Self taught artist dabbling in original works clad in flowery metaphors and messy sapphics⠀[ . . . ]⠀ currently i don’t have a platform for financial support, so likes and rbs are appreciated !!
ׅ ྀི͚ㅤㅤart tag ; original characters ,
( of monsters and men/labyrinth town ) ; when aether eclipses, one of my projects
( matryoshka ) ; my sillies!!!
( fanart ) ; currently in touhou yuri escapades
ׅ ྀི͚ㅤㅤmiscellaneous ; other ppl’s arts
content warning ( ‼️ ) . . . mine and other people’s posts can contain suggestive references. this goes for art, discussion and jokes, which is why i label this account (and others below) 18+
tart’s financial downfall is sponsored by ; actuallyapebble (twt, currently on break) , debidideb (pixiv, toyhouse ) , tartetasin (bluesky, instagram) & therockofficial. (reblog only)
The pen drawing is around 2 years old. I remembered about it and decided to colour it. Colour picking was troublesome, as I have not considered some aspects, such as that the stroke areas already give dark tone, for example
Ruler of my heart, ruler of my heart, ruler of my heart
You are forever beautiful
Ruler of my heart, ruler of my heart,
ruler of my heart~
Artist's Notes;
So I've been thinking about Zanmu a lot since I posted my last post on her and I had the idea to do a Zan/Hisa piece kind of inspired by how I see their dynamic. I did quite a bit of experimenting with the rendering as I slowly learned the wonders of the default gouache brush in CSP and how much texture it gives in lighting and rendering.
My goal was always for this piece to be lit like an old Caravagio or vermeer painting since I fucking love doing dramatic lighting a lot. Some of the values ended up a bit muddy but honestly I kinda like that, it makes the piece feel mysterious and leans it towards a more impressionistic style in a way. I love the way that many older paintings are rendered and lit, and I often look to those for inspiration for a piece.
My sketch started with me just getting the gestures for the poses down, colour coding each figure so I could differentiate them, after this I changed both of those colours to skin tones and defined the face shapes a bit more so they weren't blobs like they are in this sketch.
Here are also the multiple thumbnailing sketches I did in my sketchbook, mainly because I needed to figure out the posing and what the hell I was gonna do with Hisami's left arm lol. I even made an abstract line version of the composition mainly to get a sense of the movement, and the larger sketch on the bottom really helped solidify Hisami's pose in the drawing.
I focused on Zanmu the most during the process, mainly because I knew the way her clothes were positioned would affect the overall look of the piece since she took up quite a bit of the background. I used an old piece I drew of Reimu to kind get the sleeve on the raised arm right since I knew I did a similar shape before, what mattered most was it reading well rather than being super focused on the physics.
Hisami was actually surprisingly easy to do since I usually struggle with making her veil look right, but I'm actually with how I drew it here, it added some nice motion to the piece and I like that. I also made Zanmu's tassles more dramatic, basically surrounding Hisami in the piece.
I fucking love how the lighting turned out. After using the gouache brush in a previous drawing (which I can't show because it's a part of a thingy I'm working on) I thought it would be perfect to use for the painterly vibe I was going for. After I finished all of the lighting on the base, I went in and painted over a few details to make it look more crisp and define some more details in the drawing. I also gave Hisami her red halo that I gave her in an older piece of mine, mainly because I thought it fit in this context. Overall I am really happy with this drawing, and it helped restore some faith in my skills that I lost for a little while.
Also if you recognize the song lyrics I used above, hi, I too have not recovered from that explosive last episode, helped the story really stick the landing eh? :)
I feel bad for not really posting any actual drawings for a while, so here is a big sketch dump of a bunch of Zanmu drawings I did a month or two ago. I made these before the demo for Touhou 20 came out for anyone who wants a general idea of how long ago these were made. I also will use this as my opportunity to talk about Zanmu excessively because this woman lives in my head rent free and I don't know how I'm supposed to get her out. (click on the photos for better quality)
Artist's Notes and Headcanons;
Ok side note, how the fuck do you spell headcannon? I keep bouncing between headcanon (as in the camera company) and headcannon (like the thing on a pirate ship) and it legit just depends on my mood that day so someone please help me with this...Ok now onto Zanmu, I am SO normal about her that I will EXPLODE if I don't talk about her-
Edit: THANK YOU TO THE PERSON IN THE REBLOGS WHO TOLD ME THE CORRECT SPELLING OF HEADCANON OMG I HOPE BOTH SIDES OF YOUR PILLOW ARE ALWAYS COOL AT NIGHT, I HOPE THE SHOWER IS ALWAYS AT THE PERFECT TEMPERATURE FOR YOU, I HOPE YOUR FAVOURITE SNACK/DRINK IS ALWAYS IN THE FRIDGE/CUPPBOARD FOR YOU THANK YOOOOOOUUUUU!!!!
