Crab's artistic follies.

Hello everyone, this is the blog where i post my drawings. Mostly Monsters, OCs and self-indulgent character designs. I mostly draw on paper but i am slowly getting the hang of digital drawing softwares. Currently on a Touhou-themed streak.

[crabdraws]

I am alive sorry. I am just going through uni courses and its hard to gather up to plan up a drawing like the ones so far. Inspiration has also been low for a bit. I apologize for the absence.

[crabdraws]

Iku Nagae

Not much to say about this drawing. Her profile says that shes an Oarfish youkai, and despite her appearance shows no clear fish traits, they are subtly referenced in certain elements of her design, such as the red rays from her hat, the red frills over white clothes simulating the long red dorsal fin and the scarf simulating the long body of the fish.

(image taken from wikipedia)

Even her title, "envoy of the dragon palace", is literally a pun on the fish japanese name, "messenger from the Dragon's Palace".

I will admit that this drawing ended up taking me many tries, from thinking up ways to draw her anatomy, to even play with the idea of her scarf being part of her body, but since i had a similar idea with another purple haired serpentine character, i decided to keep it a separate item. Much better like this imo. I also decided to give her rainbow details due to the oarfish having a very reflective metallic sheen and the fact that Tenshi had em, and i thought they would look good on her.

I think i will draw her again soon with a better background. I never played the game she stars in, but for some reason i am incredibly invested in her design and her concept.

[crabdraws]

Drawing made for a friend in honor of Bowser Day! Featuring @scarletdestiny oc Aubriel with the big man himself. He's incredibly fun to draw!

[orionidess]

commission for @crustacean-menace

[gluttondraws]

Shizuha Aki, goddess of autumn leaves 🍂

The pose was provided by @crabdraws

[crabdraws]

This post is about Nue.

These two different designs have been inspired by different things.

The first design is based on the more Mythological common description of the Nue, driven by my own curiosity to try and show how grotesque it would look like by taking count of each portion of the creature anatomy.

Tiger limbs are incredibly dense with both bone and muscle, and anchoring those to the torso of a tanuki would make it look bloated, as the muscles of the shoulders in particular don't have the right amount of space for a solid attachment.

Monkeys have vertical attachment to cervical vertebras, but the tanuki spine is developed horizontally, so the head in resting position would face downward and the creature would have to bend its neck all the way back to look forward.

I am not even gonna try to explain the Whole Snake As A Tail because, while bicephaly is common in snakes, its not like this. At all.

Finally i tried to find a natural counterpart for Nue characteristic Wings by having them be Mantis forelimbs and Squid hooked arms. The final result is something that, understandably, would send a person into panic if it suddenly plummeted from the sky in front of you.

The second design is instead more canon compliant to Touhou. The famous description of a mismatched hodgepodge of animal parts was said to be just one of several attempted descriptions of Nue herself, who is, by design, Undefined.

She is a creature of the unknown and much like the things we do not know of, it has no shape or defined color, something vaporous and unclear to picture, shifting, much like her own ability to change shape. Even the trident shape is undefined, with the prongs that start as two but become three. This has been more an attempt to try and replicate one of those optic illusion drawings of the same nature, which would also fit Nue theme.

This design is somewhat more abstract, with the only consistent and defined portion of her figure being the clothes she wear, the snake she keeps around and the "Wings", who i tried to give a more artificial look.

The pose also reflects her character a bit more as, while being as old as Mamizou, aka wise grandma tanuki thats reaching 1000 years of age, she is childish, a little prankster who enjoys scaring and confusing people much like a youkai is use to do. Yet she hangs around the Myouren temple and cares about them enough to go and find help when Miko's gang is attacking. She may be mischievous, but not malicious.

All in all, another funky character in Gensokyo.

[crabdraws]

A scary Junko.

She is such an interesting character, but very hard to understand what she is. Even WHO she is, as her identity can be traced to two different figures from arguably different stories, that have in common the death of their children from the hand of someone named Hoù Yì.

