LISA KOGAWA

“Youko“ - for Post It Show 2020 happening at Giant Robot Gallery. Every year I always look forward for this show because I mean - post it size doodle show ?? It’s my perfect jam. Unfortunately this year, unlike past where there are no limit on the post it amount, with Covid-19 correspondence it was limited to one 10x10″ piece and one post it to avoid the crowds. ( Usually people tent outside to get post it from famous artist ) So ! I wanted to put all of my drawing effort into 1 piece instead of doing 20 of them. My theme this time was Youko (Fox spirit in Japanese) and created this piece with putting many famous fox youkai ukiyo-e paintings all in one. She is also holding the Yakuyoke ( luckly charm to defend from bad luck, negative energy, evil eye, curses, demons, etc) Omamori. Hopefully next year I get to draw more of my post it girls. 

Reference ukiyo-e painter :  Tsukioka Yoshitoshi, Utagawa Hirokage, Utagawa Hiroshige, Utagawa Kuniyoshi, Utagawa Kunisada, Ogata Gekko.

Small Totoro drawings for annual Totoro themed show at Giant Robot.  I’m always looking up this show so I can draw bunch of nature. This time, both of the setting is actually from the scene / reference from movie, but I added some elements to adjust compositions. It took me while to which place to draw since I was looking for where it has the most details. I also wanted to draw rain scene for while so I’m glad I finally had an opportunity for it. Overall happy with the whole outcome. 

Commission work for client’s precious memory of visiting Kyoto, Japan. She send me couple pictures of her visiting this garden, and I combined all multiple elements (architecture, pond and Karesansui- Japanese rock garden ) and added shiba dog and frog in one piece. 

Commission work. 

Pieces for Giant Robot’s Plant themed show.  

My original idea was just to draw a forest with a lot of detail but I wanted to do a series, so I looked up Japanese garden, but didn’t vibe with it ( maybe because I did a series in the past ). Then one of photo caught in my eye - a small streets in Japan where they have a lot of plants on the sidewalk and instantly I was inspired. Thank you Pintrest... All the location is based in real places in Japan, but I twisted / added / took out and mixed different plant elements to make it more complex and more planty vibe. I regretted not working this on a larger pieces ( I wanted to be a big postcard size - 9x7″) or thinner pens ( I used 0.5 micropen mostly ), or else I could’ve added more concentrated details. Next time ! 

Pieces for Giant Robot’s “Mcmintea Challenge” show. 

It was a show themed after my friend Maggie’s #mcminteachallenge. There were many fun theme such as “”Grayscale”, “Fauna/Flora”, “5 favorite things in 1 image”, “Summertime” and etc ... I ended up choosing “Something Blue“. Thought about drawing wedding veil lace with a lot of details but I was more fascinated with traditional Japanese wedding gift in Edo period. 

I focused on “Kai-Awase”, a shell matching games where you have to look for perfect match shells - which was often given as part of woman’s dowry. The clamshells was beautifully-painted with various daily scenes of Heian period, often decorated with gold designs. Receiving a kai-awase as a marriage gift was considered good luck, as the joining of clams symbolized the joining of individuals in marriage.

For the pieces, I incorporated their dowry with beauty tools, a kai-awase box ( in their hands )  and added fox’s wedding ( which is similar to "monkey's wedding" in English ) ukiyo-e in the background. Also I made the pieces facing each other like Kai-Awase and named it “Jigai” and “Dashigai” ( the names of the shell faces). I originally wanted to draw both of them as Fu-jin god ( Wind god ) for the blueness but I thought that would be too much, so I just took some elements ( like his cape and leopard pattern socks ) and sneaked in to the apparel design. Next time I would like to be able to do more further research and incorporate more information in the drawings. 

Invasion Toys - Charity sticker, all proceeds go to Black Lives Matter. I had fun drawing small details. Kind of wished size was bigger but still pretty happy with the outcome. I thought about drawing simple thick line art for the sticker design ( graphic design wise ) but ended up going full out as usual. It was little harder than usual because I can’t do any pencil sketch because of the sticker surface. For the green stickers, I was supposed to draw their logo themed drawing but accidentally totally ignored it ... I need to double check all the rules beforehand :p

Birthday gift - for my friend Kaho and her boys. Drawing Shinso in volley ball uniform was super fun hehe ... Costume swatch between MHA, HQ, TWST and Ansta. I thought about them drawing them normally but since there was so many of them, I was like what if I did an outfit swap ? and it came out surprisingly cute. Deku and Hinata both look good in their sports uniform, Chiaki & Tetora looks cute with Scarabia uniform and Kalim & Jamil doesn’t look too bad with an idol outfit ( in my opinion ). Doodling new characters from another fandom is always hard but fun once you get it where you want to be. I should draw more FA for  drawing practice and also for my own heart fulfillment. 

Happy 9.10 day ! It was super fun to draw these silly boys. Sneaked in some of their things ( uniforms, water bottle, their favorite food etc ). May the years ahead be filled with lasting joy ... 

