#not…actual character design for actual ears

[hymnoeides]

Hey! I’m a cosplayer and I adore your Hermes design! I wanted to compete in a cosplay contest with your design but I need a reference for the back of the character, do you have any doodles or sketches of the back of your Hermes design outfit?

Tysm!! I adore you art and designs!(or even extra things you think he’d have on his outfit)😊

HWKSHSKSJS I’ll actually explode into pieces if someone cosplays my designs omg… I’m so honored you like him!! I know there is some full body drawings I’ve made that kinda shows his chlamys having a wing-like shape cut and currently has a tealish underside, but going for something more traditional rectangular cloth works! A quick google can offer many references for those :D

Very quick reference to my Hermes design

The tan color is actually some off white, just darkened to be more visible here. My design is rather.. cartoony and unrealistic?, so feel free to simplify things👍👍

His design is a bit more mundane and simple, but behind the flashy bright colors and shapes bc I wanted him to have Just Some Guy you could meet in the middle of the road or something vibes. ABSOLUTELY feel free to bling him up tho! Throw in gold jewelry, like idk, earrings, bracelets, belt chains etc. I also played with the idea of him having snake tattoos once, feel free to incorporate that if you want hehe. I don’t know if it’s needed, but if he were to have an eye color… maybe some hazel… mehh whatever you feel like! I also draw the cloak ribbons often wrapping behind to the back, but ngl that’s just for artistic purposes, for some added dynamic so if they just lay in front that’s totally cool :) His design is just me slapping as many motifs and symbols he has all over hahah: petasos, ram, rooster (+snake if you count tattoos idea). He also has the tortoise and a few other things you can totally add in as well! Tortoise pin,, Jaybe scale makeup or smth, go wild. Feel free to change anything if it’s easier haha

Feel free to ask me for more info or ideas or anything in general🫶…

[robbiensonblueso]

My favourite character of all time😌<3

This is my ennard design and im actually proud of it :'D. AND IT TOOK ME FOUR YEARS TO DEVELOP BUT WE AINT GONNA TALK ABOUT THAT💔

Also a little Headcanon I have for Ennard is that his ears can move upside down. I think it adds so much expression(Idk if anyone has ever made that hc).

And i may or may not got inspired from Nikolai Gogol(bsd) with the little thing on his neck.

[0nsyu]

To share a quote from the tattoo artist:

Shisa and Hibiscus This, like Rikiya's, is a design that brings the essence of Okinawa to the forefront. It resembles the standard karajishi seen in irezumi, but the way its ears stand up, among other things, differs subtly. — Horitomo

Taking into account the rest of Horitomo's commentary on his designs (featured in the 10th and 15th anniversary books), as well as commentary from Yokoyama, there is for sure a wealth of evidence for the idea the tattoos are meant to represent the characters in question! I've always felt Yakuza 3's are particularly well-thought out and Nakahara's is no exception, coinciding with Yokoyama's estimation that his writing got a lot tighter overall from that game on.

Lot of good points brought up here, and there are a few things that come to mind about the origins and cultural context surrounding the shisa I'd like to add.

Firstly, shisa are not considered a form of komainu. The two are thought to have evolved separately from the shishi/karajishi at different times. "Shisa" is the Okinawan pronunciation of "shishi," and they're called "shiishii" in Yaeyaman. "Komainu," on the other hand, is chiefly thought to suggest the idea was brought to Japan via Goryeo/Koma, or perhaps more broadly the area around mainland China according to some.

Komainu came to be some time after shishi were brought to Japan from China. Shishi originally came in symmetrical, open-mouthed pairs, but thanks to Japanese sensibilities favoring asymmetry, "shishi-komainu" pairs (with an open-mouthed shishi on the right and a close-mouthed komainu on the left) became popular.

