another one of my uni portfolio pieces. something about kind gestures of strangers that go unnoticed because we're so used to them and the inherent goodness of people etc etc etc
honestly i just wanted to draw a comic because i wanted to show off my illustration skills. i wish i had spent more time on these & drawn more comics for this series but i was running out of time :(
ID: three fish embroidered on an upholstery sample with a design that looks like coral. the fish are embroidered so they appear to be swimming in between the coral. the colors are shades of olive green and beige.
I wanted to go a bit more in-depth with this piece that I did for zukka week 2023 because i got inspired to do more insane clothing details. ID in ALT.
Ramble about the influences/inspirations below:
Design inspirations for Sokka's clothing are mainly Inuvialuit and Yup'ik, with Nenets, Tlingit, and Chukchi inspiration for the tassels, patterns, belt and beadwork. I mixed these with the ornaments canon shows us used by the Northern Water Tribe, and also in Legend of Korra. I got particularly excited about drawing from Inuvialuit sources since the tassels we see in canon look like they could be inspired by this. Going beyond canon's animation-friendly colour scheme, I drew from Nenets patterns/embroidery/sashes and Yup'ik beadwork for accent colours. I think in the future I'd like to find ways to incorporate more Tlingit-style patterns since I rarely see them in fanart (which is a shame - they're stunning), but since they tend to be very big I ultimately decided to only include them as a nod in order to keep the regalia recognisable as 'Water Tribe'. I wonder if I could start using Polynesian influences as well?
Zuko's headdress and particularly the shoulder garment and beaded embroidery draw heavily from women's clothing styles of L锚 Dynasty Vietnam. The other main influence is men's royal clothing in Tang Dynasty China, and patterns worn by Mongolian Khatun. Since we have a bit more to go on in canon as to what fire nation regalia looks like, I blended that in as well. I got particularly excited about the embellishments on L锚 Dynasty clothes because I could give a little nod to Zuko's dragon-fire by adding more colours to the embroidery. In the future I think I'd want to make the Mongolian influence a bit more obvious... perhaps even push the envelope by incorporating some Bashkir designs, though I'm not sure how well that will go.