Doodles - Found a pencil ( which I don’t own much ) and I was out of wifi for a day so I decided to sketch around. All the pictures / references are random picked from Pintrest. Totally forgot how drawing with pencil is so much fun. Wanted to explore my drawings to usual touch, more realistic touch etc.

Pieces for Giant Robot’s Kaiju show! 

“Kaiju is a Japanese word meaning "strange creature". In English, it has come to mean "monster" or "giant monster", referring to creatures of a large size seen in movies from Asia. Many kaiju movies are made in Japan. It is a type of tokusatsu entertainment. Kaiju movies usually show a monster attacking a major Japanese city or battling other monsters. The most famous kaiju is Godzilla. Other well-known kaiju include Mothra, King Ghidorah, Mechagodzilla, and Rodan.

Terms that are related to kaiju include kaijū eiga, movies with several large monsters or a single monster, kaijin, movies with a human-like monster, and daikaiju, movies with very large monsters. Kaiju is recognised a lot in the blockbuster film Pacific Rim.” - Wikipedia

My first thought of Kaiju was Godzilla, so I rewatched movie Shin Godzilla ( for like 5th time, one of my favorite ) but realized Godzilla itself hasn’t shown much. Then I moved to research of origin of Kaiju, then history of Godzilla, then landed my focus on Godzilla - original film from 1954. I wrote all of the keywords from the movie, iconic scene and some important names. After I gathered all of the reference and was planning to draw landscape with real size Godzilla, but later I realized there are too many similar composition & art pieces and I assumed that most of the others will draw that way. Since I wanted to create something that is more original with me design, instead I incorporated Godzilla theme to my rakugaki girls like I did with Youkai Girls series.  I drew the landscape which all are iconic with the film, ( especially first drawing with Godzilla cloud ) - Odo Island, Kokkai Gijido, Ginza Wako building and Kachidoki Bridge.

Then I drew girls with street style fashion but with inspiration of main characters from the film, Serizawa ( who has eye patch ), Ogata ( who wear marine hat at end of the movie ), and Emiko Yamane ( hair style & hat she wore in the film ). Also incorporated keywords in their designs such as “Oxygen Destroyer” ( which defeats Godzilla at end ), "呉爾羅” ( kanji of Godzilla ), 8.13.19.5 ( the time when Godzilla show up for first time in water ), strontium 90, Tachibanamaru ( ship where people who discover Godzilla at first), train names, title of the song that was used and many more. 

I also hid Godzilla placed in every background, some obvious, some are not. ( The cloud with Godzilla front view ( iconic ), cloud with back view, shadow and small shadow in the water, bridge where Godzilla dies. ) 

The research part is always the most exciting process part of creating pieces for me. Although most of the time I feel like I’m not able to use or show all of the things I intended and not sure if anyone gets all of the easter eggs or background behind it ... But its ok! I just need to do step by step, improvement and continuous improvement. And the most important thing is myself having fun anyway and I did enjoy it. :) Otaku life forever. 

Portrait commission for beautiful Emma! Was requested to be purple / blue / pink / orange dull sunset vibes with a lot of floral elements of it. It was fun to draw all of the flowers & patten design. 

“We have to make you look pretty!“ - Fanart of Banana Fish for Ash’s birthday. The composition comes from the original chapter cover art in 1994. Wanted to create my own & updated anime version of it. I made them look more silly happy, added warm colors, changed the book to cover version of what I read in high school, and placed them in New York apartment.  I just want them to be happy ... ;)

“Sasuke Inari“ - Piece for Giant Robot’s “Deep Forest“ show. Got inspired by Sasuke Inari shrine located in Kamakura, Japan. My first idea was to draw the famous Fushimi Inari shrine in Kyoto but while browsing Pintrest I happened to ran into Sasuke Inari shrine and fell in love ! ( Also it’s close to my grandma’s house, I wonder why I never heard it before ) Later I sketched & double checked if I have enough green color copic. Then I watched youtube video of walking the shrine, anime Gingitsune and Gugure Kokkuri san ( both about fox shrine ), and read manga Sansukumi to get the shrine vibe but at the end didn’t end up drawing shrine. It’s ok, it happens. Especially with me. Always do a lot of research but a lot of times doesn’t end up reflecting in the piece. But its totally ok! I have more knowledge now. Anyway I’m happy with the result overall ! I especially like my tree details. But I did realize that I need more improvement on coloring nature because I never do. My next goal :) 

“Veil“ - Quick doodle on Procreate and edited on PS. Originally wanted to draw more visible patterns on kimono but after tweaking colors a lot, it kinda got lost. I’ve been really trying to explore more color combo compared to my past where I only did paint bucket coloring but now I play around with gradient map a lot. Also right now I’m liking the vintage vibe by adding noise texture, applying RGB effect and choosing retro desatured neon color palette. It’s fun.