They have other differences, of course: komainu may or may not have horns while shishi never do, among other things, but a number of their features have become muddled in meaning and difficult to distinguish. The term "shishi-komainu" for the pair has in a sense become just "shishi" or "komainu" colloquially because of this, with the distinction between shishi and komainu only being made if they physically differ from one another in a way that's recognized. If you see one with a beribboned ball (like the one pictured in your post above, actually) and one with a cub, though, that's a male and female shishi/komainu respectively.

Shisa were brought to Okinawa from China around the time (or shortly after) the asymmetry between male and female was established, which may be why the open-mouthed and close-mouthed variants came to denote gender instead of species, but that one's entirely speculation on my part. Another difference between shisa and shishi-komainu is that they actually don't come in pairs as often as the game suggests; more often, sure, but there are plenty of examples of lone shisa.

This relates to the final difference I want to highlight for this post, which is that while shishi-komainu guard the emperor and the divine, shisa guard villages and homes; lone shisa were often erected to guard against fires, while pairs were erected to ward off evil. Famously, the lone Tomori shisa, the oldest recorded stone shisa in Okinawa, was used as a shield by US military forces spying on Japanese military forces during WWII. Today, the bullet holes that mark its surface have faded considerably.

So I do think it's interesting that Nakahara has a lone shisa. Shisa are, after all, often tattooed in pairs, on both sides of the chest or on the arms. Where that leads me personally, though, isn't that Kiryu represents the missing half of the pair. With regard to Saki, Kiryu doesn't say a word to her outside of Premium Adventure, and he leaves her care to Rikiya and Mikio, Haruka who volunteers, even the other orphanage kids—everyone but himself, essentially. And she's only staying at the Morning Glory for a week or less before Nakahara gets better, most of which Kiryu is in Kamurocho for. The oryu, like the shishi-komainu, is loyal to the emperor (in this case, Daigo as sixth chairman, a reading Mine's tattoo reinforces) and leaves his responsibilities behind to attend to him.

But it's not specific to Kiryu. To me, no one person represents the missing half of the pair, because there is no missing half of the pair. Nakahara is the lone shisa that guards not just his daughter and his men but his community, a community that loves him and his men and his daughter in return, in stark contrast to most other yakuza organizations in the series. And like the lone Tomori shisa, with its bullet holes from a conflict Nakahara is not even one generation removed from, his must have faded by now too.

Shigeru Nakahara's tattoo being a shīsā (J. シーサー), a regional form of the komainu (J. 狛犬), is actually really cute, and I like how it's surrounded by an Okinawan floral motif.

Shīsā are these iconic Buddhist creatures that you can find in a lot of Japanese shrines and other sacred sites. They're supposed to be protectors that almost always come in pairs. Earlier, you can encounter a substory with a married couple looking for the partner of a shīsā statue that they bought alone that introduces the player to this concept.

What I like about Nakahara's shīsā is that it's alone, he only has one on his back, but as a character he's defined by two particularly strong bonds. One is with Saki, his adoptive daughter, the character he is protecting and whom the desire to protect acts as a power up here, and the other with Kiryu, who is implicitly, in my nerd headcanon here, being positioned as the counterpart guardian during this storyline.

I may be totally off here but I want to believe this is the case because it is more evidence to my growing Yakuza Tattoos Are Advanced Fursonas Theory.

I also just think it's a really cute design for a fat old Okinawa jiji to have.

*the komainu are themselves a regional form of a broader East Asian concept, and I'm pretty sure but not certain that "komainu" itself is a portmanteau meaning "Korean dog," and they're also sometimes referred to as karajishi, meaning "Chinese lion." This is not to say that the symbolism and narratives associated with them are universal!! It's kind of like how gumiho (K. 구미호) foxes in Korean mythology tend to be real assholes who turn into hot women to eat your guts, while their role in Japanese mythology is influenced by the Inari Ōkami (J. 稲荷大神) fox religion.

