Fun_Katta

Depending on where you live, today or yesterday, Duel Masters' non-Japanese reboot, Kaijudo just launched. So here's a sketchbook scrawling of red aficionado Kirifuda Katta to kirikick things off. Who is Kirifuda Katta? Let's let this masked weirdo explain more:



Did that help at all? NO? Good.

Fun Facts: two of our videos have now broken 1000+ views! What a plot fist!

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Fun_AnimalHouse

By jagged chopstick-point in an abandoned elementary school, a child of Japanese descent held me hostage until I sketched him creatures out of his animal index.

True story.

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AV_anp.PengyPowa

At long last, this is the June edition ALT poster for our visiting campus.

This school tends to get fancier posters, I feel, since they don't actually give me time constraints to work in.  One of my pet peeves is when people rush me on artwork.  I feel like, if you want me to draw something nice, give me time to do it right or don't bother asking me.  This school doesn't even care if I don't submit a poster, they are that laid-back! You can see our main campus' poster had to be so rushed I even had to cut colors! 

Anyway, this edition has refined the old one's information but tweaked it to include more love for Motion City Soundtrack, a streamlined Movie Flop section highlighting Nemo, et al., plus a slicker "New Expression" section that boasts a bonus Radwimps sub-section explaining the English-slang basis of their name!  We also rebooted the booty-offer to the jKids who submit art to the board. This version includes a more colorful Mario-style question block plus a paper-craft Japanese-style red mailbox.  I've been wanting to incorporate 3D elements into the boards, and this was a nice little toe-step in that direction.  Who knows what this could mean for future artboards!  Wait, I do, never mind, stupid question.

Here's our anchor image colored up with Copic Ciaos.  I knew I wanted to do a sequel to the main school's anchor image, and I had planned to draw them actually playing their game of volleyball.  The "story" of that first image is that they're playing Janken (Japan's version of rock, paper, scissors) to determine who's playing first, as they do in Japan. Why volleyball? Because I had recently been conscripted into joining a couple games. 

But like last time's image was inspired by recent events just preceding its creation, this one got inspired by the intervening Sports Day I went to at this very campus.  In it, I saw them play a bunch of sporty games on their sporty grounds, but one that caught my eye was a kind of jousting game where three players tripod a fourth teammate up onto their shoulders and that top dog wears a helmet with paper bunches taped on.  Three of these squads rep their team as they run into the field trying de-bunch the opposing team's squads' helmets.  Once you lose your three bunches, you're booted from the game like a de-ballooned MarioKarter.  It's like flag football, only interesting.

So instead of drawing the girl and the pengies playing volleyball, I had them play that bunch-joust game.  The jCrew was even impressed when they saw my take on their game since I had only ever seen it once in my life and were delighted it had made such an impression on me.  The jKids also really liked this one, too, which just makes my day.  Score! 

Here's our anchor image's lines.  No inks on this one, aside from on the eyes; I really wanted to see what we could do with just pure Copic Ciao power.

Finally, here are some select doodads from the poster. We've got our title, "Hot Culture" because I could think of nothing else aside from my desire to do late 80s-early-90s neon atrocities with my Zebras. 

We've also got a detail on the new iconography for the booty offer, plus an explanation of the dear old Radwimps' name.

I've really come a long way in our time doing these posters. Can you remember when this was buzzworthy?  Man!  You never know how far you've come until you look back.

I love art. 

I love Japan. 

I love life.

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Fun_LuffWafting

I visited me mateys at that tharr elementarry school, yarr?  Too much fun 'twas, yaarrrr.  Drew many a pirate, used many a medium, all for me mini-hearties...YARR!

We spoke many a tell of Duel Masters...er, um, Duel Mastaarrrrrrrs!!

YAAAAAARRRRR!!!

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Fun_SouperBuuper

After runch I thought I'd put on a show for the kids, sketching with the soupy remnants of my miso. Up first was Luffy from One Piece, a monster hit in Japan, but you've probably never heard of it/him.

If you have heard of One Piece at all, you might only be know this character, Chopper, but again, prolly not. Isn't that funny how something could matter so very much to an entire country, but be pretty darn irrelevant to another, aside from some loserish, clingy group stuck in the vast minority?

Buut enough about soccer.

Keep your Majin, nation!

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AV_anp.Pengy

This is the June edition ALT poster for our main campus. Our anchor section rubs it in those lil' Japanese faces that US kids are off on break, sleeping in and not following their dreams while jKids are oftentimes going to school six days a week if not more. We've also got a section, "Band Tourino," dedicated to Motion City Soundtrack, who's coming to Japan next month! Plus we've got a section dedicated to summer blockbuster flops, including the legendary Nemo movie that was rammed full of creative talent all for naught.  You can also see a cameo by two familiar feces paired with another installment of my casual English corner, "New Expression."  The last thing we've got is a new section offering booty to jKids who submit art to the board.  Will anyone take up the challenge? Knowing jKids' reticent temperaments, prolly not, but who knows; I tried making it as easy as possible by having it just be a coloring contest, but you'd be surprised how shell-shock they can get even with straightforward instructions...

Here's a close up of our anchor image's inks.  This image had to be done really fast, so I decided to cut colors this time around.  The pengys were each going to be a different primary, there's always next time I guess. But for added Oda-like flavor, I gave each one a letter for their pengy eyebrow things.  Why volleyball, though?  Because it was recently on the brain, unfortunately. I found that games of volleyball, and most everything involving playing an oppoenent, are preceded by a winner-take-all game of Janken, aka "Rock, Paper, Scissors." If someone ever throws rock and then, seeing you throw paper, rams their fist into their nose, jamming their nasal cartilage into their brain, that's called "Rock, Paper, Kamikaze." True story.

I actually got to have a conversation in Japanese about the translation of the anchor page, as a spectator came by and put in an excellent effort to read it while I was inking up the image, and through our mutually broken language abilities we were able to get the full text across!  Really exciting.

All right, that's one down this month, one to go.

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Fun_hws.BogartTheGirl

Here's another installment of Homework Sketches, art I scrawl on jKids' homeworkz against their thrill.  So we've got an illustration of the difference between "teach for" and "teach to," an emo-riffic tomato because the student reports she doesn't like tomatoes, a gentle ribbing of a commonly reverse-written d, and we've even got a Crayon Shin-chan shout out. Never seen more than a few seconds of the show, but as I understand it, at least in the US, it's a decidedly adult show in the guise of a kids' show, right? As far as I can tell, in Japan it's a straight-up kids' show.

Next we've got a camera for a kid who accidentally dropped his camera after his school trip(!), a Naruto headband, one of the ubiquitous Mono erasers, a guy getting dome-shot with a soccerball, a Mugiwara straw hat logo coloring-job, a Domo-kun, and then three riffs on my Pizza cat, including a Reborn version.

But our anchor piece is a riff on a hilarious student-written dialog written for a lesson on "May I, Could you." Here's their script:

お: Excuse me, Ms. [Redacted],

  May I speak to you?

た: Sure.

お: Could you speak Chinese?

た: I'm sorry. I'm [sic.] don't speak Chinese.

お: I see.

た: May I ask you a question?

お: I'm sorry. I don't like questions.

I imagined a poor member of the newspaper club earnestly trying to interview her slightly conceited, aloof senpai.  Tragic, adorable, hilarious.  These kids are really talented writers when they try, but also when they don't, but mostly when they do.

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AV_ZN_Preview

Hey, long time no see.

Wonder what these guys are up to.

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