Wonderful Joshua of ILOZ!

This is a Dolphin 2021/2022

Artist’s Statement

This is the second or the first page of the book This IS A Dolphin, where the heroes of our “educational” story are introduced. The sources of sailor/pirate and dolphin themed books such as Wild Wild World, Katie Price’s Mermaids and Pirates and even small side sources like the Anime. I prefer to cross my favourite animals with the theme and style that I like, for example, dolphin with the young, facial hairless, small chinned/protruded lips and pastel toned voiced sailors or pirates. Since the main protagonists are children/young teens (Large feet and hands, short legs, protruded lips), the understanding can be easily made through connection, which in turn leads to outcome of movement for action; which are essential tool for illustrators who have to “convey” through words.

Here are my collection…….

Animal Character concepts

The following figures are some concepts for the characters for my story ideas; the cheetah, humpback whale and the bottlenose dolphin character.

In case of the humpback, she is depicted in pinkish color with lipstick on the end of her snout. Meanwhile, the dolphin, who is also a female, but in more plain form; blue in color with absence of lipsticks. This results in contrasts; other than the coloration and the makeups, the eyes and simplicity of the baleen whale, indicating of her being the comic relief.

On the other side, the dolphin has more round, shiny eyes, taking role as a heroine or serious character.

For the anthromorphied cheetah, which is a male, depicted in slender anatomical formation, consideration of cheetah in real life.

During my elementary years in South Korea, I saw an graphic novel with anthromorphied dinosaurs, where there were examples of one with pink dinosaur with lipsticks, while the other was in light-blue with none of that.

Other source of inspiration are my tendency of if there are two sources, I view one source better than the other ones, meant that if there are themes that I like and if there is one go down in a way that I view negatively, other can be in a style that suits my favour.

It can also seen that the casts are in anime style. This is the influence with anime, especially such as Anpanman, where I get the style of the story of.

The anthromorphied animals with interesting contrast could not only take a role as an “interact” with audience, but also, especially in case of the whale and dolphin, it can create a contrast of view towards female in society between past and present.

Hansel and Gretel Concept

This is the rendition of the famous classic tale Hansel and Gretel in an Amazon rainforest version that I did as a part of an assignment during the first part of my fourth and final semester at Emily Carr University.

Whenever I see the counterparts of certain original tales or other themes go in an other interesting versions, it urges to thought up of the outcome of my own, which will in turn, provide interesting experience of contrast of the original and the new perspective.

I decided to feature the siblings as the Amazon river dolphins, since they are not only the second favourite animals, but also I like to expand and give them an “adventure” in terms of involving with other animals, which does not often the case in most books or other medias that tells story about the these cetaceans.

The animations with anthromorphied faunas with the famous example of The Lion King and Doraemon Anime brought me into motivation and provided reference for this piece, espcially I even thought of doing fanfics for them. One of the themes of the storyline were expanded to themes like oppressions and crime over power.

The story bought the motives from the original, but with the different twist; not only Hansel and Gretel’s birth mother is alive, along with her husband, but she is caring and loving mom to her children. The role of evil stepmother is taken by the Jaguar Queen, who locks her brother, the Jaguar Prince, so she can own the throne herself. The role of gingerbread witch will be taken by the green anaconda, which likely be one of the predators of Amazon river dolphins or boto calves.

The rendition and personifying not only gift people with experience and opportunities of new version of story that they heard throughout ages, but also find new meaning and theme through connection and entertainment.

Sailor Voice Acting

For this outcome, the motivation came from the fact that certain well known actors in Hollywood and other western media culture play out the voices of animated characters, for instance, Elijah Wood lent his voice to Mumble, a protagonist of the animated Antarctic film, Happy Feet. I also have preferency of connecting or linking the one idea to other and expand it; for instance, the character’s reddish internal parts of mouth to these mariners’ bare foot, which brings up the thought of ketchup, vinegar and blood, since they are both red and sour. In addition, since there are fan arts of characters “crossed” with the certain ideas like these, it can be a good inspiration for others who have interest as me, for I am also interested in topics like these.

The Little Mermaid

This is the thirty-third page of the book that I finished; the rendition version of the famous classic tale, The Little Mermaid. Aside from the “Disney happy endings”, I was disappointed for the idea that there are lack of scenes or images of prince being barefoot after being rescued or other reasons such as especially when he is encountering ocean animals. Not only it gives chance for audience enjoy at the rendition, but also the twists and added tastes to the story that is most likely absent from the originals.