The little bunny

So after I relogged that one post about the hypothetical dynamic between Byrakuren and Zanmu, I started thinking about Byakuren more and decided to get some ideas going about how I'd draw her in my style. In the deep reaches of my mind, I remember seeing this kind of hyper-simplified eye style somewhere before??? (Probably from some of Loish's or Feefal's pieces/styles or in a Disney short or movie, or somewhere IDK but it just has a certain feel to it, you know what I mean?) And I thought "hey, that'd be neat to experiment with" and now I kinda love this kind of style??? Like, I love simplifying things and I really like how Byrakuren's face turned out, so I'm gonna experiment more with this. I also put her in an outfit that resembles her design in the Forbidden Scrollery manga since I like it the most. I've tried a version of this where I drew her in her normal outfit but tbh I didn't like it as much. I also loved using her hair to add to the composition and flow of the sketch, and I added that neat looking emblem on the bottom of her artwork in UFO since I haven't seen people really draw it before. I but a Lotus on top of it too and I think it turned out nicely. Also I put 0 effort into the sigils and details of her scroll, I did NOT feel like meticulously drawing all of those out so I just scribbled random shit in because why not. I've actually got a few other sketches in my sketchbook that I might turn into full-fledged digital pieces and this is definitely a contender for it.

WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO I FINALLY DID IT! I MANAGED TO FINALIZE ZANMU'S DESIGN IN MY STYLE FUCK YEAAAAAAAAAH-

Ok so, in my previous drawing of Zanmu I was really really trying to keep the shirt in the same sort of style as her OG design, just opening up the front a bit. Then in my current sketchbook I had a different idea and decided to try putting Zanmu in more traditional kimono and wanted to try again at drawing Hakama a bit more accurately. Once I realized I was on to something and had two sketches of her I liked I ended up landing on probably my favourite outfit I've given Zanmu. I remember trying this sort of thing with her a year ago and while I thought it was pretty good at the time, so really quick in the spirit of the year ending I wanna just show the faces side by side because hoooolyyyy I've improved so much. (2024 drawing is on the left and 2025 drawing is on the right)

These sketches were also really fun when it came to exploring Zanmu as a character, I think that sketch of her lying down and smoking is probably one of my favourite drawings of her, I'm probably gonna just yoink that drawing, copy and paste it onto a new file, and then just make a full piece with it because god I love how the gesture and shapes turned out. Also, with the hand that's not holding the Kisama. Speaking of I tried to look up how different members of Japanese society held Kisama since I saw one photo showing the different hand positions, but then I got confused, kinda hated a majority of how they looked, and then went by a historical drawing of a Geisha holding a kisama because I thought the gesture was really nice and worked with the vibe I wanted. Also, do not know how historically accurate her having a kisama is, and whether or not monks could smoke when she was a human, but frankly regardless of whether smoking was allowed or not for Buddhists I don't think Zanmu would give a shit (though generally in my brief google search it is allowed but I still don't 100% know????). I've also never seen people draw Zanmu smoking before so I might as well get that trend started lmao.

Also, another thing I feel like I've improved on compared to last year is my confidence with shape language and applying that to the body in general. I actually sketched Zanmu in tandem with a sketch of Byakuren I was doing mainly to try and make them look visually contrast each other. As usual I gave Zanmu a more "traditionally" masculine build, mainly by emphasizing their shoulders. The kimono actually really helped with this too. Also, contrary to how majority of people draw her online Zanmu is the tallest 2hu to me (while not particularly visible here). Don't get me wrong, I love seeing fanart or short Zanmu (or shorter-than-Hisami Zanmu since Hisami is confirmed to be incredibly tall in canon), but I like being a contrarian and I feel like the perception all of the oni have of her as being this "peak display of what a true oni should be" (as implied by Suika in one of her Touhou 19 lines I think) then I feel like even if she started out more normal sized, this perception of her ended up making her imposing personality reflect in her appearance. I also want to make a unique analogy for all the Reverse 1999 fans in the audience, you guys read the "Midnight Wistle" event story? You know Corvus? Yeah Zanmu is that tall. Zanmu is fully capable of picking up Cirno or Clownpiece or any of the fairies by the scruff when they get annoyed with them or needs to move them somewhere where they can't annoy her.

Also, do not ask me about what the fuck the background is, I had no clue what to put up there and initially had a detailed render of her eye but didn't like it, then tried to use the little metal star on her obi (as an easter egg to the star shaped bomb and graze area (idk what it's called) in Touhou 19) edited the colours of both that and the eye, copy and pasted the eye a couple of times, then took the pattern from her outermost layer of kimono, upped the contrast and thought "Hey! this looks cool!" and left it at that. If I ever make a Touhou game, I am gonna have a god damn blast making the spell card backgrounds for each character myself because making weird semi-abstract patterns is really fun, and making up my own pattern for Zanmu's outer kimono was fun too, very satisfying 10/10 would do again. I didn't go too hard on the rendering, mainly because I wanted this to be more about the design and just drawing Zanmu, but I am also very happy with how her scars turned out. That plus the consistency with her facial proportions on all three drawings, that's a first for me.