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aidangull In reply to Grashcoy [2012-04-25 07:13:08 +0000 UTC]

It's no bother at all. ^V^

Her inspiration just kind of came about gradually through some of my earlier works. I would just seem to return to the idea of this crane girl every so often, and each time I added or took away something to refine her a bit more. So it's kind of an ever changing process. That said, she is definitely one of my favorite original characters, hence why I keep coming back to her.

As far as being eastern based, her base species had a lot to do with that, first off. The very first pic I did of her, she was holding an origami crane. The next one had her doing karate. I just felt it fit her very well, and kept it that way. I've always thought that the art and culture of Japan are so vibrant and beautiful, and one way I imagine her is as a person who takes joy in embracing that.

And, since you mentioned how she looks visually, that too went through a process. Her style has changed pretty considerably over time, some things staying the same others becoming wholly different. I tend to draw long necked birds with that same feature as anthros, but she originally had the type of wings on her back and a regular set of arms. I changed it to wing-type arms to better fit in with the other avian characters in Feather6. But that doesn't mean I would never draw her the original way again. It just kind of happens however inspiration hits, I guess. As the saying goes, the only constant is change, and that's true here.

Thanks for the interest. ^V^

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Grashcoy In reply to aidangull [2012-04-26 02:53:52 +0000 UTC]

So, it's because of her coming back to your mind whenever changes do occur, making her one of your favorite characters.

I think that under the japanese cultural setting Yuriko is one of the best names you could have thought of, it's not an usual japanese name, not like cliché names like Sakura which are used widely in anime, so the name is excellent, points for that. Of course this crane is of an asian species, but it is NOT so often that one can see the actual species fit in the role of the cultural environment of the culture that lives in the area as well, so as a standard I had to ask you about the implications and I already thought you could be having the crane species as a basis for the cultural setting, but I had to confirm it, when I ask usually the answers do not have the tendency I'm looking at for such details, I'm impressed that you took the effort to imagine Yuriko japanese as she should logically be.

I find japanese culture exactly the same as you do, not subtracting of course certain merits of western cultures, and other eastern and general cultures for that matter, but some cultures like this catch an impression to the eyes that it is impossible to take out of the head, as a consecuence Yuriko stood awesomely in that commission, it is all you thought visible now to the human eye, and that is a credit for the artist as well, to understand what you wanted in the first place.

Well I do have a taste for more wing-type arms because of certain natural and physical implications to them, but nonetheless it's not a mandatory element and as you said the inspirations to draw her one way or another are circunstantial and very dependent on the mood you are or the objective you want to achieve.

Of course, it's been an interesting thread of thoughts, usually I work through the minds of the artists and creators to get the real feelings and implications for the context through which a character is presented, on this occasion you had no problem in telling me about that, so it's been a nice talk ^v^

Of course I'll be looking forward to more of Yuriko and, if you whish to some other ideas you may have so we could talk about them, I'm always opened to that, well not always depending on my mood, but ultimately I get to answer everything ^v^

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aidangull In reply to Grashcoy [2012-04-27 05:28:25 +0000 UTC]

You hit on some really good points.

The whole premise of making her so oriented to her culture was based primarily on her species. Thinking about, I guess I’m kind of along your line of thought as far as matching her species to her culture. I think it adds a great deal of flare to whatever piece of art it’s in. You see that as well with all sorts of other anthros, albeit in a slightly more obvious way most of the time; pandas being Chinese, giraffes with African attire and so on. I have seen various bird species done along the same themes as well, and that’s always a good thing in my opinion.

As far as her name goes, that was another part of the whole process of how her character developed. For the first two pics I drew of her, she was just some random, nameless crane girl. It wasn’t until I decided to build a backstory for her that I made the step towards naming her. As you said, a lot of Japanese names we’re familiar with do seem to come from mangas, animes or the various other media, and they get very stereotypical and worn out rather quickly. I had to do a little browsing to find a name I liked that didn’t seem too generic, and found that Yuriko just sounded pretty much perfect.

And you’re absolutely right about the artist as well. I’ve been a longtime fan of hers, and she always does stellar work. But I was genuinely surprised at how perfectly she was able to adapt my descriptions and add her own touches as well, and keeping a lot of the cultural aspects present.

Hope this has answered some of your questions, at least in part. It’s always great to get into these conversations. I’m typically pretty open, time wise, to converse online. So it’d be great to bounce ideas back and forth. Thanks for all the feedback. ^v^

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Grashcoy In reply to aidangull [2012-04-28 02:13:26 +0000 UTC]

You're welcome for it! I'm also open to disscus about many things not only this one in particular online, though for a matter of courtesy you may offer the medium through which we can exchange ideas.

Now that I think about some things in retrospect to what I said earlier, as well as based on some other research I did recently you're right about this being a little common, but it is more obvious, especially when you got species everyone knows in cliché ways as being from a culture, in Yuriko's case very few would have guessed the culture or would have preffered another way to introduce her.

Well the name Yuriko has been used in very recent years to name a character from the game Command and conquer red alert 3 who's a psychic agent for Japan, pretty crazy idea but well there it is I heard it before, in their case they choose it not only because it's a rare name but also because it sounds and is spelled in a simmilar way as the name Yuri, which is the name of a very prominent antagonist of the previous game RA2 and the main antagonist of the expansion, who's also a psychic but it is a man in that case. There are other very rare names, another I heard about not often only 2 times is Noriko, very simmilar to Yuriko, people doesn't seem to give enough attention to some names like these.

