the five kasen graphic — process work
hiya!! welcome to another (unnecessarily long and convoluted) breakdown of my latest graphic: the five kasen :>
details under the cut! (initial thoughts + inspiration / rough outline / brainstorming / scrapped designs + concepts / motifs + colours / concluding thoughts)
INITIAL THOUGHTS & INSPIRATION !
this little brainworm began wiggling as soon as i finished playing through the irodori festival,,, seeing all the characters together and interacting made me so happy,, and the story of the five kasen was so interesting that i had to make something for it.
but i had to sit on my hands for a couple of weeks and just. wait patiently. b/c there were no HD images of the darn tapestry, which meant i had to wait for hoyoverse to release it. and! there were still no official pictures of scaramouche i could use... so i was a sitting duck for a long time.
my plan going into this was simple: retell the story of the five kasen. this concept is similar to my kazuha post a couple of months ago, and since i had so much fun doing that, i knew i had to do it again!
ALSO! a huge, ginormous part of me wanting to make this graphic is because i saw the picture of kazuha smiling with the little blushies on his face and i just :( i had to do it :( he was too cute :( i love everyone equally
again, i wanted to experiment with textures and layering to create this. i wanted to use brighter colours and really make the entire thing pop!
overall, this project ended up being 1,328 layers in total and took me around three weeks to complete!
ROUGH OUTLINE !
whenever i retell a story, i always use the original dialogue and script from genshin. usually, i transcribed the story teaser released by mihoyo and begin to edit some of the lines. oftentimes, it's me choosing to scrap a majority of the audio until i'm left with a couple of outstanding lines that become the guiding structure for my graphic. here's what all of my rough planning looked like:
i cross out all of the unwanted text in red.
i use the yellow highlight to emphasize words that may be accompanied by imagery.
every blue box was a potential line that got its own image.
pink is for additional ideas that i may have.
as you can probably tell, a lot of the dialogue i left in the rough outline didn't make it to the final design. i wanted to use imagery to tell the story, and implemented a lot of the text into different motifs! for example, the line "[Suikou] admitted to drinking at the tavern the night before" was kept in the final design. however, i chose to remove "the night before" and implicitly showed that by including a dark background and a moon in that image!
BRAINSTORMING !
i went into this thinking that i would replicate traditional Japanese scriptures and woodblock prints. faded colours, cream coloured paper to mimic old scrolls, running ink, grunge, nature symbolism.
a customary pinterest board of some inspiration!
even though i was so dead-set on recreating the style of japanese paintings and calligraphy, i found it really hard to convey my ideas. i thought the colours looked too washed out, or the subject matter too difficult to work with.
so, despite all of this, i decided to rework my original idea and stick to a brighter background, and allow myself to step outside of the style. it took me a week of floundering back-and-forth between this decision before coming to it (grr,,,)
SCRAPPED DESIGNS & CONCEPTS !
hoo boy! the most frustrating (but also most interesting) section of this! i decided to keep all of my scrapped designs to show how one idea might change or stay the same throughout the process!
ONE:
tried to use an orange / taupe base for the design and it was too overpowering for a lot of colours. tried to remedy it by making the backgrounds bright n' vibrant, but it made designing layouts way too hard!
TWO:
i absolutely HATED the original design. i really thought i came up with something great with the petals and the border.... yeah it didn't really work out... it looked too crowded, and there were too many awkward spaces. i liked the petals though! in the second design, i tried using a square canvas again + tried again with the painting motif (for albedo <3) but... i thought the tenshukaku building NEEDED to be with the next line of dialogue.
sidenote: i finished this image first, but ended up remaking the entire thing after the entire thing was done. i was so... frustrated with this design too because i honestly had no idea how to fix it. i sat and stared at my laptop for hours trying to fix it because i really liked the font i used for the title...
THREE:
HATED THIS ONE TOO!!!! it looked way too dull!! what's the colour palette?? i tried to make it messy, but it looked.. too messy?? does that make any sense?? i had the hardest time reworking this one b/c i couldn't grasp what colours i wanted to use
FOUR:
first one looked too... clunky? basic? shrugs. i remade it to look like blackout poetry instead!
