredible Korean comic called Banya, as well as One Piece.

Jinjin has to assemble a ragtag crew of delivery men. She is the fearless leader, and takes her job the most seriously out of everyone because she holds everyone's life in her care as Chief Delivery Man in this hyper-competitive world of cutthroat couriers, so even if her crew doesn't (or can't) go as intensely as her, they still respect her enough to do their best for her.

I don't normally miss people, in fact, I'm more prone to pining for times/moments/places rather than people, but I was suddenly stricken with an incredibly potent bout of longing for my old mentor a couple years back. It was quite strange. Everyone else always seemed like they knew what they were doing, and she was one of the toughest, strongest people I ever met in the old days. Huge inspiration. I hope she is well.

Bonus Twitter version. Never feels good enough.

Reuxben