Theres one, more historically grounded, about a figure named Xuán Qī, who was also know with the name of Chún Hú ("pure fox" much like Junko name meaning) who was married to Hòu Kuí, a leader of the Xia dynasty, and who had a son from their union. The Hoù Yì in this story was someone that overtook Hòu Kui role and banished him, killing Chún Hú son and taking her as her own wife. This did not last long, as however Chún Hú took revenge, killing the man who murdered her son with the help of another figure from Hoù Yì court.

Then there is the mythological story, about the Legendary Archer named Hoù Yì, who was the husband of Chang'é. He was famous for saving the world from the Ten sun (originally in the myths there were ten suns) who rose together at the same time, risking the world to go up in flame. Hoù Yì shot all but one of them. In this tale, Junko seems to me linked more to figure of the ten suns mother, Xihe.

Now, in Touhou these two stories seem to conflate together, creating a Hoù Yì that has traits of both, and also paints Junko as a fusion of both Xuán Qī and Xihe, with a mix of traits of both, being both a divine spirit and someone seeking vengeance for the death of her son(s?), but her rage seems to be directed towards Chang'é, who is imprisoned in the moon, and for some reason spread to Lunarians as a whole.

Junko character is focused around her rage and her determination to seek revenge to the point of Purifying (read more as an "enhancing through refining" in this context) into being pure Rage, losing even her identity if we take the fact that she has no title or family name. This is why i decided to depict her like this. Many indulge in the idea of her being linked to foxes due to her name, picturing her having foxlike features (helped by her aura in the shape of many tails), but i feel that that is somewhat unfit to her persona.

Junko is rage. A looming shadow of the person she used to be before the events of LoLK, moved by sheer wish for revenge. Tranquil fury with a calm demeanor that barely hides the sheer anger, bursting from her seams in the shapes of fiery jets. An adversary to the moon and whoever stays in her path.

"Lillies of murderous intent", Pure Sign "A Pristine Danmaku Hell", "Simple Danmaku for Cornering a Trapped Rat", "Pristine Danmaku for Killing a Person" are just few of her spellcards and I JUST CAN'T WAIT to reach her in my LoLK playthrough. She is such a cool and charismatic figure i am honestly obsessed with her. God.

Too bad i am still fighting for my life against her tiny flag-wearing fairy daughter. Help me.

[crabdraws]

No name for this piece, just five of my touhou OCs together.

In order from left to right:

Mizuki Efude, the Rainbow virtuoso.

Chimere Grandghoul, the Ghastly Stone Seamstress.

Kanisuke Heikegani, mild-tempered fisherman.

Fusako Nurikabe, energetic path protector.

Eiryu, untrustworthy phantom dragon

I already talked about Kanisuke Heikegani and Mizuki Efude on this blog. One is an ex-shikigami crab who retired to Gensokyo to spend their day fishing, the other is a paintbrush tsukogami who makes art pieces inspired by danmaku. However, the other three i never talked about here so this is their first appearence on the blog.

Chimere is a gargoyle, specifically a mixture of a draconic one and a demonic one brought to life together through possession from the ghost of the french dragon the sculture is named after. The process was imperfect and resulted in her stone body being cracked, with backward wings and the dragon head working as a tail. Very self conscious over her appearence, took solace in sewing and working with textiles as a whole. She can breathe blue fire from her dragon half and paralyze with the gaze of her humanoid half.

Fusako is, as her surname suggest, a nurikabe, an invisible wall-like youkai that puts itself in the path of people to stop them from moving forward. However, Fusako herself does this for more noble reason: she is very keen on road safety, blocking paths that seem dangerous in her eyes. She takes the job very seriously, that she will put herself or her giant plush in front of source of dangers in order to stop people from approaching. However, due to her appearence, she is often not believed or taken seriously. Her ability consists in making invisible, unbreakable barriers thar works as long as she stay concentrated and focused. She is bad at it.

