#fairy kihal

[onedivinemisfit]

Second part of the Do-Si-Do event, my contribution to @kpslp’s pitch “Obiyuki but make it Fern Gully”

Includes a fic cover, and some character wardrobe design of the main four, Obi, Shirayuki, Kihal and Ryuu~ I had loads of fun, and challenges, to make these. Really got to lean on some of the processes I learned in art school for once xD

[sangahnomiya]

I have a headcanon that this side character from a shoujo manga I like — kihal from akagami no shirayuki — is filipino, bc I am silly like that and like hitting charas with the pipino-beam. and now I will subject you all to the headcanon too

it all started a few months ago, when I DEFINITELY should've been sleeping and for some reason decided that I wanted to figure out what kind of bird kihal keeps. his name is popo btw

NOW FOR SOME REASON I COULDN'T FIGURE IT OUT. there were quite a few liberties taken with popo's design, so I couldn't guesstimate what he was supposed to be. he acts as a messenger bird, but only pigeons or doves can be trained as messenger birds. the colour of his plumage suggested that he was more of a tropical bird, but I couldn't seem to find any that matched his description

after much internal screaming and banging my head against the wall as I swore vengeance upon the animators and the artists for making popo's species so ambiguous, the lovely @sabraeal (THANK YOU SO MUCH BTW HUHUHU) brought up the idea of popo being inspired by Philippine legends, which had never occurred to me before. which is really funny considering I'm literally pinoy HAHAHWGAHDGF

so I dove back into more researching and lost a bit more sleep bc I wanted ANSWERS. the legends she referenced in particular were the tigmamanukan (a mythical blue bird of omen that appears to people) and the limokon (a kind of dove that people also viewed as an omen bird. it's also known as alimokon in some parts of the Philippines)

according to the wiki, the tigmamanukan is theorised to be either the asian fairy bluebird, the palawan fairy bluebird, or the philippine fairy bluebird. sadly, none of them match popo's appearance, though there remains the possibility that the tigmamanukan is actually another kind of bird 🫣

while I couldn't find any myths about the tigmamanukan in my book (I forgot the title of the volume sorry), I was able to find this myth that referenced the lemugen/limokon/alimokon.

here's another one!

but the appearance of the alimokon STILL didn't match popo, so I was back to square one :(

so I shelved the whole thing (with great reluctance) for a few months and forgot about it till TODAY, when I was researching on local birds for work. AND SUDDENLY I SAW THIS LIL GUY. WHOSE APPEARANCE IS THE CLOSEST MATCH TO POPO THAT IVE EVER SEEN

the image was sourced from here, tho I'm not so sure if that's the original owner.

this is the celestial monarch, a bird that's endemic to the Philippines!!!! though their sizes are different, this is the closest match I've ever gotten to finding for popo. ANNNNNNNNNNNNNNNDDDDDDDDD it also fuels my Pinoy Kihal headcanon so a WIN IS A WIN (I haven't even yapped abt the connection between the walnut stone whistles in AnS and the Philippine epics that incorporate the power of betel nut stones)

however, the celestial monarch is considered to be a critically endangered species by the Philippine Red List. if you've read this far and are interested in helping preserve the celestial monarch or other endangered species, you might want to check your local wildlife conservations to see what you can do to help!

though the name only refers to the Philippine eagle, the Philippine Eagle Foundation is one example that I know of. 10/10 would recommend going to the Philippine Eagle Center btw

[onedivinemisfit]

Runway Kihal and Popo~

More fashion to counteract the art block >:3

https://fashion-runways.tumblr.com/post/656202892214157312/dona-matoshi-couture-2021-if-you-want-to-support#postnotes

I’ve also darkened Kihal’s skin again (the yuris!Garack set a new standard) and tried to work on her facial features too. Actual heart-shaped face, first time in my life I made it weeeeeeee~ Kihal is leggy and proud of it hehe. And Popo is almost completely redesigned. I wanted him to look more like a seaside bird, so I gave him a diver body and neck, let him keep his phoenix tailfeathers bc FANTASY and then Jen supplied me with some interesting notes on how Yuris Arc might be inspired by Filipino myths - which led to his coat being largely based/inspired from the fairy bluebird <3

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fairy-bluebird

AnS (c) Akizuki Sorata

Art: Me