HotPanda n°60, february 2023 : Draw This Again, The rabbit
HotPanda, content for mature pandas ! 💜
The Draw This Again is a funny exercise where you pick an old illustration that you did a few years or months ago, in order to draw it with your current art style. It enables you to see your art evolution : your lineart, your colors, the composition, the anatomy... I already done one a few years ago, for my Summer Panda body positive (in french) which I assume was good, at least good enough to be plagiarized.
2018's version:
I did this illustration before the "23h de la BD 2018" (23h of comics), a french-speaking challenge taking place during the spring time change. You may not know this if you don't live in France, but during the spring we move forward one hour in our clocks, and during autumn we do the opposite. The initial goal of this was to follow more the natural sunlight in order to use less electricity. The actual consequences of these time changes are that in spring, one night is shorter than usual, and in fall one night is longer than usual (this means you will sleep more!).
The 23h of comics, taking place in spring, where a night is shorter than usual, has the following purpose: drawing 23 comic pages and a cover, from the saturday 1 PM to the sunday 1 PM, with a theme and a constraint given on the saturday, in order to win a virtual golden bunny. The mascot of this event is, you guessed it, a bunny (or a rabbit).
In 2018, the theme was "attraction fatale" (fatal attraction) and the constraint was "your comic has to pass Bechdel's test". Only two comics pages could have one big panel, otherwise all the pages should have at leat two panels. My finished comics is here (in french), and the way I planned my weekend to be able to draw during 23h is here (also in french).
2023's version :
Moustache, the mascot panda, won some real fur, a real nose, and his bunny costume is also fluffier.
My current style with Krita is "watercolor with messy borders", I like the shading it creates, but the colors are less vibrant / vivid 🤔
Since 2023 is the year of the rabbit in the chinese calendar, I can say this quite know french pun : "Lapinou Year !" 😃 (Lapinou is a cute word for lapin, meaning rabbit/bunny, and the sound of "lapinou year" is similar to "happy new year" 😉)
2018's illustration was not a HotPanda, but I made it just after creating the very first HotPanda (in french, sorry) ! Thus, I will share with you a video clip that probably inspired me: "Superheroes" by 'Eguy. The lyrics are serious, but the clip is not, which makes the surprise even bigger.
I also put "Lavatory Love Machine", because this post is a HotPanda 😏 This time, the video totally matches the lyrics: it talks about 🍑, and it's funny 😂