Last is Eiryu. A dragon wearing a porcelain mask that despite being a dragon is actually very weak to the point that some fairies could defeat him at danmaku rather easily. So he often plays dirty, using his ability to change the shape of shadows to make himself look larger and scarier, hiding his projectiles or making his spell cards look harder than they are. This fails often however, and when the trick is discovered he makes a quick getaway by diving into the shadows of people and objects and emerging somewhere else. Claims that he would be stronger if more people were go worship him, but when asked why everyone would do that, the answer is often obtuse and half-baked.

I wish i could tell more about each of them, but that will come when i eventually post single pieces of each character. This is the first time i try to squeeze many character on a single paper sheet. I am rather happy with the result.

[crabdraws]

"Oni Springs test of strenght"

Wanted to have an attempt at drawing a monster-like depiction of Yuugi ever since her new design from Gouyoku Ibun was introduced, but I initially left the idea behind due to being unsure at how to depict her. Hoshiguma means "star bear" so my first idea was always going along the line of a bearlike design, but could not find a satisfying middle ground between bear and oni, which led to my interest dropping.

Luckily, Yuugi recent appearence in the Lotus Eaters manga brought the idea back, and gave me enough energy to try and finish it, taking some references of monstrous bears like Arzuros and Goss Harag from Monster Hunter, and limiting the depiction to her torso in order to focus more on trying to, at least, give her bearlike limbs.

When it comes to oni, their color is an interesting aspect as each color has a particular meaning. Red and blue are the most common seen in media, but there are also yellow, green and black Oni, and each color is associated with the buddhist concept of The Five Hindrances, factors that in Theravada tradition hold people back from achieving progress in meditation.

A Red oni is associated with Greed, seeking pleasure of all five senses. Blue oni are associated with ill-will, anger, rage and violence. Black oni are known to be Cynic and doubtful. Green oni are Arrogant, considering themselves superior to everything and unwilling to put effort in the things . Lastly, Yellow oni are anxious and restless, prone to worry and regret.

With this in mind, its fun to think about what kind of oni the ones in touhou are. I choose Yuugi to be a red oni, as its the one to fit the most with her personality both in games and in the manga.

So, there we have it. A red, beastlike oni casually playing a game of arm-wrestle among hot springs and thermal baths under the cave roof of old hell, showing off the strenght she is famous for.

[crabdraws]

"The Strongest!"

(as always, open image for better quality)

"Incident? It is definetely weird but i doubt this is an incident. She does not feel different and her behaviour has not changed at all. Plus she is just hanging out with her fairy friends, showing off her new abilities. She may look taller and more dignified, but she is still a dumb fairy inside. If she ever tries anything funny i shall put her in her place" -Reimu Hakurei, Shrine Maiden of the Hakurei Shrine

"She seems very eager to show off her new powers as much as she can. I heard that she managed to freeze the great lake and when i went to check i found a shrine built entirely of ice in the middle. Granted, from how tacky it looked, i think she has no idea what a shrine exactly looks like." -Kasen Ibara, Hermit Sage of Gensokyo

"A fairy becoming a kami? Curious, but not outside the weirdness of Gensokyo. But still, who would ever place their faith on a fairy? And out of all fairies, its Cirno!? She is definetely one of the most impulsive and reckless ones!!! Who would ever pray and celebrate that idiot to this point?" -Patchouli Knowledge, Great wandering library of Scarlet Devil mansion.

"She is so cool now! She can make snow fall around her with a snap of her finger and her ice does not melt! I never went skating or had a snowball fight in summer bef- actually, no. I did it before during an incident... But still she is now definetely cooler than before!" -Anonymous fairy.

"Sorry, the shrine is not willing to speak on the subject for the moment!" -Sanae Kochiya, shrine maiden of the Moriya Shrine.