Shīsā specifically have a lot of Ryukyuan religious influence, and tend to be gendered, with the male having his mouth closed to keep evil out and the female having her mouth open to let good in, though I've heard the reverse. Shīsā can be found in Okinawa on gateposts to non-religious buildings just like Morning Glory, and have been built for a variety of reasons like warding off fires. According to Ryukyuan legend, they were even used to ward off dragons.

Mythology and culture are super complex living things and I'm being very very very broad here. I apologize if I'm incorrect, I am just a student. Please be nice to me.

[void-tiger]

Mild pet peeve:

Why do animal ears look weird just stuck on humanoid character heads, to the point sometimes they get human ears anyway by accident? Because animal ears aren’t actually stuck to animals’ foreheads, ya walnut!

They’re still on the SIDE of the head then “wrap around” upward! They are HUGE because they’re cone shaped (yes! even your floppy eared doggo! they’re coned under the floppy! They just have less cartilage!) or pod shaped (like a horse or rabbit) or circular (like a bear).

Start the base of the ears on the side of the head slightly above where the mandibles meet then work “outward” from there please I am begging.

Oh, and go scritch a cute kitty’s or doggo’s ears.

[anishenanigans]

aand done!! This took forever, but it's the first time I've successfully finished one of these templates and it was a lot of fun :]

[scissorcraft]

post-canon siffrin design!!!! might change it up more of course but!!!! yeah!!!!

he does HAVE something to represent odile and bonnie too,,, it's not just his partners (romantic & queerplatonic), he's got his family too, i just don't know where to put them yet :) so for now assume he is carrying them in his multitude of pockets!!

[vaguely-concerned]

the mourn watch background gives you such a GIFT in having other characters notice and call out on-screen that rook code switches like a motherfucker. the whiplash of hearing my snarky 'heeey I'm just a little guy! :>' funnyman rook speak the heightened ritualized phrases of the mourn watch with perfect seriousness and gravity completely naturally and/or break into an academic tone that can keep up with emmrich at the drop of a hat never stops giving me such endless delight. truly their real mind is a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside some hideous mourn watch casual wear

[anonymouscheeses]

Fascinated x normal

"Do you need to throw up?"

"Nnnnyoe"

Random jmpscare doodle dump. Barely even doodles but like here ya go anyway 🥰

[blaithnne]

Oh so I’m supposed to choose one outfit for The Goldie O’Gilt? Get a fucking grip

Meet the Cast!

╰┈➤ Canon ☄. *. ⋆

→ Scrooge McDuff → Matilda McDuff → Hortense McDuff → Qalhata Duiker → Jack Duckworth → Bentina Beakley → LÙ Huifen (pre-caseflies) → LÙ Huifen (post-casefiles) → Ludwig Von Druska → Bradford Butcher

╰┈➤ OCs ☄. *. ⋆

→ Lucrais NicRiada

.ೃ࿐

[17mujipens]

i saw a video about the Queen in Dungeon Meshi and her skin colour. and people in the comments had all sorts of theories on why she and Flamela have such dark skin. and it made me realise that a lot of people haven’t seen this page of the Adventurers Bible:

[sundial-bee-scribbles]

a smile would be nice

[valhallavalgrace]

How are you adjusting to the whole Norse mythology situation?

LEO: I’ve mostly been bugging some of the older einherjar, and Hunding, a little bit, to figure this place out. Do you know how cool it is that some people have been here since the industrial revolution?? There's no way that I'm the first of my dad's kids to make it here. I just don't know who to talk to about it.

((Leo's coping mechanism re: Norse mythology is just hating himself more bc of course he doesn't belong in his own afterlife. but he won't admit that to anyone bc he doesn't know who can be vulnerable with.))

prev ask

[floralstorms]

Ummmm human form Prismo design! whee

[tiresiasbuttlicker72]

watching blood of zeus from the hospital bed and everyone is hot

[the-casbah-way]

(wip) jedediah from my new au