Shaka Shisa
Our little group of friends met every week this summer at one bon dance or another, in constant search of the yummiest BBQ sticks, the liveliest rendition of the Fukushima Ondo, and of course, our favorite Okinawan dancing. I started calling them the “bon dance posse” and we tossed around ideas about giving ourselves a name and printing t-shirts just for fun. Today, Shari spent the better part of the day with me in my computer room brainstorming. I found a cute shisa graphic from a clipart book I bought from Okinawa back in 1999. However, always leery of nasty things like copyright infringement lawsuits and such, I decided to draw something on my Wacom tablet instead. I took some graphical ideas from the clipart and added my own elements to it and this is the end result. I hope he meets with the approval of the bon dance posse.
If you think he’s cute, Shaka Shisa gear is also on sale on my Zazzle page.
Let me know what you think and if you have any suggestions to make him better, please send them along. (I don’t claim to be an artist, so go easy on me.)
Sis I like this one so much better!…awesome work Sis!
I like this! great eyebrows! There are few things Iʻd change at all, just tweeks, like the overly bold cheek outlines, maybe a slight curve to the bottoms of the arms to match his general bouncy shape, and adjust the left wrist line, so it doesnʻt look so much like an extra finger there. great image tho! what is it based on?
ʻOhu
this is great and so terribly cute! he reminds me of a local version of maurice sendak’s monster in “where the wlid things are.”