"HOW??? I HAD TO PLAN COUNTLESS STRATEGIES IN ORDER TO GAIN A CONSISTENT FOLLOWING FOR THE SHRINE, WORKING NONSTOP TO THE POINT OF BREAKING MY BACK! AND NOW, AFTER ALL MY HARD WORK, I LEARN THAT THAT FROZEN FOOL WOKE UP TODAY TO BE A FULL DEITY??? HOW? HOW DID SHE GATHER SO MUCH FAITH IN A SINGLE DAY BY DOING NOTHING??? THIS IS AN INJUSTICE!!! THIS IS NOT FAIR!!!" -Kanako Yasaka, overheard yelling from inside the Moriya Shrine.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

In celebration of this year Cirno day, i thought i could bring back an amusing idea i had during my first days in the fandom. Cirno, but as a Kami/deity!

The idea has come from various notions i have learned, such as:

-Deities/Kami in gensokyo requiring faith or other forms of worship to exist. An example for the former is the Moriya Shrine gods and for the latter Chimata Tenkyuu, who draws power from people selling and buying things.

-Fairies are faithless nature deities/nature spirits that manifests sporadically from untamed enviroments and are often linked to elements of it, such as light, ice, flowers and more (clownpiece is a grey zone, because she might not actually be a fairy but a greek Lampad).

-the fact that, in gensokyo, perception and belief are key to your form if you are a supernatural being. Oni are weak to beans during Tetsubun because people believe that. Also being seen in a negative or positive light is what can differentiate something becoming a Kami from becoming a youkai.

-last but not least, the existance of Eternity Larva. As Okina implies, she is related or is Tokoyo-no-Kami, an insect worhipped by a cult as a god. The fact that she is a fairy in Gensokyo inspires the idea of a connection between gods and fairies, but i would not sell that as confirmed for it may be just unique to her.

Mixing all of this notions, i eventually came up with the idea of "What if a fairy became a kami/god?" which lead to several amusing ideas. Cirno is the most popular of the fairies, led me to choosing her to be the fairy-turned-deity. She also has a day all for herself, where fans worldwide celebrate the strongest of all fairies, so it makes sense that she would be the one to become a Kami, even if only for a day, using the faith and energy we give her on this date.

Happy 9/9, everyone.

[crabdraws]

"Encounter on the River"

(As always, open image for better quality)

Firstly, i would like to apology for the long Hiatus. It has been a frenetic pair of months and i was not able to post for several reasons.

This piece is also a bit self-indulgent. Have you ever looked at two character and felt the need to see them interact? This is the result of that. Komachi Onozuka and Urumi Ushizaki are both character that can be found around the same area. One works there, the other is a resident, so what if they know each other? An Ushi-oni and a Shinigami are an odd couple, terrifyingly odd, but both seems to be very laid back in character, so what if they are friends or more than friends? Sure, the souls Komachi is ferrying must not be too happy to be close to the intimidating spider-ox youkai with a suspicious resemblance to the lady that sells fish in the village sometimes, but meeting a friend at work is a nice thing, no?

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Coming up with ideas for Urumi's design was interesting. The result may not be the most original interpretation one could have had, but i still ended up satisfied with it. Ushi-oni are tied to marine environments in the stories, appearing on beaches and hiding in water. That being said, it looks like a peculiar mix of bovine and spider, two animals one would not associate with water.

Thats what peaked my curiosity.

Turns out that cows and a similar bovids are good swimmers and do enjoy water, thus for how odd it would be to see a cow head emerging from the deep water, it is not unlikely for it to happen. The same goes for spiders, specifically Diving Bell Spiders, known to spend a lot of time underwater with the aid of their a bell-shaped web they fill with air bubbles taken from the surface through the help of their setae.

I decided to go specifically with a traits of a water buffalo and the diving bell spider to portray her, and tried to add a bit of a twist on her cowprint kimono by adding a gold river & wave pattern on the black spots in order to make it less empty.

I am frankly embarrassed for how long it took to finish this one, as i did it in the span of these months, but pressure from inside and outside did not give me any time to really sit down and focus on it. But i am nevertheless happy how it came out.

[gluttondraws]

Uh oh, someone’s in trouble…

Kanisuke belongs to @crabdraws

[crabdraws]

A while ago i reblogged a post regarding a contest in a Touhou Oc discord server i partecipated in, where the goal was to come up with a mascot for the server.