FIVE:
gr GR GRGGR THE BLUE! OH GOSH! the light blue didn't sit well with me at all! the liquid is supposed to be sake (which, FYI kitty, isn't blue but okay!). the little wave also looked weird too—i wanted venti to kinda surf on the wave but it wasn't meant to be :<
SIX:
nothing too drastic! i already had a ton of trouble designing the first one, so i just made it more vibrant!
SEVEN:
.... i. i really thought i had a good idea for the first design. it was supposed to be a cool pop-art design with a vibrant blue background, and scaramouche's silhouette in the back! but! it was way too crowded, and i couldn't fit the text anywhere :( i was kinda disappointed b/c i spent hours making that scaramouche silhouette and i couldn't slot it anywhere :,)
motifs !
venti (suikou) "green light"
to represent his name, green glow and lanterns were used
his section is the only section that has a black background. this, paired with the moon, emphasizes that this entire story begins in the dark of night. venti's confession is the light that exposes any hidden secrets hidden within the dark.
the darkness in this section also directly references, "he was drinking at the tavern the entire night."
pears represent abundance and sustenance. i thought it was fitting, since venti seemed to be having a blast at the tavern!
xinqiu (aoi no okina) "elder of sunflower"
sunflowers! to represent his name! the yellow was also a lovely contrast against the shades of blue!
the puppet strings around him indicate his role within the story: a liason that was coerced. there is a mastermind behind this story and it doesn't seem to be xinqiu...?
kaedehara kazuha (akahito) "scarlet man"
the little blue bird on his scarf is him! (my personal headcanon) is that his poetry is like music! it sings and comes to life. it's bright and lively, like a little bird! is this canon? technically... no. but i can dream.
the ribbons are used to symbolize his initial status as a poet. he was celebrated and his words were treated like gifts (neatly tied together with a bow).
however, the ribbons that once showed his status became the very chains that tied him up. glory is only given to those that deserve it.
the red flowers—higanbana—are also called "flowers of death". they symbolize akahito's death as a poet, and his exile from the five kasen.
and lastly (my favourite motif!) are the black feathers! they are meant to represent feathers from the fallen black swan—akahito. this motif comes from the movie black swan, where it is said that "a dancer dies twice—once when they stop dancing. and this first death is more painful." a part of akahito died the day he was accused of plagiarism.
(i cried making this and i cry thinking about akahito and how painful it must have felt during his exile)
kamisato ayaka (sumizome) "ink-dyed"
the stream directly reflects her actions as she begins to dip the plagiarized poems in water.
the cherry blossoms symbolize renewal and new life. by proving that akahito did not plagiarize, she breathes life back into his art
it is believed that butterflies also symbolize death and rebirth. she witnessed both the death and rebirth of akahito.
the peach, oftentimes associated with momotarou, is known to ward off evil. the fruit also symbolizes feminity! sumizome is as smart and strong as she is beautiful <3
the smudges and ripples also represent her name and her actions within this story.
scaramouche (kuronushi) "black lord"
the red ribbons / string seen in his section tie together the entire graphic! throughout the piece, you can see red ribbons (the puppet strings, the "torn out" graphic, akahito's exile)—the events of the story are all the result of kuronushi's actions! he is the one who frames akahito and changes his red ribbons to red rope. he's the puppetmaster who got away.
the black feathers come back in his section to highlight his participation in plucking off akahito's feathers. he clips the wings of (once) flighty birds until they are grounded and caged.
CONCLUDING THOUGHTS !
this piece is my little problem child. we had a lot (and i repeat: a lot) of issues along the way and i almost considered scrapping it entirely. i spent days grieving about the design and disliking many of the ideas i would come up with. but! i'm very happy with how everything turned out! whoo!
hopefully i was able to do this story justice, haha :> i really enjoyed playing around with different motifs and trying to mix the genshin art style and my own!
ps. please don't tell me that my scrapped designs are better than my final ones LOL i will burst into tears! thank you!