Well, I'm sure she does, I've seen a little, though I'm not into furry myself, I'm much more of an admirer of anthro artists in a more scientific way than subjective way, but when talking about birds I could be considered just a little inside the border, but it's for bird's sake hahaha.

Of course this answered my questions, though I belive personally that you could make of Yuriko and maybe other characters you may have something more than mere image and cultural expression, some very nice questions arise from characters with anthro characteristics that I never see on an essay or a fictious story and those questions are related to their relation with reality on different levels, I've seen some glimpses of it but not complete results on all those questions hahaha (well on some there's one artist who gave me good answers about a few of these I'm sure you know who I'm talking about), they could be for an entire hour worth of talking, so what do you say?

I talk a lot don't I?

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aidangull In reply to Grashcoy [2012-04-28 04:56:17 +0000 UTC]

Indeed you do, but that’s not a bad thing. ^V^

I’m sure that with practically any name you’ll probably find some book, show, movie, game or whatever that features a character with the same or similar one. I wound up choosing it because, in the end, it just sounded right.

And I know what you mean about using anthro characters, since they have the potential to be drawn or written into so many different scenarios. I think, in addition to the aesthetic quality, it can also add another level of character development depending on the species. My own views kind of go back to what you said about being more of an admirer of anthro art. Personally I find that it can be very tasteful and beautiful, but it doesn’t mean I go all into many aspects of the fandom in general. It’s just another form of art, which like all things has aspects that can either be admired or disliked.

As far as corresponding goes, it would probably be easiest to keep chatting through DA or email. So far it’s been great getting this more in depth dialogue going with you. So, thanks again. ^V^

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Grashcoy In reply to aidangull [2012-04-28 16:09:07 +0000 UTC]

Hahahaha, that's what people usually say, if there's something that one day would save me is probably my mouth. ^v^

Of course, I'm just joking using freak facts, of course as long as it is an unusual name and sounds great it is more than enough.

Not only character development but also objective points such as the implications of, for example, human-animal hybrids made by science under a context of human society in this century, impacts that they would have on society, discrimination, the issue of parenthood and personship, etc SO much is in there, but as far as I know there's NO WORK that touches on that serious and interesting point especially in fiction, of coruse that could be linked with the development of a character, it's so interesting that it's too bad nobody is doing it, I always look for things like that to excersise my mind.

I'm exactly like you when it comes to anthro art, I'm such a freelancer that sticking into one thing or a few is just too short for my mind.

Well notes are a good way, continue using this topic, but chatting on DA live I just don't do it, email is a good option as well you say. Hey thanks to you man I'm bored to death sometimes and beign able to talk with someone about this kind of things saves me. ^v^

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aidangull In reply to Grashcoy [2012-04-29 02:42:47 +0000 UTC]

It would be pretty interesting if someone wrote and published a story like that, not that it hasn't been done before. If you think about it, stories like that are already prevalent in various works. It's the basic fear and hate what you do not understand. I think of it as along the same line as the original X-Men or, more recently, District 9. All of which are, tragically, drawn far too much from real events throughout history. I think as in recent times people can openly recognize these faults in our history and culture, the idea has become important aspects in looking to how we would deal with these kind of situations with any group that is completely 'alien' to us, as anthros would be. It is a very interesting concept.

Yeah, notes and messages sound good. ^V^

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Grashcoy In reply to aidangull [2012-04-29 03:02:20 +0000 UTC]

Yeah in that sense it has been touched, but as you said, there's a cosntant lack of realism in such works especially in district 9 if you know about the nostalgia critic he has a video in which he explains the ridiculesness about certain fundamental aspects of district 9, it would have been better to make a separate documentary about racism. The idea with anthros I got as a concept is how much does humanity wants to differentiate from each other, my theory is that as soon as creatures like these appear, black people would stop being the objective of discrimination, as well as jews and those kinds of minorities, it makes as much sense as the fact of the existence of nations as one of the proves of human evolution requierement in subjective aspects, our subjective thinking usually let us to make fast generalizations and both discrimination and nationalism are born from that because of the need to differentiate, the inherent competitiveness in mankind, I think it can be handled FAR better, but the point is nobody did this with anthros and I find philosophically more important to do it with human-animal hybrids because they are scientifically the closest to realism in practical sense, it's not that tommorrow or in a thousand years aliens will arrive and belive me, there's no sense in what happens in district 9 under the cotnext of contact with alien species, everything was generalized from the beggining, now on mutants like the X-Men we know not even mutations so far can do so much change in the energy usage of the human body, yet there is a kind of mutants who are people who may be mroe intelligent and faster and stronger, they are a better field to make a story around objectively, sicne my search is objective mor than it is subjective hahaha confusing no?

I'll take that into consideration when new ideas come around ^v^

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aidangull In reply to Grashcoy [2012-04-30 01:39:32 +0000 UTC]

I see your point. But I was thinking more of the idea in general, seeing how premises like that are used as a form of social critique and analogy. I'm kind of a fan for things like that, especially in more sci-fi fields. So it's not too hard to imagine a more serious work of anthropomorphic fiction being written and published. Who knows, maybe there already is.

Feel free to drop a note or message anytime. I look forward to talking with you more. ^V^

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Grashcoy In reply to aidangull [2012-04-30 01:47:33 +0000 UTC]

Probably it's already there so yeah, I'll keep searching haha.

Ah yeah, this time you tell me the subject, we got to find a new one since this one is already drained I think, plus it will be on notes, talking about the same doesn't look good enough, so your turn and I'll get to it, it may be about sci fi, science, culture, our countries, anything ^v^

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