I must admit that i never partecipated in a contest before, and, well, looking at other people work at the time made me not have much hopes to win. Still, I wanted to contribute somehow. I owe to the people in that server the courage to making this blog, and also many advices to improve my art.

Turns out people liked my Oc a lot, and in the end it reached the podium, becoming the server mascot and having the honor of being drawn by amazing artists such as @spectatorsatori and @dumplingbone . Honestly i am still unsure if i fully got around processing all that and part of me is still not believing it. I am still very grateful.

Anyway, in that post i said that i wanted to post her here next, but something in the original drawing did not feel right, and since it has been a long time since my last original drawing, i decided to make a brand new one to compensate. This is my Oc:

Mizuki Efude, the Rainbow Virtuoso.

(as always, open image for better quality)

A paintbrush tsukogami with color-related abilities. She can manipulate colors, make portraits that come to life and create little paint minions called "Paintergeists" to aid her in her day to day life and in danmaku.

A very energetic person, a mix between a cocky shounen protagonist and an eccentric art student, she flies around Gensokyo in search of inspiration for her works. From landscapes, to portraits, to still nature, abstract and so on, she constantly experiments and toys with styles, (sometimes even for days) until she finds a satisfying result, which she then marks with her pseudonym: "Michelangela".

Her spellcards carry the same explosive effect as her personality: burst of colors, spiraling patterns, shapes and projectiles, all with different properties based on their colors, often culminating in spellcards where she is literally painting the space around her opponents into a picture that , although easy to navigate, can catch off guard especially in combination of her Paintergeist taking potshots at you.

She also gets rather disappointed and hurt when people use spell/bombs against those last type of spellcards, so please, don't do that.

[crabdraws]

(Open image for better quality)

Kanako is truly an interesting character. She is an incredibly ambitious deity, who often involves herself in long and quite complex projects aimed to increase the faith she gains from her followers. Yet, she is said to be pretty laid back when it comes to worshipping her, preferring innovation more than strict rules, even in the field of technology. Maybe its due to her influence and the Kappa engineering prowness that the inhabitants of youkai mountain seem to be more advanced than the rest of the land.

Her character takes inspiration from both Takeminakata-no-Mikoto and Yasakatome-no-Mikoto, gods of the Suwa Grand Shrine, has the power to create "Heavenlyness" (The Sky, or Qian, is one of the eight elements of Taoist phylosophy, associated with creation, leadership, overtness, reliability, and acting first rather than reacting to others).

In the series, strong is her association to snakes, as it goes from charms containing shed skin of one, to the projectiles used by Sanae. She also wears on her person many shimenawa, most notable the one that coils behind her.

For this monstrous(?) design, i decided to bank more on her association of snakes, turning her into a giant one reaching towards the sky by coiling around one of her famous (or infamous) pillars. Her shimenawa is now a mere portion of her body lenght, curled into a ring and made to look like rope by having it keep the unshed snake skin over it, twisting it until it resemble rope (i hope i managed to accomplish this). I also decided to change many of other elements into snakes, from the various other rope elements to the various shide. Her red shirt is now a covering of red leaves, inspired by the ones she uses as ornament in her head, a nod to her power over prosperity in the same vein of her tail tip turning into a river.

Although i fear that i may have exaggerated with the snake motif, i am very proud of what i made here, especially for the general silhouette of the figure, the movement of the shide in the wind and the covering of leaves. They took several tries to make in a way that made sense, but in the end all that erasing, redrawing and erasing again proved fruitful.

She is one of my favourites in the cast, which is ironic since in the beginning i thought of her as a horrible person who cared only for profit no matter the means due to some fanworks i did read. Then i started to look into official material and changed my mind, as she does not seem so heartless as i was lead to believe, and even if tricky, she is someone that can be trusted in the end.

[anueutsuho]

Is it weird I feel the opposite? I've found most of the fanworks I've seen actually DOWNPLAY her underhanded greed and focus entirely on her being a mother figure for Sanae.

