DiardiWolf on DeviantArthttps://www.deviantart.com/diardiwolf/art/Deerhaunter-227077966DiardiWolf

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Deerhaunter

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If this is what it means to be enlightened, then I'll gladly remain shrouded in darkness forever.



Another drawing I made without sketching in advance. I don't know what's wrong with me lately, but each time I pick up my mechanical pencil to sketch something, I get struck with an awful art bock. I seemingly can only draw when I draw directly with ink, watercolor or colored pencil which I can't erase anymore in case I make a mistake.
So this time I randomly started painting a mask in watercolor paint, and I immediately inked it after that.

This was inspired by many different things.
The title is inspired by the Japanese wolf keeping deer away from the fields... and the title idea just randomly popped up.

What initially inspired me was Japanese mythology. The character wearing a fox mask is actually a Japanese wolf.
Unlike wolves in European lore, these wolves were literally worshipped as gods in some regions, until they became rabid and got exterminated.
Contrary to the stories of Japanese foxes shapeshifting into humans, there are only few stories of Japanese wolves shapeshifting, and if they did, they changed into a road or other part of their environment instead of into a human.
The Japanese wolf could still assume human form, but first had to kill its victims before it could take said victim's form.

The ribbon-ish things hanging next to the coin on a string(not sure if you can see them that well lol) were inspired by a photograph of a Japanese wolf skull with ribbons pulled through a hole bored in the left side of the skull. This was done after the "iomante" or "sending away ceremony" where animals were sacrificed in order to send them back to their realms.

The beads and scarf are random, I added them because I just like them.:p
The pattern on the mask was initially very simple, but I found it too plain and boring so I added some stuff.

Further, the coin hanging from the mask was inspired by a real coin like that one which I found on a parking lot several years ago. It had a leather string attached to it, and a green glass bead above it. It had been worn so often the string snapped and some of the symbols turned dull and got half-faded.
The coin itself got badly damaged on one side as several cars seem to have driven over it, but it's still in one piece.
The symbols on the coin in the drawing are exactly the same as those on the coin I found.

The last thing which partially inspired this was a strange dream of me being possessed by a fox which was wearing a scary white and smirking kitsune mask, while holding an umbrella and dressed in a kimono.
Yea, that totally made sense.

materials used:
black watercolor paint
sakura ink pens size 1.0, 0.4, 0.6
Staedtler ink pens size 0.1 and 0.05
a brush
Image size
1384x1908px 2.43 MB
© 2011 - 2024 DiardiWolf
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