I love Zanmu so much. She's such a cool character to think about and I can't seem to get her out of my head. I think she's just really fun to draw. For a little while before these sketches, I remember feeling kinda lost on how to draw her in my lineless style, so I decided "fuck it" and tried drawing her as a weird abstract shadow thing to get some new ideas going. I find simplifying characters like this helps me out a lot. I used red in the back of the hair to try and define some shapes like her face, and also I've seen some designs of her that give her Buddhist prayer beads and omg I am in love with that design idea. I love adding ornate details when I'm doing my own designs of other characters, and I've always wanted to give Zanmu something around her neck but never figured out what kind of jewelry would work best. I liked the idea of making them red as well, for the sake of making the colour palette of the drawing more cohesive, plus it looked cool. For the hair of the shadow variant, I took some inspiration from Calamity Ganon's design in BoTW and had it kinda straggle out at the tips. I think even for when I draw Zanmu normally I want to do this, since her hair in her canon design gets these split ends and I really want to incorperate that. The only thing that I didn't really like was the lack of grey hairs. I love giving Zanmu these little gray hairs so much, and when I realized I couldn't fit it into the shadow design I was kinda sad.
I then got inspired by the side profile and made a version where I defined the side of the face more, to which I then immediately got some more inspiration (yeah the values are kinda bad and mush together and I did edit this but I don't have that version on me rn, so when I do get a hold of it I'll just fix it later). For whatever reason, I have an easier time drawing Zanmu from the side, mainly her eyes. For me I often go insane trying to get eyes right as they can help make a character really unique in a simplified style. So taking some notes from character design techniques and using guidelines to keep proportions and placement consistent, I actually managed to get some features I actually really liked! In my drawings of her, I always tried to include some eyebags/shadows under her eyes and kept her actual pupils small. I also added some makeup under her eye and even added some near her eyebrows because of some inspiration I got off of Pinterest. I gave the eyebrows a little more shape as well to make them look more dynamic, and I gave her the scars I usually like to give her (I don't care about lore here, I just think they look cool).
Whenever I draw Zanmu, I always try to give her an androgenous leaning physique, so I tried making the torso and shoulders proportionally larger than her head (how clearly that reads, if it reads at all IDK). I also was able to give her grey hairs again, which I always love to include, and made her horns super narrow and tall (mainly because I really like those kind of shapes and it allows me to really go nuts on the detailing). The rest was just standard fair for drawing Zanmu, same kinds of details, I once again place the little black dashes on the front piece of the shirt on top of it instead of below (tbh I kinda like drawing it that way more) and did a version with very dramatic lighting because I wanted to get some practice with it.
I went into a lot of detail on my Zan/Hisa headcanons in a previous post, but I wanted to add some here for funsies. I think Zanmu saw herself breaking mentally and losing hope at ever escaping the cycle of rebirth as her form of enlightenment. In terms of fighting styles, when she is in a fight, she fights like she has absolutely nothing to lose, because in her mind she legit doesn't. She's still calculating during it, but is incredibly unrelenting and incredibly brutal. She probably doesn't care if she loses, she just wants to prove how futile it is to fight against her. How it accomplishes nothing.
Important thing to note in canon is that she felt disconnected from that pacifist lifestyle and made up a nicer sounding term for essentially doing the same thing to spirits. Keep in mind, this is an example of her so called "self righteousness" disguising her actual intentions. Sure, she says she's "saving these spirits from their misery" but in reality she's just killing them the same way someone would kill an actual physical person. But by now, she doesn't really care if the majority of people hate her or love her. Remember, she's the one who told Reimu that peoples perceptions of Youkai can change their actual natures in that fortune book. There's a reason it was her who said that and not, say, Yukari, who'd actually have more of a reason to give a shit about Gensokyo. Zanmu's bluffing may not be an act of insecurity or trying to hide a weaker part of herself, but literally using the perception of the Oni to make her stronger by nature of how faith and belief works in this universe all the while doing fuck all to actually prove it, playing the system. It doesn't matter if people fear her, loathe her, or idolize her, she's just gonna keep getting stronger and stronger by nature of her title alone and her strategic nature.
She is also 100% nihilistic, jaded, and cynical. Not in the "emo, misunderstood angsty" kinda way, but more in the absurdist "haha nothing matters and it's funny how people still care" kind of way. She probably also enjoys seeing someone have a rude awakening about (what she believes is) the true nature of the world and breaking. Hell, she'd probably enjoy delivering that rude awakening herself, as she'd be guaranteed to get a front row seat to their break down. She wants to drag other people down into this cynical, empty abyss with her, and finds it amusing when she sees someone who is so full of willpower and determination just-fall apart. She'd probably even convince them that she's helping them find inner peace. Leaving their unattainable and unrealistic dreams behind.
The scene would go something like this, she'd probably kneel down to this individual, collapsed and broken on the ground. Lifting up their chin to look in their eyes, she'd stare into their empty eyes, now resembling the same darkness hers have. Then, placing a hand on the chest feeling their lethargic heartbeat, she'd say, "Do you feel the gaping hole in your heart? Does your body feel hollow, no longer weighed by your pointless, unattainable desires? That emptiness you feel is enlightenment my dear, freedom from the shackles of Samsara. For at long last you have attained Nirvana, and I am the one who graciously gifted it to you...."
Also, if a new religious war themed fighting game for Touhou came out and Zanmu needed a motivation, she'd 100% start a doomsday cult dedicated to making her a god so she can end all of existence and bring everyone peace in her own way. She'd refer to the world as "a sick, dying animal that needs to be humanely put out of its misery" and would be one the number one threats to deal with because for some reason she keeps rolling Nat 20's on every single charisma check she gets and waaaay too many people are joining her and if she actually achieves her goal then there is a certain risk of THE FUCKING WORLD ENDING. (this is an idea I have been noodling with in my brain for too long, and all of that isn't accounting for how the Oni of Hell would probably speed up this process, making it even more dire lmao)