Especially since in recent works it seems Sanae's only growing more frustrated with her.

[crabdraws]

While i do agree that Kanako is responsible for more than one incident (either directly or indirectly) and her greed is often a driving motive for her intervention in many cases, her appearences in recent works such as Gouyoku Ibun and Lotus Eaters Sobering have shown her to be actually not that mean.

Doubting her own behaviour, admitting her own mistakes, being grateful and also being somewhat kind to one of her opponents, show us that she is not so gratingly greedy and destructive for the sake of profit, and her greed and pride being personal flaws. She is a deity that treats faith like a business, and i agree that she is ruthless in such pursuit, but so far i have not yet seen any mean spirit in her actions (outside maybe her first battle against Reimu, but if you have other examples please be free to correct me).

As for Sanae being exasperated about her, well, Kanako seems to play into the "Controlling Helicopter parent who cares too much about the family's business success" role and i'd say that Sanae has every right to go "There she goes again" once something catch Kanako's attention.

TLDR:

Kanako is a hypercompetitive businesswoman with evident flaws, but seems to not be so heartless and being, at Worst, hanging on the verge of being a "Karen" type of person.

Also, the irony of her being very materialistic for a god whose power is to create Heavenlyness does not fall flat here.

[roaringwish]

The new server icon, and the three pieces for the artists on the podium for the Gensokyo Originals mascot contest: Mizuki Efude ( @crabdraws‘ OC), Miki Sounami ( @lonelyhorrortea‘s OC  ), and an unnamed OC ( she belongs to @gensokyoukai).

The server is a Touhou OC brainstorming server. Artists, writers and all other  Touhou fan-content creators are all welcome, feel free to join!

[crabdraws]

I am sorry for not posting anything lately. Daily life has become a bit more hectic as holidays approach and in this rush i cannot get in the mood to focus on a drawing.

I will try to post something once things slow down a bit.

[crabdraws]

(Open image for better quality)

Kanako is truly an interesting character. She is an incredibly ambitious deity, who often involves herself in long and quite complex projects aimed to increase the faith she gains from her followers. Yet, she is said to be pretty laid back when it comes to worshipping her, preferring innovation more than strict rules, even in the field of technology. Maybe its due to her influence and the Kappa engineering prowness that the inhabitants of youkai mountain seem to be more advanced than the rest of the land.

Her character takes inspiration from both Takeminakata-no-Mikoto and Yasakatome-no-Mikoto, gods of the Suwa Grand Shrine, has the power to create "Heavenlyness" (The Sky, or Qian, is one of the eight elements of Taoist phylosophy, associated with creation, leadership, overtness, reliability, and acting first rather than reacting to others).

In the series, strong is her association to snakes, as it goes from charms containing shed skin of one, to the projectiles used by Sanae. She also wears on her person many shimenawa, most notable the one that coils behind her.

For this monstrous(?) design, i decided to bank more on her association of snakes, turning her into a giant one reaching towards the sky by coiling around one of her famous (or infamous) pillars. Her shimenawa is now a mere portion of her body lenght, curled into a ring and made to look like rope by having it keep the unshed snake skin over it, twisting it until it resemble rope (i hope i managed to accomplish this). I also decided to change many of other elements into snakes, from the various other rope elements to the various shide. Her red shirt is now a covering of red leaves, inspired by the ones she uses as ornament in her head, a nod to her power over prosperity in the same vein of her tail tip turning into a river.

Although i fear that i may have exaggerated with the snake motif, i am very proud of what i made here, especially for the general silhouette of the figure, the movement of the shide in the wind and the covering of leaves. They took several tries to make in a way that made sense, but in the end all that erasing, redrawing and erasing again proved fruitful.

She is one of my favourites in the cast, which is ironic since in the beginning i thought of her as a horrible person who cared only for profit no matter the means due to some fanworks i did read. Then i started to look into official material and changed my mind, as she does not seem so heartless as i was lead to believe, and even if tricky, she is someone that can be trusted in the end.